SEL Concerns Ticket Please use this if you have concerns with a student’s lagging SEL skills and you would like to do some collaboration with us (Heidi T. and/or Brian) to problem solve. Thanks!
FYI Ticket Please use this if you have an incident or recurring incidents with a student. This helps us with follow through, communication and data. Thank you!!!!!
Info from Heidi and the Highland Culture of Care Team: Our character trait for the month of April is honesty/trust. This falls under the SEL competencies of Self-Awareness and Responsible Decision-Making. This week’s video is one you could share with your class. It is a whiteboard video on why we lose control of our emotions: https://youtu.be/3bKuoH8CkFc
I (Heidi T.) will be gone April 18th-20th. I have a sub for most of the time I am gone to help cover Nessie’s Nest, recess, lunches and bus.
Conference Schedules: Please be sure to share your conference schedules with Steph and Ashley so they can help field parent questions and help direct people when necessary.
Staffing Plan Input: I am working on our staffing plan and I would like to take some time to present some information to you for input before finalizing the plan. Time is pretty limited and since we just got the plans on Thursday I need to spring this on you. I will cancel our Safety Team meeting on Tuesday and hold an optional meeting for staff instead. If you would like to join me, I will share some of the things I am grappling with and provide a short survey to gather some input.
Culmination Planning: Please use this link to input information regarding your culmination plans.
Sustainability Alert – please remember to turn off any extra sparkle lights, lamps, etc. These are being left on frequently. This can add up to a lot of unnecessary power draw over time.
Parent Newsletter Link – linked here is the parent newsletter. If you ever need to find it, it’s always on the school website each Friday.
SEL Concerns Ticket Please use this if you have concerns with a student’s lagging SEL skills and you would like to do some collaboration with us (Heidi T. and/or Brian) to problem solve. Thanks!
FYI Ticket Please use this if you have an incident or recurring incidents with a student. This helps us with follow through, communication and data. Thank you!!!!!
School-Sponsored Events – Two great events are in the books!!! Huge thanks to our 1st grade and Kinder teams for paving the way. Special shout out to Tim and Zach for working around the extra activity.
Volunteers – It sure is nice to see our parents making their way into the building – they are giddy with excitement so thank you so much for your efforts in this area – I know it’s not easy.
Info from Heidi and the Highland Culture of Care Team: Our character trait for the month of April is honesty/trust. This falls under the SEL competencies of Self-Awareness and Responsible Decision-Making. I also want to reshare this video on the neurosequential model. I know most of you have the poster, it came with the ready to learn boxes.
Protect Yourself Curriculum (Formally known as Safe Touch): Heidi has taught the new Erin’s Law Curriculum to first grade this past week and will teach it to 2nd/3rd Grade next week. Here is the schedule if you need it to sign up or be reminded of your time. We (Brian and Heidi) will send out a letter to all families informing them of when and what is being taught. Please let Heidi know if you have any parents who would like their child to opt out.
From Julie Walker- re: Foundational Skills Review and Adoption Committee Update
3/16-reviewed 11 programs and narrowed to 4
4/6- publishers will present information for 4 programs to committee
4/6-4/28- staff members on committee will field test instructional materials in classrooms and provide feedback
4/13-4/26-Opportunities for staff and community feedback (I will send flyers you can share in your newsletters early next week) If you have an opportunity for your school representative to share information with staff that would be super helpful in getting communication out. If not, we will have digital opportunities for staff members to share feedback.
5/10-Presentation to board with final decision
Professional learning dates for summer 2022 . K-5 teachers will be required to attend at least 1 day of Foundational Skills training and this will count as Day 189 (district directed).
Instructional Coach Position Available – TLC will be hiring a 1.0 instructional coach. If interested please apply on the BLS website. The position will close on April 10th.
Kindergarten communication help needed – Alandra is looking for a couple classified staff to assist with getting posters and flyers out in our community. If you have anyone who might be interested in driving around Bend to hang posters and distribute flyers please ask them to contact Alandra. They will be paid for their time and mileage. She needs a couple for the Bend area and one for the South County area.
Bend Science Station is coming to Highland for one session with all our 5th graders on Tuesday May 10 in the afternoon. It’s a bummer we cannot bring this to all our students, but something is better than nothing and I am stoked to see them operating again.
YouthTruth Survey – Our leadership next week will be digging into the YouthTruth survey data next week, but here is a sample of a really nice school-wide feature;
Families and teachers care about each other.
Summer Jump Start Program – The target demographic are students within our district who are at the highest risk and would benefit from additional instruction in the summer, prior to the start of the 2021-22 school year, to help them to learn and practice school and classroom routines, academic routines and self-regulation strategies.
There will be data sent to schools (soon) from the district that ranks students by grade (gr. 1-5).
Each school will be allotted slots for each grade (rising 1-5). The number of slots is based on the number teachers working and the number of sections we will be able to offer across each grade.
Using school and classroom data, schools will do the invites and confirmation with parents. We are hoping that parent conferences is a good time to do this. I’ll send program information regarding Jump Start and Spark, along with some talking points that you can share with teachers.
Once a parent confirms attendance, schools will enter the student into Synergy. This will speed up the process of getting information to district staff and help with getting materials, supplies, technology and bus routes in place by the end of June.
May 1st is our target for invites and confirmations. The date is sooner this year because transportation is light on staff who do the bus routing and they have so many students attending summer school to route. They need the time to do this.
Culmination Planning: Please use this link to input information regarding your culmination plans.
Sustainability Alert – please remember to turn off any extra sparkle lights, lamps, etc. These are being left on frequently. This can add up to a lot of unnecessary power draw over time.
Parent Newsletter Link – linked here is the parent newsletter. If you ever need to find it, it’s always on the school website each Friday.
SEL Concerns Ticket Please use this if you have concerns with a student’s lagging SEL skills and you would like to do some collaboration with us (Heidi T. and/or Brian) to problem solve. Thanks!
FYI Ticket Please use this if you have an incident or recurring incidents with a student. This helps us with follow through, communication and data. Thank you!!!!!
Mileage Club – This starts back up on Thursday March 31st. Parents must be approved volunteers and sign in for their time slot. Yahoo for running!!!
OSAS Math, ELA, Science State Testing – It’s time to exercise those standardized testing muscles again. I will send a separate email to our 2-5th grade teachers with a link to a shared drive with our training materials during the week after spring break. Just as in the past there are several modules required for all staff administering or monitoring the testing environments. I will provide a couple opportunities for Q&A after the modules are completed. Testing will look much more like pre-pandemic times. Our Highland primary testing window will be May 16th through May 27th. The district testing window closes on Jun 3, 2022. Do not stress about this, but just start wrapping your head around this process. It’s also important to remember that the Opt-Out form is communicated at the district and school level, NOT the classroom level.
Wireless Access Point Upgrade – Over spring break our IT department will be switching out our wireless access points around the entire campus. If you plan to come in and work over the spring break [something I highly discourage, as you deserve the time off] then try to avoid Wednesday [possibly Thursday too] as there will be no access to the network and there will be people moving around the building to replace all the devices.
School-Sponsored Events – Skip shared our mitigation process for elementary school-sponsored events and although it’s still a work in progress I feel confident moving forward with some of our events.
Calendared:
1st grade parent painting night – Wednesday, March 30
Kinder parent painting night – Thursday, March 31
TBD:
Culminations
Variety Show
5th Grade Promotion
PTO-sponsored spring carnival
????
Volunteers – We have quite a few volunteers in our system already and I suspect more on the way. We will work to provide updates every Wednesday in the sheet Ashley shared with you but you can always ask us to look somebody up. We will be able to use volunteers for mileage club so long as they are cleared and we will be able to use volunteers for Field Day as well.
Info from Heidi and the Highland Culture of Care Team: Our character trait for the month of March is Empathy. This falls under the SEL competency of social awareness. Here is a link to some resources: Empathy The the questions and topic starters from Jennifer Hauth are also a great resource as we all practice empathy around masking choices.
Culmination Planning: Please use this link to input information regarding your culmination plans. We hope to also put a Variety Show and maybe even a PTO-sponsored spring carnival, so getting our calendar squared away soon will be incredibly helpful.
SEL Lessons: Reminder, I (Heidi) am ALWAYS happy to come in and teach what I call an anchor SEL lesson! I also love helping teachers brainstorm ways to integrate SEL into their day. I have a lot of resources to share with you, just let me know what you need. This is the time of year when we start to see behaviors showing up more frequently and at higher rates. Class meetings, restorative circles and targeted lessons are just a few ways we can help mitigate them.
Parent Newsletter Link – linked here is the parent newsletter. If you ever need to find it, it’s always on the school website each Friday.
From Dave VanLoo – Very soon, we anticipate having i-Ready Diagnostic Assessment in place as a replacement for SAT-10, which we have used as an academic assessment as part of the TAG eligibility process. I-Ready should provide a better experience than SAT-10 for staff and students. The hope is to have it available when students return from spring break. This is not 100% finalized, but we are close enough that it is worth getting this on schools’ radar. Here is a quick summary.
Benefits of i-Ready Diagnostic Assessment for TAG
Group administered and works on iPad (SAT-10 only works on computers)
2-hours or less total to complete reading and math assessment
Clever integration to manage students (SAT-10 requires schools to manage students manually)
Adaptive test (SAT-10 is fixed form)
Because it is designed to be used 3x/year, retesting is free and easy when needed
Newer and more frequently updated norms than SAT-10
Strong technical characteristics (reliability and validity)
Math assessment is available in Spanish (SAT-10 is only English)
Available for 3rd grade or younger if needed (SAT-10 can first be administered in spring of 3rd grade)
We are planning to have schools use i-Ready this spring with a small number of students, in part to help make up for missed opportunities in state testing over the past two years. Recall that in 2020 no OSAS tests were given. In 2021, 3rd graders only took ELA, while 4th graders only took Math. The plan is to provide schools with a list of current 4th and 5th grade students who scored very high on OSAS last year, and have those students take both the Reading and Math i-Ready assessments. Schools are welcome to include other potential TAG-eligible students in this testing as well. To provide a bit more context, here is an estimate, by school, of the number of 3rd and 4th grade students who scored at the 90th percentile on OSAS last spring. Please be aware that we may use a higher standard than the 90th percentile, which would decrease the number of students taking the i-Ready assessment.
SEL Concerns Ticket Please use this if you have concerns with a student’s lagging SEL skills and you would like to do some collaboration with us (Heidi T. and/or Brian) to problem solve. Thanks!
FYI Ticket Please use this if you have an incident or recurring incidents with a student. This helps us with follow through, communication and data. Thank you!!!!!
School-Sponsored Events – We are encouraged to provide school-sponsored events after school to provide more opportunities for families to engage with their schools since the volunteer route will be limited. After school hours we have more flexibility for events, however there will be some mitigation strategies for us to follow. This opens the doors to many of our former events, such as culminations as well as any creative new ideas. We can use classrooms after school hours. We still have the cafeteria, gym or outside as options as well. As a global heads up the kindergarten team is going to kick things off early with a Kinder Parent Painting party on Thursday, March 31st at 5:00 (pending approval) – sorry we did not give a longer heads up, but for planning purposes we needed to get this moving now. This also means we can consider events such as our Variety Show and our PTO has a Spring Carnival idea that could be incredibly fun for our community. Last but not least, we can hold a 5th grade promotion ceremony as an after school event. Although this is not how we used to do it, it’s at least an opportunity to provide one event for all the 5th grade families should we choose to do so.
Please remember this is a great time to reinvent and recreate how our culminations look and feel. After a couple of years of disruption, we have an opportunity to try different formats. Let your imaginations run with it and create something that aligns with your current needs as well as highlights the storyline process versus a performance.
Volunteers – Ashley, Steph and I still have some work to do to fully understand how to best use the volunteer-tracking system and process from the office end, but by my estimate there are nearly 50 parents already in the system for Highland. Our goal will be to share a google sheet with your parents listed by noon, Wednesday 3/16. I put a statement in the Piper Post that let’s parents know they are not cleared until we have them on our list on our screen in the office.
Some more key updates;
You can now meet with a parent in the building, outside the student-contact day.
Starting as soon as April 4, IEPs may be held in person after student-contact day.
Also starting as soon as April 4, guest speakers can be allowed on campus as visitors so long as they are delivering instruction alongside a classroom teacher.
Students/Staff returning from isolation must still mask for days 6-10 and eat in a separate area from the general population.
Physical distancing – all distancing language changes to the following; “strive to maintain 3-feet to the extent possible”. This applies to all areas including cafeteria*.
*With the new distance expectations we can utilize our cafeteria a little more freely now for indoor lunch. After spring break I have a rotation schedule ready to use to free up classrooms. For the K-1 group we can rotate K in there for one week and 1st on the other. For grades 2-5 we can fit two classrooms in there at a time, so we can rotate the two classes each week. It was mentioned in the safety team meeting that some of you may not want to have your class participate in the cafeteria rotation, so I’d like everyone to respond to this survey to help with some planning. We also will no longer need to have students sitting in the hallways. Allowing all the students to sit in the classroom and watch or listen to an audio book or something entertaining will help keep the energy levels down. While the weather cooperates we will continue with the outdoor lunch, but we now have some more options for indoor lunch.
Info from Heidi and the Highland Culture of Care Team: Our character trait for the month of March is Empathy. This falls under the SEL competency of social awareness. Here is a link to some resources: Empathy The the questions and topic starters from Jennifer Hauth are also a great resource as we all practice empathy around masking choices.
From the Recess Coaches: As Spring arrives, sometime we see students “forgetting” the recess and lunch expectations. It would be helpful to all of us if classroom teachers could spend a few minutes reviewing our recess video and lunch expectations. The lunch outside expectations are: Stay on your spot until you are released by a lunch coach. Clean up after yourself (this includes putting away a chair or mat if used), no throwing food (or anything for that matter and talking with the people closest to you (as opposed to yelling across the blacktop). Thank you so much!
SEL Lessons: Reminder, I (Heidi) am ALWAYS happy to come in and teach what I call an anchor SEL lesson! I also love helping teachers brainstorm ways to integrate SEL into their day. I have a lot of resources to share with you, just let me know what you need. This is the time of year when we start to see behaviors showing up more frequently and at higher rates. Class meetings, restorative circles and targeted lessons are just a few ways we can help mitigate them.
Erin’s Law – the pause button on Anti-Abuse lessons was lifted and we will pick these back up, with the following materials; Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center Child Abuse Awareness and Prevention Program. It is recommended that the classroom teacher provide these four 15-20 minute lessons to their students, however Heidi (and possibly I) will still be ready to provide these lessons to your students. We will really need to move quickly to fit these all in, so if your teams could discuss some good dates for us, it would be appreciated. this link shows the curriculum K-5.
Spring Conferences – When we return from spring break we will have two and half weeks prior to conferences. Conferences are to be offered in person, but parents can choose webex, phone or email. To help with coordination, let’s plan on sharing a google sign up sheet from teachers to parents on Tuesday 3/29 at 3:00pm. By providing these sign up sheets to families you can allow them to select times that work best for them (including juggling the times for siblings) and it’s less work on your part to coordinate. The following links are templates for you to make a copy of your own. Once you make your own copy, you can modify it to fit your own schedule and needs (for example, block out times for breaks, lunch, etc.). I can also show you how to share it with parents, so they are able to input their names in the appropriate place.
Summer School Update from Kevin Milner – Programming for summer programs is off and rolling. Kevin Milner is taking the lead on this, with summer learning options looking similar to last year. Programming (Jump Start (Gr. 1-5) and Spark (Gr. 6-8) will target learning and enrichment opportunities for our district’s traditionally underserved student populations (gr.1-8) and help these students to get an early start on learning classroom/school routines, along with strategies that will help them to be successful learners in the year ahead. In addition, we will offer participating students with enrichment opportunities that they normally would not experience during their time when they are outside of school.
The process to select students for Jump Start and Spark will be coming up in April.
Some details:
Programming Dates: August 1-19, Monday-Friday
Times:
Jump Start – (8:00-3:30) Day will have two segments: a morning academic focus and an enrichment focus in the afternoon.
SPARK – (9:00-1:00) Day will include academic, with enrichment built into the schedule.
Elementary Sites:
Ensworth: Students from Juniper, Silver Rail and Ensworth.
Pine Ridge: Students from Elk Meadow, Miller, Jewell and Pine Ridge)
Buckingham: Bear Creek, Ponderosa and Buckingham
High Lakes: Students from High Lakes, Highland, North Star and Lava Ridge
Elementary LaPine Site:LaPine Elementary (Students from Rosland, Three Rivers and LPES)
Middle School Sites:
Pilot Butte (Students from PBMS, Realms,…)
Cascade: (Students from Pacific Crest and Cascade)
Sky View: (Students from High Desert and Sky View)
LaPine Middle School
Postings for Jump Start Students Services and Spark Deans of Students will be coming out soon, with postings for classroom teachers, enrichment teachers, educational assistants, office managers, food service, nurses and other positions to follow in April. (Please share this hiring with staff)
Parent Newsletter Link – linked here is the parent newsletter. If you ever need to find it, it’s always on the school website each Friday.
SEL Concerns Ticket Please use this if you have concerns with a student’s lagging SEL skills and you would like to do some collaboration with us (Heidi T. and/or Brian) to problem solve. Thanks!
FYI Ticket Please use this if you have an incident or recurring incidents with a student. This helps us with follow through, communication and data. Thank you!!!!!
Info from Heidi and the Highland Culture of Care Team: Our character trait for the month of March is Empathy. This falls under the SEL competency of social awareness. Here is a link to some resources: Empathy
As a reminder I got a few of the Harmony Kits if you would like to borrow them. They seems to be out of thee 3rd/4th. The good news is that they have most of the lessons online if you sign up for a free account! Thanks!
SEL Lessons: Reminder, I (Heidi) am ALWAYS happy to come in and teach what I call an anchor SEL lesson! I also love helping teachers brainstorm ways to integrate SEL into their day. I have a lot of resources to share with you, just let me know what you need. This is the time of year when we start to see behaviors showing up more frequently and at higher rates. Class meetings, restorative circles and targeted lessons are just a few ways we can help mitigate them.
Spring Conferences – As of right now the message we are delivering is that conferences are in person with the option of having them virtually at the request of the parent. We are still discussing this topic so that stance is not 100% final. However, conferences, in person or virtual, should be conducted at the school.
Masking – After March 12, masking will become strongly recommended, rather than required, for students and staff. This means our hallways, classrooms, gyms, libraries and other school spaces will likely include students and staff who are wearing masks and those who are not. While this will create visible differences, it is key that we continue to honor all students and staff and help them feel like part of a rich community of learners. Jennifer Hauth has put together activities for Friday, March 11th and Monday, March 14th to help with classroom conversations that honor individual choices. This information is being sent directly to teachers but please include this in your own staff communication too.
From Instructional Tech – Digital Citizenship Made Simple For the month of March, you will be seeing several posts here on the topic of Digital Citizenship. This is a topic that we all know is important, yet many of us have a hard time finding time to fit it in. Here is a quick video showing you how easy it is to sign into Common Sense Media and how to access their quick activities. Their material is fantastic and will offer opportunities for rich discussions.
Dreambox Celebration: The graphic below shows growth separated into 3 categories. 187 of our students have already grown by one grade level according to the dreambox data.
Poetry Contest – Here is a link to a poetry contest, sponsored by the State of Oregon’s Poetry Association. It is open to K-5 as well as older students.
Parent Newsletter Link – linked here is the parent newsletter. If you ever need to find it, it’s always on the school website each Friday.
Introduction to Restorative Practices – Free opportunity for the introductory training on Restorative Practices, open to community partners and educators in the region! See attached flyer.
From Human Resources – Please don’t forget that our School District offers an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) to help staff navigate life stressors and/or manage life changing events. The EAP program is administered by UpriseHealth. The services they offer at no cost to Bend La-Pine School district staff members (minus substitute teachers) are outlined below. For the 21/22 school year, each covered member can receive up to six EAP visits per year which is an increase from the three allowed in the 20/21 school year.
Counseling Resources
Short-Term Counseling
24-hour Crisis Help
Tess Chatbot
Online Peer Support
Work-Life Resources
Childcare Resources
Adult/Eldercare Resources
Financial Services
Legal Services
Mediation Services
Online Legal Forms
Home Ownership Programs
Identity Theft Services
Digitally Enabled EAP
Wellbeing Assessment
Self-Guided Mental Health
Skills Training
Coaching
To find out more about your EAP, schedule a counseling appointment, or access services call UpriseHealth at 866-750-1327 or visit uprisehealth.com/members to find out more. Access Code is OEBB.
A great example of how to positively focus students with their Lexia time!
SEL Concerns Ticket Please use this if you have concerns with a student’s lagging SEL skills and you would like to do some collaboration with us (Heidi T. and/or Brian) to problem solve. Thanks!
FYI Ticket Please use this if you have an incident or recurring incidents with a student. This helps us with follow through, communication and data. Thank you!!!!!
Info from Heidi and the Highland Culture of Care Team: Our character trait for the month of February is Problem Solvers.
SEL Lessons: Reminder, I (Heidi) am ALWAYS happy to come in and teach what I call an anchor SEL lesson! I also love helping teachers brainstorm ways to integrate SEL into their day. I have a lot of resources to share with you, just let me know what you need. This is the time of year when we start to see behaviors showing up more frequently and at higher rates. Class meetings, restorative circles and targeted lessons are just a few ways we can help mitigate them.
SEL Concerns Ticket Please use this if you have concerns with a student’s lagging SEL skills and you would like to do some collaboration with us (Heidi T. and/or Brian) to problem solve. Thanks!
FYI Ticket Please use this if you have an incident or recurring incidents with a student. This helps us with follow through, communication and data. Thank you!!!!!
Info from Heidi and the Highland Culture of Care Team: Our character trait for the month of February is Problem Solvers. Thank you to Becky H. for signing up to make a video. February 25 is also silly hair day!
Assemblies: Our culture of care team came to a consensus that it would be best to discontinue the virtual assemblies as we are lacking content. If you signed up to make a video, those are still very much appreciated and these can be included in the newscast.
SEL Lessons: Reminder, I (Heidi) am ALWAYS happy to come in and teach what I call an anchor SEL lesson! I also love helping teachers brainstorm ways to integrate SEL into their day. I have a lot of resources to share with you, just let me know what you need. This is the time of year when we start to see behaviors showing up more frequently and at higher rates. Class meetings, restorative circles and targeted lessons are just a few ways we can help mitigate them.
From Kinsey: Dear certified teacher, A key priority within our district’s equity efforts is to improve outcomes and experiences for our culturally- and linguistically-diverse students and families. We know that teachers who have specialized skills and training through an ESOL endorsement are better able to:
understand multilingualism,
identify strengths and assets of emergent bilingual students,
support language acquisition during teaching, and
partner with families through culturally-sustaining practices.
Want to obtain your ESOL endorsement for free?! Bend-La Pine Schools has partnered with OSU to provide a full scholarship to five certified teachers, to participate in the endorsement program. To learn more about this opportunity; understand the timeline, application, and selection process; and ask questions, please join BLS and OSU:
Here are additional details about this opportunity, and here is the application (due April 1, 2022).
Growing your toolbox of culturally- and linguistically-sustaining practices is incredibly valuable and relevant professional learning for educators, as our community grows and diversifies. If you are interested in learning about other PD opportunities related to this topic, please reach out to your building’s Language Specialist, or to one of our district’s multilingual department instructional coaches Thanks!
Water Fountains – the health department cleared the use of water fountains and we will be turning these back on soon.
Weather Next Week – Heads up – weather report says we should see some really cold temperatures on Tuesday-Friday. Let’s be sure to get kids inside on the sooner-side each morning and I think we can expect to be eating classrooms next week.
Parent Newsletter Link – linked here is the parent newsletter. If you ever need to find it, it’s always on the school website each Friday.
SIW Plan – Both Heidi and I will be at another district PD on Wednesday so our school discretion SIW will be dedicated PLC time and your grade level team leaders can lead the process. Rather than a whole staff activity this time can be used to reignite your grade PLC process (since this was disrupted for some) OR possibly apply the PLC process to a new content area. Most everyone selected a content area of comfort to start the process but now would be a good time to select an area of need based on student data. Since we are in the process of completing the 2nd round of EBISS/MTSS, there is a lot of good information to inform instruction moving forward.
SEL Concerns Ticket Please use this if you have concerns with a student’s lagging SEL skills and you would like to do some collaboration with us (Heidi T. and/or Brian) to problem solve. Thanks!
FYI Ticket Please use this if you have an incident or recurring incidents with a student. This helps us with follow through, communication and data. Thank you!!!!!
Recess Rules – Linked here is a document with the recess rules. We took the most recent list from the pandemic plan and removed much of the COVID stuff that is no longer applicable, as well as refined the list to an even more manageable number of rules. This was also shared with the leadership team and our recess coaches for input as well.
Have FUN – Jenn showing her students how it’s done on the 4-square courts.
More Fun: The photo does not do it justice but try to picture Cam running with most all the 2/3 kids chasing after him during some form of a Tag game. Rather than “everybody’s it tag”, this game was more of a “everybody chase Mr. Glogau”.
Time Change: Great work on the new earlier morning routine. Keep up the consistency with getting the kids inside by 7:45 and we will see the tardiness decrease dramatically. Although we have a few parents/kids struggling with the change, the overwhelming feedback is appreciative of the quicker morning entry and more time in school.
Lexia Celebration: Take a look at the most recent snapshot of Lexia progress – the movement into grade level and above grade level content is commendable. I realize this is not the only measure, but is a very clear K-5 measure of reading performance. The individualization and the foundational skill instruction provided that would not necessarily be there for every grade level is crucial to dealing with disruption from the pandemic. Thank you for keeping this core program in the forefront of your daily planning.
Info from Heidi and the Highland Culture of Care Team: Our character trait for the month of February is Problem Solvers. Thank you to Becky H. for signing up to make a video for the February assembly on the 25th Here is the link to our year long assembly plan. February 25 is also silly hair day!
SEL Lessons: Reminder, I (Heidi) am ALWAYS happy to come in and teach what I call an anchor SEL lesson! I also love helping teachers brainstorm ways to integrate SEL into their day. I have a lot of resources to share with you, just let me know what you need. This is the time of year when we start to see behaviors showing up more frequently and at higher rates. Class meetings, restorative circles and targeted lessons are just a few ways we can help mitigate them.
EA Basket: Every once in a while our EA’s have a few extra minutes to work on small projects. They have placed a basket in their office under the mountain painting for extra projects. If you have something for them, please place it in the basket or on the shelf with a note that explains what you need done, by when and your name. I would probably avoid putting time sensitive items if the timeline is short.
Morning Meetings: How are these going? I am curious if you are working these into your day and I would love some stories or maybe even an invitation to observe. Need suggestions? Ask Heidi Thomas, she loves helping to facilitate morning meetings!
New Roof: We plan to replace the roof this summer. There will be a mandatory pre-bid for contractors scheduled for February 23rd at 1:00 PM. We don’t need to do anything but this is your heads up that there will be a group of contractors meeting on site and walking the building. They anticipate they will stay mostly outside on the perimeter but some contractor’s may check in at the main office.
Parent Newsletter Link – linked here is the parent newsletter. If you ever need to find it, it’s always on the school website each Friday.
Vaccine Update – Are you ‘up to date’ on your vaccine? As we start to plan for making masks optional it is important that everyone reviews their vaccination status. The CDC is shifting away from the phrase “fully vaccinated” in favor of calling people “up to date” on their COVID-19 vaccines.
Up to date is defined as:
Ages 18 and older: Boosted or completed primary series of Pfizer or Moderna within the last 5 months or completed the primary series of J&J within last 2 months.
Ages 5-17: Completed the primary series of COVID-19 vaccines
Not up to date is defined as:
Unvaccinated OR
Has not completed the primary series of any COVID-19 vaccines OR
(For individuals ages 18 and older) completed the primary series of Pfizer or Moderna more than 5 months ago and is not boosted.
PLC Form– I will include this link every week to make it easier to find when needed.
Please remember this is our on-going process for strengthening and developing the Tier 1 instructional program. This applies the highest-leverage teaching strategies and uses the data to improve the experience for all students. Please refer to this document for more info; MTSS Guidelines
SEL Concerns Ticket Please use this if you have concerns with a student’s lagging SEL skills and you would like to do some collaboration with us (Heidi T. and/or Brian) to problem solve. Thanks!
FYI Ticket Please use this if you have an incident or recurring incidents with a student. This helps us with follow through, communication and data. Thank you!!!!!
Info from Heidi and the Highland Culture of Care Team: Our character trait for the month of February is Problem Solvers. Thank you to Becky H. for signing up to make a video for the February assembly on the 25th Here is the link to our year long assembly plan with a few resources.
Also, we wanted to thank you for sharing your thoughts, ideas and your classrooms during our SIW this week. It felt good to connect together as a group. Please send any feedback from the SIW to Heidi T. and team. I do have a few alternative seating options if you are interested. Also, if you have a student who needs an SOS walk and talk, you can always text me!!! If I am available I will be there. Another thing I often help with is problem solving friendship issues. Just let me know and we can set up an “appointment”. In general, let me know what you need and I will do my best to accommodate.
SEL Lessons: Reminder, I (Heidi) am ALWAYS happy to come in and teach what I call an anchor SEL lesson! I also love helping teachers brainstorm ways to integrate SEL into their day. I have a lot of resources to share with you, just let me know what you need. This is the time of year when we start to see behaviors showing up more frequently and at higher rates. Class meetings, restorative circles and targeted lessons are just a few ways we can help mitigate them.
Contact Tracing: At the moment the nurses are prioritizing getting in touch with positive cases confirming return to school dates. They are super backed up so please be patient. 🙂
From Tami Pike: Please share with your staff as soon as possible. For staff submitting for retroactive COVID-19 credit, please do not send your school nurse the form for signature. The forms should be sent via district mail (not via email) to Tami Pike. Please include a copy of your submitted leave sheet.
Another From Tami Pike – A friendly reminder that if you are not “up-to-date” with your COVID-19 vaccinations (for most, that means being boosted if your initial vaccines were not in the last 5 months), you will be required to follow the quarantine protocol if you are identified as a close contact to a positive case. You do not need to quarantine, if you have had a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis from a lab, health care provider, or health department in the last 19 days. Here is the most current vaccine information.
Attendance:
PVQ: Present Virtually Quarantined (exposed and “working” at home) We are using this code for kids who have a close contact, primary symptom, and waiting on test results
C19: Positive Covid case
If they are on day 6, synergy may still say C19. Go check with Ashley and Stef if it does not feel right.
If they have symptoms, email Steph and Ashley so they can use the correct codes (ie sibling has covid, exposed with symptoms, waiting to see…)
Please turn in attendance by 8:30 at the latest. This really helps to catch the kids on campus who should not be here. Phone calls go out to families at 9:00.
6-10 club masking: We don’t currently have kn95 for kids but the surgical grade masks you have in class will do the trick. We will let you know when/if they arrive.
Time Change Reminder – New Bell Schedule – Starts Monday 2/7:
Please meet your students in line at 7:40 for that first bell. Take a few minutes to greet the few students in line and then head inside. We currently have a lot of students waiting in their cars to see their lines head in, so they do not have to wait in line in the cold. This will probably be a bit difficult for the first week but if we are consistent we can help everyone with the reset.
The end of the day bell will ring at 2:15. There are no changes to the current bus schedule so no need to change up your end of day routine for them. Sending them out in front of the rest of your class and having them meet Heidi Thomas at the NE door is working well.
Morning Meetings: With the additional 10 minutes to your morning, I would love to see everyone commit to using a morning meeting to start your day. A few schools in Bend are already using this best practice and it’s a perfect solution to a lot of concerns that pop up. Morning meetings that are well run and valued will be really important to your students and you will find they want to be there for them, which will help with on-time habits. The consistent time will allow you to address on-going recess issues that are a natural and expected part of any healthy recess. The absence of conflict or confrontation is not the sign of a positive recess.
Indoor Meal Plan: No change yet, still working on putting the plan in writing/drawing/etc. (Although we said we would only announce over the PA for indoor lunch, we made an exception today [Thursday] to create a special moment for one of our students. The pure and genuine joy this created was enough to power a space station.)
Line up procedures:
Based on our observations with lines here are things you can do to help with the transitions throughout the day;
Encourage a routine for determining their place in line – try to eliminate the race to be first if you can. (This can be tricky; sometimes a specified sequence works sometimes it doesn’t – do what you think works for you and your students)
Meet your kids on time. The longer they wait, the more squirrely they get.
Walk along the line, greet and reinforce the desired behaviors.
If the energy is high, provide some group stretches/breathing exercises/mantras prior to entry. (The 2/3 did these on Thursday and it worked beautifully.)
Lead the kids into the building. You can help avoid cutting off other classes and you can control the pace/tone they enter the building.
Practice – take an afternoon every now and then to come out and practice without everyone else on the playground. Your instructions will sink in and be far more effective.
Avoid rewards and punishments. To build intrinsic motivation; this behavior just needs to be treated as expected behavior, not a rule with consequences.
Invest the time now to save time later. I know this can be time-consuming but it can save time later.
Expect them to be kids, not adults. Even adults will need some re-teaching at times, so of course this needs to happen with kids.
I will periodically work on replicating these routines with each group for the lunch time line up. (I was able to run through this with the 2/3s on Thursday and I will work on the 4/5 group next week). “Slow [speed] and Low [volume]” is our mantra.
Culminations: If you are interested in exploring the possibility of an in-person [for families] culmination after school hours, please complete the following survey. There is no guarantee we can do these, but there is a process for submitting events to a COVID mitigation protocol that might allow for it. Once we have your plans we can work on approval. If you or your team will not be doing any kind of culmination outside of school hours for this round please email me just to let me know. Culmination Planning Checklist
Print Shop versus Copier – I typically do not share our print shop/copier costs and I trust you to do your best, however the costs for the past couple months is unusually high. Please take this message as a friendly reminder that it is far less expensive AND better for the environment to utilize the print shop over our own copy machine.
Parent Newsletter Link – linked here is the parent newsletter. If you ever need to find it, it’s always on the school website each Friday.
PLC Form– I will include this link every week to make it easier to find when needed.
Week Preview:
Monday 2/7
Tuesday 2/8
2:30-3:15 EBISS – K
Wednesday 2/9
SIW – Optional Educator Network Series
Thursday 2/10
2:30-3:15 EBISS – 1st
Friday 2/11
Please note: I realize the google calendar is out of sorts and I will get it updated soon. For now, please refer to the “Meeting Schedule” sheet in the master schedule google sheet to see upcoming meetings as I will work directly from that document.
SEL Concerns Ticket Please use this if you have concerns with a student’s lagging SEL skills and you would like to do some collaboration with us (Heidi T. and/or Brian) to problem solve. Thanks!
FYI Ticket Please use this if you have an incident or recurring incidents with a student. This helps us with follow through, communication and data. Thank you!!!!!
How’s it going? Please don’t wait for something negative to share here – it’s always nice to read the positives too.
YouthTruth Survey – The YouthTruth survey is extended for another week until Friday 2/4.. Here’s the link to the staff survey.
Info from Heidi and the Highland Culture of Care Team: Our character trait for the month of February is Problem Solvers. Thank you to Becky H. for signing up to make a video for the February assembly on the 25th Here is the link to our year long assembly plan with a few resources.
As a team, we are continuing to read Classroom 180. Our next SIW will be on February 2nd and we plan on discussing domains 2 and 3. We also want to hear from YOU! The plan is to hold another “Fishbowl” to discuss regulation and using the language of trauma. You can also bring your wonderings and problems that need solving! Thanks! ~Heidi Thomas
SEL Lessons: Reminder, I (Heidi) am ALWAYS happy to come in and teach what I call an anchor SEL lesson! I also love helping teachers brainstorm ways to integrate SEL into their day. I have a lot of resources to share with you, just let me know what you need. This is the time of year when we start to see behaviors showing up more frequently and at higher rates. Class meetings, restorative circles and targeted lessons are just a few ways we can help mitigate them.
2021-2022 Staffing Survey: This is a ways off, but I am gathering information for planning for next year. Please take a moment to respond to the survey linked here.
6-10 Day Club: thanks for your patience and understanding as we figure this out. We did our best with the information as it crystallized, but it was definitely a moving target. Keep your fingers crossed for a more stable target next week.
Time Change Reminder – New Bell Schedule – Starts Monday 2/7:
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday
7:30-7:40 Student arrival and line up
7:40 – First bell – teachers meet students in line, you may enter the building with kids when ready.
7:45 – Second bell – school starts
2:15 – School dismissal
2:18 – Bus leaves
Wednesday
7:30-7:40 Student arrival and line up
7:40 – First bell – teachers meet students in line, you may enter the building with kids when ready.
7:45 – Second bell – school starts
12:45 – School dismissal
12:48 – Bus leaves
Indoor Meal Plan: Zach placed all the cafeteria tables and it looks like we will be able to fit around 70 students at a time with adequate spacing. This should allow us to put the entire Kindergarten or the entire 1st grade down stairs for lunch time and we can fit two of the upper grade classes in there during their lunch periods. I will put a plan in writing and run it by Skip and Tammy as soon as I can. Once I have their approval I will give you a start date and a rotation schedule for utilizing the cafeteria.
Culminations: In the next update I will share a Culmination Planning Checklist google form. The hope is that we might have some options for in-person culminations in March, assuming our community and district conditions allow for it. If you would like to think differently about how to provide an after school, in person culminating event, then this will be the place to start your planning. It is not mandatory for anyone to provide an in person culmination and, in fact, it’s probably best not to provide one for every class. Although we will want to start our own planning soon, we should not advertise this to parents until we have more confidence in an approval. We’ll leave the google form open for about a week and then once we have some plans in place we’ll work on gaining approval. Even if you do want to try for the in person culmination, you will likely want to create a Plan B, just in case. Email me if you have any questions.
FROM BEA (SARAH BARCLAY) Equitable Grading Practices: As everyone knows Bend-La Pine Schools has been moving through a process, in collaboration with BEA, to examine best practices in grading at the secondary level. OEA has also been exploring this topic of discussion and we wanted to ensure that all BEA members were aware of some available resources.
