Important Information
Thank you! We had a great first week back! Thank you for making it go smoothly for our students. It was great to walk around and join some classrooms.
District calendar (2021-22) – It will soon be loaded on our district website – or you can find it here if you want a sneak peek.
Welcome Back Michelle! If you haven’t heard – Michelle McDaniel is back with us! Not as a counselor, but as our Campus Monitor and Student Safety & Success Supervisor.
To Do
DUE by 4PM this Tuesday – Please call home on each of your Advisory students who did not attend Advisory on Wednesday last week. Let them know you missed having them, and invite them to attend this Wednesday 9:44 – 9:59. Record your calls in Grade Guardian (see message from Emily below – this was also sent in an email):
We have access to a simple tool in Grade Guardian that creates outreach visibility for students. When making your calls (which is a Tier 1 intervention, yeah!) please utilize this function in a few easy steps: Click on Grade Guardian>search your student>click notes>Save!
Interesting Read
Interest in college is surging around the nation as more colleges drop the SAT/ACT requirement for admissions.
Instructional Practices
An important note from Scott McDonald & Christie Boen: Several teachers have noticed that there have been some changes to Apple Classroom since we were last in the buildings with our students. Our most recent Instructional Tech Blog post will give you step by step instructions on how to get started. https://blogs.bend.k12.or.us/instructionaltechnology/2021/02/11/changes-to-apple-classroom-as-of-february-12-2021/
| Changes to Apple Classroom as of February 12, 2021 – Instructional Tech @ BLSNow that many of us are back to face to face learning managing student iPads using Apple Classroom is essential. If you have not used Apple Classroom before, check out the quick start guide linked here for a list of features that are really useful for educators. Additionally, we have some earlier posts in this blog that may be helpful for first-time users.blogs.bend.k12.or.us |
If you have never used Apple Classroom, then this may be a really good time to try it out. Consider it one way to get closer than 6 feet to your student’s work.
Apple Classroom allows you to:• monitor all iPads that are in your classroom• lock the screens of all the iPads when it is time for a discussion• lock students into a specific application• pass out resources directly to your classroom iPads• see a history of how students have utilized their time while working on a device.
The following document will give you some additional details on how Apple Classroom can be used to manage student iPads. https://www.apple.com/education/docs/getting-started-with-classroom.pdf
Supporting Secondary Instruction
Advisory
IPSI
Goals for IPSI Placement:
- To ensure that every bus rider, or student without a ride until 3:45, has a targeted placement in IPSI #1 and #2 so they have a safe place to be at school and the instructional support is purposeful. For Safety
- To offer targeted instructional support for students who are credit deficient due to CDL or those who need added support in subjects during hybrid. For Success
- To offer targeted instructional support for any student at LPHS who wishes to supplement their learning. For Supplement
Sped / 504 / LEAD & Equity /HU (historically underserved)
February is Black History Month! Here is the LINK to the work completed by the LEAD Cohort this Fall (Tommy is our building LEAD). I encourage you to look it over. You may or may not have seen this blog post regarding some highlighted Black authors and recommended videos that could be used for instruction this (or any) month. Here is a link that will bring you other educational resources.
Mental Health / SEL
Returning to School . . .
Expect anxiety. For the past year, students and adults have been living on edge, many in fear of an invisible deadly virus. On one end, some students may have lost family members from Covid, but no student is going to come into the building unaffected by the experience of the past year. We can’t undo that experience, but we can set up a system that anticipates and begins to mitigate that anxiety.
Start small. We don’t want students to come into a high-pressure situation where they feel like they are expected to academically compensate for the inconsistency of the past year. While academics are the primary purpose of our schools, we need to start small while transitioning students back into the building. You can do this by integrating SEL skills, checking in with students’ feelings, re-stating expectations, and taking the time to build relationships with students. When students feel safe again, the academics will come.
Bring the lessons. Whatever silver linings you have taken from this past year of education, whatever you have learned, don’t forget to bring that back to the classroom when you return fully. If you have learned to utilize a new technology resource, engaged your students differently, communicated more with families, or collaborated with educators outside of your building, try to keep the elements that helped you better support your students during those times. Just because we are going back into school buildings, doesn’t mean that we need to go back to an identical model to the one we had before.
Regulate with Routine. Students and adults alike have been told to be cautious, to distance themselves, and to isolate for a year. While the country may begin to open up again more fully, we can’t turn those lessons off with a light-switch. Students are going to be a bit more on edge, so we should work to create atmospheres and routines that are regulating for them. Regardless of how much structure you typically put into place in your classroom, err on the side of having more routines and predictability, as this will provide comfort for the students to latch on to in the transition. Keep in mind, though, that routines and predictability are best employed when they come from a place of support– balance the structure with nurture.
For many of us, the rollout of vaccinations and the re-opening of schools feels like the light at the end of the tunnel. We are hopeful that students will find the return to school comforting and regulating, but we also cannot underestimate the impact that the past year has had on students. If we prepare ourselves, our spaces, and our students for a return that feels safe, we can be confident that we can get into a supportive routine to begin building back some of what we’ve lost.
Canvas
Safety
Athletics / Activities
Calendar Items
February 15th: No School / Presidents’ Day
February 16th: DUE by 4PM – Calling home on Advisory students
February 17th: SIW – Independent Work Time
February 26th: SLGG’s are DUE
March 1st: Virtual School Information Night
March 10th: District SIW – Doug Reeves (grading practices)