Tentative* Start-Up Week Schedule;

• Monday 8/30
  • New Teacher Orientation Day

• Tuesday 8/31
  • 7:00-???? District Welcome Back at Bend High
  • 1:00-3:00 Trees Storyline work with Colleen

• Wednesday 9/1
  • 8:00-8:30 Breakfast in the Library – All Highland Staff
  • 8:30-10:00 Welcome Back Meeting – All Highland Staff

• Thursday 9/2
  • 10:15-11:15 K-3 Lexia Workshop – K-3 teachers
  • 11:30-12:30 4-5 Lexia Workshop – 4/5 teachers
• 3:00-5:00 Kindergarten Open House – All Highland Staff Invited – Pending approval

• Friday 9/3
  • Flex Day – See Link below for Work Calenda

*I might be adding some more details next week.

2021-2022 Work Calendar for Certified Staff- click here.

2021-2022 Work Calendar for Classified Staff – click here.

Masking – When you are on campus be sure to mask up.  Outside it’s OK to take it off, but once you are in our buildings with anyone else please make sure you are wearing your mask unless you are alone in your room.

A quick introduction to our Instructional Coach;

Hello! My name is Kaelynn Adams and I have the pleasure of being the K-5 instructional coach for Highland Elementary, R.E. Jewell Elementary, and La Pine Elementary. This year the district is adding elementary instructional coaches to build relationships, provide support, foster communication, and to facilitate shared learning experiences in order to empower teachers and their students. I am so excited to learn and grow with you! 

School Supplies & PTO – provided class funds;

• Similar to last year, we were instructed to remove anything on our website or any digital communications that asked families to buy or pay for school supplies.  Please make sure you have done the same with any of your electronic communications with families. 
• Based on the district’s message regarding school supplies, I recommended to our PTO board that they consider removing the school supply request of $30 per student from their communications.
• Shawna and I started each of you off with $200 for school supplies in our Student Body account and since then the district allocated an additional $10 per student to school budgets for school supplies, so we will create another line item of about $230 plus or minus depending on the number of students.  
• So far, the PTO board seems committed to moving forward with a Giving Campaign this year, however we are all recognizing some pandemic limitations in place which will impede fundraising.  When the Giving Campaign was in full swing and easily funded, the Storyline Classroom funds (line item of $13,125) yielded approximately $875 per teacher.  We are optimistically leaving that line item untouched in the budget, but I do think it’s best to manage expectations and plan not to receive that much money for storyline funds in addition to your supply funds, as there are a number of other budget line items that need to be funded as well.
• Bottom Line – you can count the availability of approximately $430 dollars for classroom supplies or other classroom items.  I recommend you hold off with your expectations in regards to storyline classroom funds.
• Other line items for the PTO budget such as consulting, release days, courses, etc. have all been adjusted to fit within the typical 55,000 goal; however, we will have to wait and see if this is realistic.  We are not starting from 0, but we are not starting with a large surplus as we did in previous years.  It will be important not to assume things are covered as in the past, since the money may not be there yet.

Ice Cream Social – As mentioned before, the hope is to provide something for Kindergarten families, but this is all pending approval from above.  Ideally, we would have something outside behind the school where students and parents could meet their teachers and then we can bring them inside in limited numbers (with masks) to see the classrooms.  It would be awesome to have the rest of the staff inside to guide the families around the school for a quick tour.  This is all tentative as all schools are being told to wait for approval.

Class Lists & Wait Lists – This has been an impressive year in regards to dealing with waitlisted families.   We cycled through the entire wait list (and interest list) for both 4th and 5th grade and we still have space at this grade level.  K-3 is fairly close to done with all classes on target, with only a few more transfers to complete from other schools.  I don’t have an exact date yet, but we will release class lists to you via synergy when we are done.  This is likely going to be a late year for releasing class lists, so please manage expectations accordingly.

Master Schedule – I feel like we have a solid schedule completed, however I would like to run it by a few more sets of eyes before it goes public.  Obviously, the announcement this week created a need for revision.  My hope is that I can share it after a meeting on Monday morning.  Stay tuned and thanks for your patience.

Common Elementary Work Hours – 7:15am-3:15pm

Innovative Teaching & Learning Conference – Wednesday 8/25 and Thursday 8/26- click here for info.  There are great sessions planned for this conference!  

Access to School – Almost there!  The driveways and sidewalks on Nashville are curing now and should be usable next week.  Please do not drive into the parking lot until we are given clearance (even if you see other vehicles there) as the barriers and caution tape keep getting removed.  We should start to see Harmon and Nashville open up slowly but surely over the next few weeks and the construction will be focused on the 9th St roundabout and the section of Newport in front of the school.  So although we can expect construction to continue well into the month of September we can expect some significant improvement in access on Nashville and Harmon.

SPARK Grants

We’re gearing up for another SPARK! Creative Learning Grants application season, and I’m writing to ask for your help spreading the word.

We would appreciate your help sharing SELCO’s grant opportunities through your newsletter, academic calendar, or social media—anywhere it may be seen by your educators. In case it’s helpful, here’s a short blurb below that you can use:

SELCO’s SPARK! Creative Learning Grants

As a credit union founded by teachers, SELCO is excited about projects that inspire curiosity, make learning accessible, and spark something new. That’s why SELCO offers educator grants of up to $1,000 to help bring creative classroom ideas to life. Applications are open August 15–September 30. Visit selco.org/SPARK for details and to apply.

Additionally, if you would like a digital info sheet – or printed sheets to hand out – let me know and I’m happy to accommodate. Thank you for helping share these grant opportunities—and for everything you, your educators, and your staff do to keep our students engaged and encourage the love of learning.

Sincerely,

Bret Bealer

SPARK! Grant Liaison

The following article summary uses data primarily from the secondary setting, however there is quite a bit of useful information for elementary as well;

Ideas for the “New Normal”

            “The past year we learned that everything in schools that looks fixed and hardened is actually contingent and flexible,” say Justin Reich (Massachusetts Institute of Technology Learning Systems Lab) and Jal Mehta (Harvard Graduate School of Education) in this Teaching Systems Lab update of their earlier report (July 27, 2020, summarized in Memo 847). “Grades, curriculum, seat time, schedules, settings, groupings – all of these features can be changed. For all the suffering and hardship of the past year, some of the changes we made really were for the better, paving the way toward reinventing more humane school communities.” 

Those insights notwithstanding, say Reich and Mehta, there are three possible scenarios as schools begin the 2021-22 year:

–   Returning to the status quo before the pandemic;

–   Focusing on remediation of learning loss;

–   Using the events of the last 19 months to reflect and reinvent.

To help map the way forward, Reich and Mehta interviewed 50 teachers, asked 200 teachers to interview their students (about 4,000 in all), and facilitated ten design meetings with groups of educators, students, and parents. What emerged was a clear preference for the third scenario, with an emphasis on healing, community, and “humane reinvention” in schools.

“Students and teachers,” say the authors, “told us that the best things about the pandemic year were when it created opportunities to slow down and build real relationships between teacher and students and their families, and when students were given more independence to be in charge of their learning, their bodies, and their development… Overall, we were struck by how different students’ accounts were from prevailing narratives. Young people talked about loss in profound ways, but in their telling, what had been lost was a year of childhood or adolescence, not particular content standards from algebra or social studies.” 

Based on the interviews and focus groups, Reich and Mehta suggest three guiding principles:

–   Don’t define the coming year as a return to normal. “For too many students,” they say, “normal schooling wasn’t meeting their needs.”

–   Start the school year with some noticeable changes: amplify key ideas from the pandemic year, and eliminate or scale back practices that were proved to be ineffective.

–   Engage in reflection that allows for celebration of the successes of the pandemic year, grieving for losses, and harnessing the energy from the emergency to build better experiences for students, educators, and families.

Here are some of their specific recommendations. 

• First, Reich and Mehta suggest five questions to ask students about the year from which they’ve emerged:

–   What are the aspects of remote learning that you’ve appreciated the most, and would like to see carried back into in-person schooling?

–   What was really hard about remote learning that you hope you never have to manage again as a student?

–   After this pandemic, what do you hope adults will do to make in-person school better for this year? What do you hope they don’t do in the coming year?

–   What do you feel like you missed out on or lost in school because of the pandemic?

–   What are you most proud of from the past school year?

• Second, Reich and Mehta list things that should be amplified in the key areas of relationships and trust, school schedules, the curriculum, student agency, mastery-based learning, assessments, social and emotional learning, equity, and humane treatment of students. Some specifics:

–   Home visits that build relationships between families and school;

–   Advisors, advisories, and office hour check-ins;

–   Zoom-style chats to give introverted students more opportunities to thrive;

–   Virtual meetings;

–   A quarterly schedule with three classes at a time (versus rushed seven-period days);

–   Teachers’ loads limited to 65-80 students;

–   Longer breaks between classes;

–   Marie-Kondo-ing the curriculum – narrowing down to a smaller set of priority standards;

–   Curriculum relevance and choice to keep students engaged;

–   Regular examination of student work;

–   No more averaging grades and zeroes;

–   Mindfulness practices and emphasizing the mental health of adults as well as students;

–   Meeting students’ basic needs, including nutritious and tasty meals;

–   Meeting students where they are academically and emotionally;

–   Listening more to students and involving them in co-designing antiracist practices;

–   Less behavioral policing of students’ dress and other choices;

–   More student choice on when to eat and use the bathroom;

–   More outdoor learning;

–   Later school start times for adolescents.

(See the full report for ideas on areas that need less emphasis and things to create.)

• Finally, the report suggests several metaphors for the work going forward:

–   School as church and temple;

–   Schools as a place of healing;

–   Schools as family reunion.

“Healing, Community, and Humanity: How Students and Teachers Want to Reinvent Schools Post-Covid” by Justin Reich and Jal Mehta, Teaching Systems Lab, July 21, 2021; the authors can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected].