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!!!!!
Staff Shout Outs are BACK! Please fill out when you see/hear about the great things our staff is doing.
Highland Culture of Care is looking for teachers and/or grade levels to sign up for assembly videos! You can do that here. Thank you!!!
Our character trait for October is FRIENDSHIP! Look for friendship books coming soon to the library shelf and Heidi will link resources soon to the assembly plan sheet.
Fall Conferences – Be sure and check out the resources in TLC updates and Kaelynn’s 5-minute updates for some great ideas for conferences. Don’t forget to share your schedule with Ashley or me. Also, please let us know if you plan to hold your conferences from home.
Lockdown Drill – Great job on the Lockdown drill. We were able to get most all doors locked and everyone out of sight within 3 minutes. Remember the priority actions for adults and students are listed on the SRP poster; Locks, Lights out and Out of Sight.
Earthquake Drill – Thanks for your participation in this drill. It’s nice to know we can survive another tremor. Sorry about the timing as the office decided to get busy at exactly the right moment.
From Lindsley – Are your teachers excited to start upgrading your phonological/phonemic instruction through Heggerty but wondering: Where in the world does it fit into my foundational skills work? What can I get rid of? What are the options for implementing it- do I have to use the videos, the book …? Well, wait no longer- here is a 5-minute video to help clarify some of those questions!
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!!!!!
Staff Shout Outs are BACK! Please fill out when you see/hear about the great things our staff is doing.
How’s it going? – Thanks again for your participation with this. Please don’t skip what’s going well for you and don’t feel like it’s bragging – it’s super helpful!
Highland Culture of Care is looking for teachers and/or grade levels to sign up for assembly videos! You can do that here. Thank you!!!
Our character trait for October is FRIENDSHIP! Look for friendship books coming soon to the library shelf and Heidi will link resources soon to the assembly plan sheet.
Fall Conferences –Thanks for humoring me with your drumming today! I am just including a few items as a resource/reminder here;
Teachers may conduct conferences from their homes if the following can be guaranteed:
A reliable internet connection so that picture and sound is consistent. Teachers must have their camera on!
A professional setting
No distractions or interruptions (kids, pets, household noise…)
Appropriate attire
While conferences can be conducted from home, the teachers are to be in the building during the work day on Wednesday. Teachers can schedule some meetings during the Wednesday workday, however teachers are still expected to provide evening opportunities for parents who might not be able to attend day time meetings due to work.
Teachers should provide administrators and front office a copy of their conference schedule. Please ensure there are plenty of evening conferences to accommodate our working families.
If you would like met to join a conference for any reason, please don’t hesitate to ask.
Dyslexia information for k/1 – For the past several years (except last year), we have been required by the state of Oregon to send Dyslexia notifications to certain K/1 families. These were traditionally done at Fall Conferences. Julie is waiting to hear back from ODE as to whether this year is also on hold for that or if we will be needing to resume this practice. Long story short, stand by to hear if we will still need to do that this year or not.
Sharing your classroom with Families
Cami asked the parents in the PTO meeting how teachers can communicate better with parents since they cannot be in the building, so I thought I would share some successes already occurring in our building and provide a reminder of the tools you have within your reach for this;
Our Kindergarten and 1st grade teachers still have active SeeSaw accounts. Several parents have expressed their appreciation for using this tool to keep them in the loop. (Our use has dropped off significantly since being back in person, but it’s still a very useful tool.) Every little bit of sharing helps our parents feel more connected.
2-5 teachers still have use of Google Classroom and/or Google Sites which can achieve the same result of allowing students and you to share work from the classroom with home.
We also have some teachers using Class Dojo in very successful ways. I do not have any experience with the program but JJ, Aimee and Cameron (and I believe Erik too) use this with ease and I am sure they are open to sharing if you want to learn. One of the best examples I witnessed involved students snapping shots of their own work to share.
Check out the resources on BLS K-5 Tech – the videos are great to get you started in several of these programs.
PTO Requests
Just a friendly reminder that requests of the PTO should use the form on their website. It’s on one of the pull-down menus labeled “Teacher Grant Request Form”. It should also be noted that the PTO budget is structured with priorities for funding. Priority 1 items are Storyline-related items and make up approximately $34,500 of the $50,000 giving campaign goal. So far the Giving Campaign has collected approximately $27,000, so we are not yet at a point where all priority 1 items can be covered. It’s difficult to justify asking for items that are not under the priority 1 list until the goal is met, so my feeling is we should hold off on asking for anything that is not Storyline-related.
Another complication to consider is $9600 (of the 34,500) is set aside for our release time for Storyline Planning & Development. The district is not permitting any PD that requires subs for obvious reasons, so this line item presents some challenges.
Indoor versus Outdoor Lunch:
K-8 students will come inside for meals at 45-degrees.
If outside temperature + windchill is lower than 40-degrees, move meals inside. For example: If the air temperature is 48 degrees and there are sustained winds at 25 mph, then the wind chill temperature is 40 degrees = Meals inside
Encouraging students to dress in layers will be important as well on days where it will be close to the minimum threshold.
Lockdown Drill – Monday afternoon we will conduct a brief lockdown drill. I will provide a brief explanation and heads-up for parents in the Newsletter. It’s important to keep this low-key and age appropriate. The key components are listed on the SRP poster. “Locks, Lights Out, Out of Sight”. Keep it really simple and flexible.
Earthquake Drill – Thursday afternoon we will participate in the Great Shakeout, an annual earthquake drill. I will provide a quick announcement indicating that we are experiencing an earthquake, wait approximately two minutes and then signal the end of the drill over the PA. We will not practice the evacuation for this drill.
From Julie – Educational Assistant training for Elementary will be on October 27th. Please share this flyer and this link with the schedule with your educational assistants. Please remind your staff to sign up on Performance Matters so we can get an accurate lunch count.
Week Preview:
Monday 10/18
Lockdown Drill – between 1:30-2:00
Tuesday 10/19
2:30-3:15 Storyline Team Meeting
Wednesday 10/20
Staff Meeting 1:15-1:45 – Please be on time so we can keep our afternoon on track.
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!!!!!
Staff Shout Outs are BACK! Please fill out when you see/hear about the great things our staff is doing.
How’s it going? – Thanks again for your participation with this.
Highland Culture of Care is looking for teachers and/or grade levels to sign up for assembly videos! You can do that here. Thank you!!!
Our character trait for October is FRIENDSHIP! Look for friendship books coming soon to the library shelf and Heidi will link resources soon to the assembly plan sheet.
Highland Newscast: The survey results came back with a strong preference for the prerecorded news cast. We will leave out the school song and save it for assemblies. The first newscast was recorded today (10/8) and will be ready for your viewing pleasure by Monday morning. Please let me know if you have any school news you would like to see in the newscast.
Halloween/Fall Festival – With Halloween on a Sunday, there might be some different ideas on what to do this year. Across the district the standard appears to be a class-by-class or grade level-team by grade level-team decision as for when and what you do (one school is going to skip it all-together). For the sake of sharing and communication, please use the following to provide some details; Halloween Plans.
Fall Conferences – As of 10/7 it was officially decided conferences will be virtual. I want to encourage you to use a google sign up sheet for allowing parents to sign up for their times as it gives the parents flexibility and it saves you time. From my own experience as a parent of 3, it never worked when the conferences were scheduled for us. If you need a template or help setting it up, Shawna or I can help you out. If you still feel the need to schedule siblings then I’ve set aside Thursday 10/14 after school as a time for that task.
3 foot reminder: Just a quick reminder that it’s important to design activities in your classroom within your seating arrangements that keep students 3 feet apart to the extent possible. If they need to close that distance for any reason then try to keep the activity under 15 minutes. If and when they do move closer while in the class, then please provide gentle reminders to maintain their space. One of the questions for contract tracing will be, “Were the kids 3 feet apart?”. The more easily we can answer with a “yes”, the less likely we will need to quarantine kids. You are doing a great job with this, so keep up the great work.
Monthly Essential Volunteers Update: – the COVID response team met today (Thursday) and because local COVID numbers are still high we will not lift our ban on visitors and volunteers.
Walking Field Trips – the COVID response team decided we would begin allowing walking field trips if the following conditions are met:
The field trip should start and finish at the school and should be directly related to curriculum standards.
Students must wear masks.
Students must keep 3 ft apart to the extent possible.
Management and instruction of students has to be done by school staff – no parent volunteers can be utilized.
Notify parents of the walking field trip but be careful not to over advertise it. We don’t want parents “accidentally” showing up at the location. This would be subverting our current policy on visitors and volunteers.
House Bill 3294, The Menstrual Dignity Act – Over the summer, the Oregon Legislature passed and Gov. Kate Brown signed into law, House Bill 3294, The Menstrual Dignity Act. This law states that schools must provide free pads and tampons in restrooms. This is just a heads up that these will be installed soon, and the word on the street is that these become a hot topic of conversation for students.
Lexia Update – Here’s a snapshot of the entire school so far. The “at or above grade level material” group has grown by 5% in less than a month for the whole school population. You are doing a great job of integrating this into your literacy block – I know it’s not easy and it can be a moving target, but I hope you will see this data as encouraging.
Dreambox Update – It’s a little early for the data in dreambox but it’s already encouraging. Green shows percentage of students on track to proficiency for grade level, blue shows potentially on track. Orange shows students not on track (yet). Gray shows students with not enough data yet. Kindergarten is still all gray because it’s still early in the program for them. Kaelynn provided a quick video on how to assign selected content and I want to encourage you to take advantage of this feature to provide some direction for students. You might even be able to utilize this as a quick assessment of what you are teaching that week.
Meetings: The chart above shows the result of our meetings survey. Based on this input we will proceed with the current monthly staff meeting schedule. A few things to note;
Protecting time was a primary reason for not adding more meetings.
Community building was a primary reason for wanting more staff meeting time – the work we do during some of our school discretion SIWs can and will accomplish this goal.
I will continue to run the “How’s it going?” survey on a weekly basis. As mentioned before, I will take a look each week and figure out the best way to address items as they arise either individually, via the update, or with a meeting.
TLC Update – Please read the update this week!! It contains important information regarding Educator Network Sessions (formerly know as SIWS). Oct. 7th Elementary Update
Follow up to Lexia Training – Debra asked me to share these links after our training;
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? – I really appreciate you taking the time on the first round of these and I am encouraged and inspired by your input so far – thank you. I will run this each week and I invite you to use these to help me address your concerns, questions and look for trends that can help our entire team. I will clear the survey each week (probably on Wednesdays) to start new. I am also doing my best to provide some follow up either in person or email when necessary. When I notice larger trends or issues arising with multiple people I will use this information to shape the weekly updates.
HDESD Culture of Care is also hosting two book studies over the 2021-22 school year for individuals working in education. You may sign up for one or both read alongs. Click here for more information.
Highland Culture of Care is looking for teachers and/or grade levels to sign up for assembly videos! You can do that here. Thank you!!!
Our character trait for October is FRIENDSHIP! Look for friendship books coming soon to the library shelf and Heidi will link resources soon to the assembly plan sheet.
Civil Rights Training Follow-Up:
Through our Excellence and Equity listening sessions in 2019, we gathered incredibly valuable information about our students and families: who they are, and what their experience is like in our district. However, we don’t have this same level of information on one key district group: our employees. We care deeply about who you are and what it’s like for you to work in our organization. Getting a better sense of this will help us ensure our staff have the same civil rights’ protections as our students and families, and that we have supports in place for you. You are invited to share your identity, experiences, and perspective with us via a brief survey.
The survey:
is entirely anonymous;
will take less than 10 minutes;
is intended for all Bend-La Pine employees (certified, classified, administrative, and confidential); and
will only be used to gather district-wide trends about our workforce and to identify areas we can better support our most valued resource: you!
Thank you for partnering with us. Please aim to complete this surveyno later than October 29.
Kinsey Martin
Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Title VI Coordinator
Bend-La Pine Schools
She/Her/Ella Orgullosamente Bilingüe
Fall Conferences We know that elementary schools like nothing better than to plan ahead. That said, we are unable at this time to declare that conferences will or will not be in-person or virtual. At this time, we would recommend moving forward, contacting families when you are ready and scheduling conferences, with the understanding that they could all be virtual or they could be in-person with virtual options for families who want them. That way you can have interpreters scheduled, families can plan around the time, and teachers can decide how best to plan for the conference. We want to see what the community spread is during the week of October 15. If we have moved from High or Substantial into Moderate or Low, we would then most likely offer in-person conferences to families open to it.
Staff Meetings:
We currently have 9 staff meetings scheduled for the year. In previous years we had up to 16 scheduled, however some of those were cancelled so I think the most held is probably around 13. During our last leadership meeting we had a discussion about the need for more staff meetings and it came up in two comments in the survey, so I want to dig a little deeper. But first, let me share my intentions.
I am intentionally trying to reduce “staff meeting” time. For several years I have listened to you describe your burn out and watched as your time is continuously eaten away by extraneous factors that have very little to do with your actual job (COVID has only exasperated this impact). One of the most obvious things to reduce is unnecessary meeting time for any organization. My intention has nothing to do with reducing your input or not wanting to hear from you; it is entirely about trying to save your time. Historically many of our meetings run at least twice as long as planned, they are often redundant and frequently address issues that have little to do with teaching and learning. Your time is far too valuable. I cannot remember too many meetings where we can walk away and say we accomplished a lot. Adding meetings is rarely a solution to increasing the quality of any workplace, in fact most often fewer meetings run more effectively can be far more valuable.
I am intentionally trying to increase our time together for purpose and accomplishing work that impacts your effectiveness as a team and as individuals. This can happen through storyline work, culture of care work and professional learning communities. Everything else is a distraction from our profession and it eats away your time. Our Culture of Care team is planning an SIW that will provide this kind of experience. My hope is our leadership team will plan our PLC and EBISS experiences throughout the year that will contribute to this cause. And our times working together on Storyline often contribute to the cohesiveness of our team.
I am also always seeking to increase your individual prep time. The more you can complete in your work day the less you take home. The less you take home, the better you can care for yourself. The better you take care of yourself, the better teacher you can be….and so on.
If I am being completely honest, there are only a handful of staff meetings over the past 6 years that could not have easily been replaced by an email or update. All those other meetings add up to quite a bit of time that could have been put to much better use. Nevertheless I do want to hear back from all of you and I will use this input moving forward. Please take a minute to complete the following survey. Meeting Survey
Regardless of whether or not we add meetings, I want to make it clear that we will not hold a staff meeting or any meeting without a clear purpose and agenda. If you have something you feel needs to be placed on the agenda it must be shared with me no later than the week prior to our meeting.
Lunch Scenerios – I updated this to provide the plan for indoor lunch and outdoor recess once the temps start running below 45 degrees.
Week Preview:
Monday 10/4
Just another manic Monday…oh, whoa, oh
Tuesday 10/5
12:30-1:00 Fire Drill – drill won’t be for the entire half hour, but it will be during this window of time.
Wednesday 10/6
SIW – 1:45- 2:45 – Lexia Workshop
Leveling up our usage.
Increasing our proficiency with using the program to inform instruction for what students need.
Refine strategies for implementing Lexia usage for each grade-level literacy blocks.
Thursday 10/7
2:30-3:15 Leadership
Friday 10/8
Universal Design for Learning in Math Classes
In this article in Mathematics Teacher: Learning & Teaching PK-12, Richard Lambert (University of California/Santa Barbara) describes three math lessons in which teachers used UDL with inclusive groups of students:
• A kindergarten class gathers on the rug as students prepare to measure a sensory path they are designing in the hallway outside their classroom. After discussing measuring tools and how to be a supportive partner, students team up, gather sets of connecting cubes, and get to work. As they count and measure, the teacher circulates, reteaching and clarifying. Before long a student notices that his group’s measurement isn’t the same as another group’s, and the teacher leads a mini-lesson on accuracy in measurement.
• A fifth-grade class is asked to figure out how a family of eight can share six large burritos in a fair and equitable manner. The teacher gives students a moment to think and then lets them choose whether to work in a small group, with a partner, or independently. Students work with manipulatives and supplies, and when they’re finished, they gather and share their strategies with the whole class. The teacher names each strategy and helps students troubleshoot their solutions.
• A ninth-grade class continues its multi-day exploration of functions as two quantities with a relationship. Some students graph data from a video of their classmates throwing balled-up paper into a trashcan. Others graph problems on the online program Desmos. The teacher works with a smaller group doing a paper-and-pencil graph of a function. Near the end of the lesson, the teacher calls the class together, reminds them of the big idea of the day (Functions have multiple representations), and asks, “How did that idea emerge in your work today?” Several students respond, and the class wraps up with students doing a self-evaluation of their work.
The key element in each class was that the teacher’s lesson plan made learning accessible to a wide range of students, including those with disabilities. “Learners vary in how well they see, hear, and move,” says Lambert. “They vary in how well they can remember mathematical facts and their ways of paying attention. Learners vary in their emotional response to mathematics.” The key insight of UDL, he says, is that by planning skillfully around the needs of students with learning differences, teachers can meet the needs of the whole class.
UDL lessons are built on empathy for students’ experiences, says Lambert, with the aim of all students succeeding and becoming expert, strategic, and lifelong learners. He recommends conducting “empathy interviews” to better understand what makes students tick and identify barriers to their accessing learning. Lesson design especially benefits from an understanding of marginalized students – understanding issues around disability, race, gender, language, and other social positionings. “If we as teachers can learn more about the experience of students who are at the margins,” he says, “we can leverage that knowledge to design across differences.”
The researchers who developed the UDL framework proposed that lessons should be designed to target three domains:
• The why of learning – Presenting lessons so learners get engaged and stay challenged, excited, interested, and motivated; key elements:
– A supportive classroom environment: Do students feel safe enough to take risks? (This means deemphasizing speed and accuracy.) Are students building relationships in and through math?
– Meaningful mathematics: Is the math relevant, engaging, and culturally responsive? Do students regularly work in groups and engage in sense-making?
• The what of learning – Presenting information and content in different ways because students differ in how they gather facts and categorize what they see, hear, and read; key elements:
– Focusing on core ideas: Do unit and lesson plans guide students to understand and remember fundamental math ideas?
– Multimodal: Is math content accessible? Can students choose how they solve problems?
• The how of learning – Differentiating the way students show what they have learned; key elements:
– Equitable feedback: Does feedback help students grow as mathematicians? Is assessment appropriate for all learners?
– Understanding oneself as a mathematics learner: What do students learn about themselves as math learners? How do lessons support that development?
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 take a few minutes to try this experiment and complete this survey. I plan to run this on a week by week basis. This can help me support your individual needs as well as identify big picture patterns for future posts or meetings.
From HR:
Priority– We need 100% of your staff to complete the Frontline vaccination form they received via email. If they cannot find the email from Frontline, have them check the “clutter” and “junk” folders, as it has gone to all three places. This survey asks staff to upload their vax card or their waiver form. We will be reviewing staff lists next Friday and notifying you of those staff who have not completed this request. Please provide time or assistance as needed. This is very important. Again 100% participation from every staff member at your school. Please reach out if you have any questions or if you need help with the process.
Week Preview:
Monday 9/27
Another Rad Monday!
Tuesday 9/28
2:30-3:15 Culture of Care – Library
Wednesday 9/29
Staff Meeting 1:15-1:45
Civil Rights Training
SIW – 1:45-3:15
Storyline Time
Thursday 9/30
Friday 10/1
Happy October!
Lunch – Each year we have a number of students finishing really early and a number of students who struggle to finish on time. I assure you we are lining them all up and moving them into their lunch spaces as quickly as we can without it becoming chaotic (and we are trying to limit any time for the different classes to be mixed indoors). For each grade span it takes approximately 3 minutes from the start of the first class to the last class.
The K-1 students go to recess immediately after eating and they don’t seem too interested in having more time, however we can accommodate a few here and there without any trouble, even with the 4-5 students arriving for their lunch time.
The 4-5 students don’t have students transitioning to the mats at the end of their lunch period and instead they are going inside to class, so you have some options;
Solution1 : Teachers can take over the supervision at the end of the lunch time (11:25) and you allow as much time as you see fit, since the 2/3s don’t come for 20 minutes.
Solution 2: Teachers can allow those students who need more time to finish to sit in halls (like snack time) while the rest of your class gets ready.
The 2-3 students seem to finish within their time with a few stragglers, but so far it’s been manageable.
Kids, Inc – Just a heads up, Kids, Inc is looking to hire more staff and increase their spaces. This is a huge need for our parents as we have a very long waiting list. As soon as they get their staff in place, they will be occupying the cafeteria in addition to the gym.
School Site Visits – Just a heads up, Skip and Tammy scheduled regular school site visits for all their schools. Part of each visit will be a focused classroom visit.
EA’s will not be pushing in for literacy blocks on Wednesday’s beginning in October!
We plan on using Wednesdays for PD, planning and progress monitoring. We know this is a tough ask, but it is very much needed to best prepare our EAs and help them be most effective. Thanks for taking this into account for future planning.
Reading Instruction and EAs – There’s quite a bit of discourse about reading instruction and especially the role of our EAs during those assigned times. I am hoping the following guidance can help;
As grade level teams you should be designing your literacy block according to the district Literacy Standards of Practice. Two key component of these standards that might help guide your instructions for EAs are the following;
Lexia (each student will meet units gained goals each week) You will want to have time in your master schedule for this each day. Teachers are expected to pull small groups or confer with students giving feedback that moves learning forward during this time.
students with the most needs are in the smallest groups and are with the teacher frequently
Using our EAs to teach the lessons indicated by Lexia (since Lexia is telling us that student has more needs) would not align with the standards above. It’s an unfair expectation to ask EAs to plan for every grade-level they support, and struggling students need expert support from their teacher.
Here are some examples of EA work that would align with the standards (there are more, but this is starter set).
Monitor other independent reading groups while you provide the direct instruction to a group of students needing more instruction.
Monitor students working on Lexia as they can help ensure the students are maximizing their time on the program.
Monitor students during partner reading or simply their own read alouds.
Facilitate students accessing Newsela, Epic, or Sora while you confer with student(s).
If you have other ideas for how to utilize EAs during their available time run it by me or Kaelynn or Heidi E. Jennifer Fetrow already met with Kaelynn and she is off and running with her plan.
Please remember our EAs have little time for transition between their activities, so it’s imperative you provide some communication up front for them to grab and follow; maybe something like a reading bin with a simple “lesson plan” for them to follow as well as all the supplies they will need or lists of students they will work with. The more this can be provided ahead of time the more time they can spend working with students. I’ve seen some really good examples of this planning in your classrooms in the past when we had parent-volunteers in our rooms.
Lindsley’s Slides from Monday – A really key statement Lindsley made, “Lexia provides for us, what we tried to develop from Dibels”.
Newsela Info –
awesome video clarifying information around student levels and making assignments from the viewpoint of a teacher
You can access Newsela text set links on the grade-level scope & sequences, here.
From Lora re: Educator Network (EN) SIW’s –The district has designated four SIW’s over the course of the school year “Educator Network” SIW’s:
October 13
January 12
February 9
April 20
The purpose of these days is to provide time for four-part district-wide trainings, district PLC meetings, etc. A few examples include content-area meetings for high school language arts and science teachers, training in incorporating strategies to support multilingual students, early literacy best practices, training with Bruce Perry for our student success staff, and an overview of our instructional framework. Three things we want all building leaders to know now:
All certified and building administrative staff (and some classified EA’s) will be required to participate in a strand during the EN SIW’s: this is not individual prep time for any staff. For some staff, a particular strand will be required; for others, choices will be provided.
Most training will be conducted on Webex; a few will be live.
The Teaching and Learning and Student Services departments will be sharing more complete information and training descriptions very soon!
If you have questions, reach out to your level leader, Julie Walker (elementary), or Dean Richards (secondary).
Please check the list for any students in your class (this list contains students already identified and watch-listed). If I mislabeled a student, please let me know. If you have a student with a test score of 97th percentile or above as one piece of evidence, we should be actively collecting the second piece (usually in the form of a teacher referral) of evidence to identify.
The PEP is a collaborative document that should be completed with parent-input. It is ideal to use the first parent-teacher conference to complete this document, however it can also be completed in a separate meeting if requested.
If you ever have a parent request testing for TAG, please be sure to let me know immediately. Just as a reminder, our district primarily uses the following assessments for TAG identification;
SBAC ELA & Math (All 3rd through 5th graders) – these test for academic talent
Naglieri (All 2nd graders & new students to BLP schools) – these test for intellectual ability – This test will be administered in the spring.
SAT-10 (This is an additional test available upon request, for example if a student was really close on SBAC, we can give another shot at the 97th with this test. Format is similar to the SBAC test and requires a fair amount of time to administer.)
Basic message to parents (What we do for TAG identified students.)
“We differentiate to meet the rate and level of all students in the classroom using available curriculum resources, in addition to the open-ended environment of Storyline.” You can, of course, expand on this statement with the specifics of your classroom in regards to how you meet the needs of TAG-identified students. Please see me with any questions.
FYI Ticket: This is a new one for 21/22. Please bookmark this one if you haven’t already! As a reminder, these are to be used for data keeping purposes, not for “writing kids up”. Thanks so much and please ask Heidi if you have any questions.
School Rules Video 2.0 The link I sent you on Friday didn’t work! Hopefully this one does. Thanks!
Week Preview:
Monday 9/20
2:30 Teachers meeting with Lindsley or Julie in Library
Tuesday 9/21
2:30-3:15 Storyline Team Meeting (not sure if this is needed, but I put placeholder just in case)
Wednesday 9/22
SIW – Individual Teacher Prep*
Thursday 9/23
2:30-3:15 Leadership in Library
Friday 9/24
Another day in paradise
*Want to make the most of your teacher prep SIW? Plan ahead, schedule your tasks and time required prior to the afternoon. Don’t let yourself get distracted and don’t distract others. If you are working with your team then hold each other accountable to the timeline. Also, set your firm stop time. This is not the day to stay late. Leave at 3:15 on the dot and practice some self-care – go for a walk, ride, meet up with family or friends or anything that recharges your battery. If you don’t plan it, it will not happen for you.
Lunch-Recess Scenarios – this is all starting to come together more fluidly. I appreciate you taking the time to read through this and helping tweak it for the better for everyone. Thanks again for patience and solution-oriented thinking. We will soon get to a point where the students are running this show like pros…and then the hurricane will hit to send everything into disarray. I plan to paint dots in the next day or two to help keep the spaces set.
The score now;
Lunch=3.5 Us=4.5 We’re getting the upper hand!
Safety Team Meeting Notes – This document will show our agendas and meeting notes for anyone interested.
From Walt and Rob – The Custodial team would like to share some insight into cleaning and the Pandemic:
According to the CDC, “The fomite transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is low compared to direct contact, droplet transmission, or airborne transmission.” As we understand this variant is airborne and surface contamination is a low priority. The updated School Cleaning Protocol is found at Bend-La Pine Schools COVID-19 Cleaning Protocols. The protocol also states that, “Each classroom in our schools will be provided with approved cleaning products by the custodial staff. “ We will keep providing equipment whether its spray solution and micro fiber in each cleaning station with flat mops, solution to dip in, spray bottles and rags, or having both. This will provide your staff with the products to disinfect if needed in their classroom.
The custodial team will try their best with the resources available to go above their regular cleaning schedule and sanitize the high touch spots. We are putting more effort into your high traffic areas, bathrooms, hallways, commons etc.
If there is district approved product or cleaning equipment your staff needs let your Head Custodian know so we can provide that for you to make your team successful.
Chairs up – Starting next week please have your students put chairs up at the end of each day. This will help Tim access the floors more effectively. It’s also good to ensure there is an accessible outlet for the vacuum plug. Zach is spraying the tables in the mornings as long as they are free of paper. Please make sure the tables are clear if you want them sprayed.
TLC Update – These are a “must read” for all teachers. I will try not to repeat the same information so I can keep my updates shorter; please don’t skip theirs.
Sniffles – When do I consider asking the office to call home for a child? – from Michelle
It is that time of year and we need to know what to look for during COVID. A rule of thumb is to watch the mask. If a student is constantly wiping their nose, blowing their nose or needing to change their mask, then it’s time to call home. If a student has a sniffle but is not blowing their nose and their mask is secure, it is probably OK.
Five Questions to Help Decide on Priorities for the Year
In this Edutopia article, Jenn David-Lang (The Main Idea) says that after an exceptionally scattered 18 months dealing with the pandemic, educators need to be focused on no more than three key priorities for 2021-22. Why three? According to Chris McChesney, with 4-10 priorities, we’re likely to achieve only one or two with quality, and with ten or more, we won’t accomplish anything of significance. Steve Jobs famously led an annual retreat in which Apple’s top leaders narrowed possible initiatives to ten – and then Jobs theatrically crossed out the bottom seven and declared that resources would be devoted only to the top three.
How to choose a school’s Big Three? Drawing on her extensive reading, David-Lang suggests asking these questions about each competing initiative:
• How much impact will it have on student learning and well-being? Among the practices with the best research track record: professional collaboration, collective teacher efficacy, formative assessments, feedback, a clear curriculum, student collaboration, Response to Intervention (RTI), and high-impact teaching strategies like nonfiction writing.
• Can it have an impact within three months? “People need small wins now more than ever,” says David-Lang. There are strategies to quickly improve staff morale and reduce suspensions, chronic absenteeism, and failure rates.
• Does it address our school’s most pressing needs? To zero in on those, the leadership team should look at test scores, attendance, course passing rates, students’ reading levels and algebra readiness, and insights gathered in surveys, focus groups, one-on-one conversations, and observations.
• Does it piggyback on existing initiatives, strengths, and school values? “The path to success is often faster and easier when it’s built on what you already do well,” says David-Lang. “Lots of schools found successful new approaches during the pandemic that they want to build on.”
• How much will it affect other aspects of the school? Charles Duhigg (in his book The Power of Habit) describes the way certain “keystone habits” (for example, families eating dinner together) have a positive effect on other behaviors. This suggests being very strategic in choosing initiatives that serve as catalysts for other variables within a school. “For example,” says David-Lang, “if you choose to focus on absenteeism as one of your priorities, that would impact engagement (students can’t be engaged if they’re not attending), learning (they can’t learn if they’re missing classes), and staff morale (teachers question their worth when students don’t show up).”
“The Value of Limiting Your Priorities for the School Year” by Jenn David-Lang in Edutopia, September 10, 2021; David-Lang can be reached at [email protected].
Education Appreciation Days at Autzen
The Oregon Ducks are hosting two upcoming Education Appreciation Days at Autzen Stadium. To thank you for everything you and your staff do, we’re offering a 30% off discount for you, your friends and your family to see the #4-ranked Ducks football team play this Fall in the best stadium in college sports. This discount can be used at the September 18th game against Stony Brook and/or the October 30th game against Colorado.
Follow this link HERE to access your exclusive discount, or go to www.goducks.com and buy tickets using the code “2021EDU”! Please feel free to share this opportunity with your staff, friends and family.
Thank you for all your understanding and support as we have been working though some kinks due to the air quality and rain. Our systems will only get better as time goes on!
It’s been really great seeing you all building community and relationships with your classes. Please let me know if you need anything at all to support your efforts towards creating a “culture of care”. Looking for some SEL ideas? If so, here is a free SEL curriculum! Harmonysel.org. It looks like the third addition is coming out this fall. As a reminder, I have lots of resources as well that I am happy to share!
Interested in being on the Culture of Care Team? Let me know! So far I have Susie, Cat, Michelle and Shelly. We will meet on the last Tuesday of each month. Thank you!!!
Lunch-Recess Scenarios – plans for lunch-recess, smoke, rain, fire, ice and central oregon crocodiles.
Week Preview:
Monday 9/13
New day, new week!!
Tuesday 9/14
2:30-3:15 Safety Team Meeting – Library
7:00-8:00 PTO General Meeting – WebEx
Wednesday 9/15
SIW – 1:45-3:15 Storyline
Yom Kippur starts at sundown.
Thursday 9/16
Yom Kippur
Friday 9/17
8:30am – First Fire Drill
Monday 9/20 – 2:30 Either Lindsley or Julie will be here for about a 10 minute meeting with staff.
RSSL Cheat Sheet – click here to see some details on RSSL guidelines. A lot of questions coming up are very clearly addressed by this nifty document – please take some time to read it.
Equity and LEAD Cohort:
Equity is important to me as your leader. Our building’s equity work takes many forms, and each of you is involved in different ways. One way we know is critical for sustainability is to involve students–to have productive conversations with students around equity issues, and to make thoughtful steps forward as a team, so we can learn together as a community. To help us with that, our district’s LEAD Cohort has developed some awesome resources. Each certified teacher, please complete the following during September:
– Review the website of resources with your grade-level team/department;
– Select one of the “Tier I” strategies you will commit to implementing in your class in September;
– Be prepared to share your implementation and reflections at a staff meeting this fall;
– Reach out to myself or our LEAD Cohort representative (Marieka Greene) with any questions!
TLC Update – Please take the time to read these updates.
SEL Concerns Ticket – Here is a link to the SEL concerns ticket mentioned earlier this week. This should be included in the update each week, but you can also bookmark it in your own browser. I will add the FYI Tickets link next week.
Week Preview:
Monday 9/6
Labor Day – enjoy the day doing anything but work!
Tuesday 9/7
Wednesday 9/8
First Day of School
Staggered start for K
Thursday 9/9
Staggered start for K
Leadership Meeting 2:30-3:15
Friday 9/10
First Day All Kindergarten
Monday 9/20 – 2:30 Either Lindsley or Julie will be here for about a 10 minute meeting with staff.
Special Visitors on Campus – Dr. Cook, Dr. Nordquist and School Board members will be visiting campuses during the first few weeks of school. There is no specific schedule, so this is just a heads up they may be dropping by. We are not requested to do anything differently, so just carry on with our day when they come by.
RSSL Cheat Sheet – click here to see some details on RSSL guidelines. A lot of questions coming up are very clearly addressed by this nifty document – please take some time to read it.
Beginning Year Meetings – I decided to wait for our SLGG guidance prior to setting these up – stay tuned.
Lexia and Dreambox – These are crucial pieces to our instruction for reading and math. It will be important to start off using these programs during the first weeks of school. Please be sure to plan in the time for students to utilize the program. Reach out to Kaeylnn and/or Heidi Evans for ideas on how to implement.
Music/PE Calendars – find your calendar and it will have your music and PE days for the entire year. We will stick to this pattern for the year. Snow days will simply be lost days and we will not change the schedule for an occasional snow day.
Meeting schedule – I would still consider this in draft form but there’s a fairly-well mapped out calendar for our different team meetings. Our school-site SIWs will be scheduled in the coming weeks as we balance the needs of Storyline, PLC, and Culture of Care teams.
Library – shows the booked times as well as when it is open.
Transitions – I am still working on this one, but it does have the bell times throughout the day.
Highland Teams:
Leadership – Team is composed of ICCLs, Heidi, Shawna and Me. This team will support and facilitate the school’s work of professional learning communities toward continuous school improvement, teacher effectiveness, and increased student achievement.
Culture of Care – The focus for this team is the continuous improvement of our trauma-informed practices, SEL, and PBIS strategies.
Storyline – Plan and implement on-going professional development for Storyline.
Safety – Monthly meetings to address safety concerns as they arise and think proactively about maintaining a safe teaching and learning environment.
See me if you have questions.
Number Line – If our painter does not come back over the weekend, I will put the numbers out on Tuesday with sidewalk chalk.
16 – Wittwer
15 – Martinson
14 – Vickery
13 – Fetrow
12 – Sacamano
11 – Glogau
10 – Green
9 – Yeager-Woock
8 – Hildebrand
7 – Eriksson/Greene
6 – Reisinger
5 – Wright
4 – Howard
3 – Henry
2 – Chambers
1 – Watt
Meals – Yoga mats arrived today and we will have those cut and ready to go on Wednesday. I also plan to have some chairs stored just inside room 14 and the entry to the gym in case we need to use a chair instead. It will be nice to have some options. I expect the first few days to be a bit challenging as we all work through the transitions, but I encourage you to be patient and let things settle in.
Approved Volunteers Approved volunteers provide a service to students during the school day. New as of today–no approved volunteers until the district has a system to document the vaccination status of all volunteers. We hope to have this up and running in the coming weeks. The only exceptions to this are Teaching Candidates and their supervisors from OSU Cascades and George Fox, volunteers with Friends of the Children who need access to the students they support, and Camp Tamarack, who will provide “outdoor school” on sites this fall. Sorry for this inconvenience. (volunteers who will be approved once the documentation is in place will be: Commute Options, Bend Science Station, OSU Nutrition program, Dental screening)
At this time, after school programs, not run by the school or happening during the school day, like Raices, Camp Fire, Good News, LEGO Robotics, and others can take place in the school if they have put in a room reservation form and agree to follow and enforce the guidelines of wearing a mask and social distancing (3 feet unless eating which is 6 feet).
DIBELs teams are hired by the ESD and are approved to be there during the day as well.
Field Trips – You are probably already aware of this, but all field trips including walking field trips cannot be approved at this time. Hopefully this will change in the future, but right now it is very clear “no”.
No Designated Bathrooms – we do not need to have designated bathrooms for your classes this year. Masking and 3-foot distancing applies to the use of any common space or room. Group-sends to the bathroom are discouraged to reduce chances of overcrowding.
Kids, Inc. – we just got word that we will be hosting Kids, Inc and they will be setting up on Tuesday. As of right now they are only asking for the gym space. From my conversation with Skip today, it sounds like there is more alignment between the child-care program guidance and school guidance regarding COVID, which will be helpful. As for the concerns about the differences in school rules versus Kids, Inc rules, I will work with Bend Park and Rec staff to ensure some of the most important boundaries are observed; however I want to be clear that I intend to honor the fact that it is a different program for a different purpose; not an extension of school. As for any future concerns that come up this program or any program for that matter, please make sure you are communicating those to me privately. We need to maintain professional boundaries and avoid public criticism or complaints about other programs or their people.
From Tami Pike re: Contact tracing– Teachers, if there is a positive case in your class, middle and high schools will be receiving an email from a contact tracer or nurse requesting information about whether masks were worn consistently during the class and they will be requesting a seating chart to identify any close contacts. The expectation is that teachers will respond to emails asap (we understand that they are teaching classes) – ideally before 5pm on the same day. If we do not receive a reply by 10am the next day, we will assume that students consistently wore masks and were at least 3 feet apart. We do not have the capacity to track teachers down to get this information.
*Elementary schools will be a bit different and we will more than likely be doing in-person interviews.
FERPA This is just a friendly reminder to remember our FERPA guidelines. FERPA is the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. This means that we should not be emailing personal student information directly to others. If you need to reference a student in an email, emails may only use one qualifier when describing a student. For example, Last name only or their school ID only. When using a student’s last name and teacher name, that is too much information. If you want to share student records or documents with people, using google docs or BLS Send is the best way to assure that the guidelines are followed.
Masking – Please remember to keep your mask on at all times when around anyone in the building. You may remove your mask when alone in your room or office, but always have it ready in case somebody walks in. You also may remove it when eating, so long as 6-feet distance is maintained.
Teachers’ Lounge- It is acceptable to eat in this room if you can maintain 6 feet from others, however it is important to remember that it is a windowless room and ventilation may not be as effective as the classrooms. Given the size and limitations of the room, eating outside is probably preferable. The center courtyard will not be used for student lunches, so that’s a great option for you. You will also have your classrooms free during lunch when we are outside.
Kitchen Duty – Thank you, Ashley, for making a schedule to stay on top of keeping the teachers’ lounge clean and neat. Please remember to wash your own dishes. If you need to soak something please soak in your own sink in the classroom. Kitchen duty should involve emptying the dishwasher, ensuring it’s run when it’s full, and tidying up the counter and tables. Kitchen duty is not intended to do the dishes for others. If you are not comfortable participating in this duty, then please let me or Ashley know and we’ll switch you out.
Targeted Remote Learning – I don’t have a checklist for you yet, but keep this concept in mind to build up your plan. Hopefully by preparing we can avoid it and not need the plan.
iPad Insurance and AUP – Here are the English versions of the iPad insurance form and the AUP. We submitted both for translation but as of today we haven’t received them back. As soon as those come in we will send them out in a separate email. Please remember, purchasing iPad insurance is not mandatory for a child to receive an iPad. However, if a family doesn’t want to pay the high cost of iPad repair due to damage or loss, purchasing the Bend-La Pine Schools’ iPad insurance will be in their best interest. The AUP should be distributed to 3rd grade, 6th grade, and 9th grade students as well as new students to your school. Cross your fingers that we have a digital solution for the AUP next year. This is a priority for the department.
A reminder from Lora – Because we have families making inquiries, I thought it would be helpful for you to remind all administrators of state requirements regarding the Pledge of Allegiance. Please share this language in your blogs:
ORS 339.875 Procurement, display and salute of flags.
(1) Each district school board shall:
(b) Provide students with the opportunity to salute the United States flag at least once each week of the school year by reciting: “I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
(2) Students who do not participate in the salute provided for by this section must maintain a respectful silence during the salute. [Formerly 332.100 and then 336.045 and then 336.630; 1999 c.137 §1]
I am always looking for silver linings, so here’s a quick fresh perspective on masking;
Putting a Positive Spin on Wearing Masks in School
In this New York Times article, Judith Danovitch (University of Louisville) acknowledges parents’ and educators’ concern that masks in school may compromise children’s ability to learn language and socialize. It’s certainly true that masks have been “inconvenient, uncomfortable, and bothersome,” she says, but cites five reasons not to worry.
• “Children in cultures where caregivers and educators wear head coverings that obscure their mouths and noses develop skills just as children in other cultures,” says Danovitch. “Even congenitally blind children – who cannot see faces at all – still learn to speak, read, and get along with other people.”
• There’s evidence that wearing a mask in school can improve some social-emotional and cognitive skills, including self-control and paying attention. When they can’t see people’s mouths, students need to pay more attention to their eyes (already an important source of cues), as well as prosody, gestures, and context to understand what’s being said. “A classroom full of people wearing masks,” says Danovitch, “is a great opportunity for children to practice paying attention to those cues, such as a peer’s tone of voice or a teacher’s body language.”
• Wearing a mask all day teaches self-control and self-regulation. Younger children have to resist the urge to pull the mask off, and everyone needs to monitor the position of their masks and know when it’s okay to take it off. “For children who habitually bite their nails or pick their nose,” says Danovitch, “a mask could also be precisely what they need to kick the habit.”
• Mask wearing gives students important insights on how germs spread from person to person. The counterintuitive notion that invisible particles coming out of a person’s mouth can transmit a disease is being driven home to everyone during the pandemic.
• Wearing masks can make children feel part of a community effort to bring the coronavirus under control. “Stressing that the discomfort and inconvenience of mask wearing are forms of generosity and public service,” says Danovitch, “might motivate children to address other social problems in their lives – like bullying.”
“We now have the opportunity not to just reimagine schooling or try to reform injustice but to start over. Starting over is hard but not impossible; we now have a skeleton of a playbook. It starts with creativity, teacher-student relationships, and teacher autonomy.”
Start-Up Week Schedule (Please note changes from last update);
Monday 8/30
New Teacher Orientation Day
Tuesday 8/31
8:00-8:15 Breakfast – All Highland Staff
8:15-???? District Welcome Back Watch Party in Gym – All Highland Staff
????-10:00 Highland Team work – All Highland Staff
1:00-3:00 Trees Storyline work with Colleen
Wednesday 9/1
8:00-8:30 Coffee Talk – All Highland Staff
8:30-10:00 Welcome Back Meeting – All Highland Staff
2:15-3:15 Safety Team Meeting – Library – Safety team only
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 – See description below.
Friday 9/3
Flex Day – See Link below for Work Calendar
Grade Level Meetings – It would be a good idea for me to sit with each grade level to run through the schedule. Please have somebody from your team reach out and give me a couple options that would work best for your team. I would anticipate 30 minutes to complete this task with each group.
RSSL Cheat Sheet – click here to see some details on RSSL guidelines. Tammy put this together for us and it will be updated every now and then.
Speed Dating – In an effort to reduce and control biases, we will discontinue the speed-dating practice. Conversations focussed mostly on the supports needed (AKA student weaknesses) run a strong risk of creating a Golum effect which is the opposite of the Pygmalian effect. Every time we put deficit labels on a child we increase the likelihood of perceiving those deficits in their performance. This well-documented psychological effect applies to academics and behavior and we need to take every step to stop or even reverse it when possible. Trust your colleagues to get to know the students and do what’s best for them in the present rather than the past. Please feel free to come talk to me if you have any further questions about this matter.
2021-2022 Work Calendar for Certified Staff- click here.
2021-2022 Work Calendar for Classified Staff – click here.
Beginning Year Meetings – I will be sharing a link soon to sign up for a beginning year meeting with me. To be prepared for this meeting, think about your own goals in the areas of self-care and classroom instruction. I am also hoping to get our SLGG guidance prior to this meeting so we can get those started off on the right track.
New Team Members:
Emily Jordan will be joining our team this year as an EA. Emily worked at the Montessori setting since 2007 and she’s ready for a change. Her children, Javin and Ruby will be with us as well.
Stephanie Greene (sorry, gecko not included) is another new team member joining us. Stephanie fulfilled a variety of similar roles at Buckingham over the past few years. I am excited for you to meet her.
Also, if you have not already heard, Nicole Kalberg will be rejoining us courtesy of special programs.
Kindergarten Open House
Kinder families only.
Food is discouraged for these kinds of events, so we cannot serve ice-cream bars. Sad face.
Families should plan on attending during a 40-minute window based on the first letter of their last name;
3:00-3:40 A – G
3:40-4:20 H – M
4:20-5:00 N – Z
3 canopies will be set up outside to make it easy for parents to find their kindergarten teacher. Then students and parents can meet their teacher at the canopy and then take a quick tour of the building to see the rooms. Hopefully we can enlist the rest of you to help out with these tours. We will need to keep them moving and keep the number limited, so that’s why we need some tour guides.
Due to the most recent mandate from Governor Brown we will need to hold this entire event masked, but it’s still a great opportunity to connect with our new families.
2021-2022 Master Schedule – click here. I feel like this is ready to be released, but please know I continue to update and tweak it. If you notice something off please feel free to let me know so I can correct it.
Common Elementary Work Hours – 7:15am-3:15pm
Meals – Our students will be eating outside unless we are forced inside by nature. All students will pick up their food in the cafeteria. We ordered enough yoga mats to provide 80 seats on the ground and we can also provide chairs in the courtyard and the area behind the school. If we are forced inside they will be eating in the classroom according to an assigned seating chart. Next week when you have your class lists, please plan on creating a seating chart that seats the majority of the students in your classroom 6-feet apart. Place the remaining students in the hall spaced out 6-feet. We will need a copy of your seating chart in the office when it’s done.
Coming to work sick or symptomatic – pure and simple, DON’T! This was a topic heavily discussed by our Return to School Team, as there have been several cases already in which adults have come to work with “allergies” or a “cold” and eventually found out it was really Covid, unknowingly spreading it to others. This has to be a tight practice.
Sub situation – The ESD reported that they added some additional subs but the sub situation still is not what it was a couple years ago. We will be hiring 5 additional district subs which will help but it won’t nearly solve the shortage issue. We’ve been instructed to come up with contingency plans for coverage.
Targeted Remote Learning – We will take some time to talk about this on Wednesday, but this will be our response if we need to quarantine any classes due to a localized situation. We are putting together a guide with resources to help your teams develop your own response.
Furniture – although the situation is much improved, we still have a lot of excess furniture being moved around and stored in our buildings. If you have any personal (non-school-provided) furniture items that are not being used in your classroom please arrange to take them back home. Our space is simply too limited to store anything that does not belong to the school/district. Please let me know if you need some help getting these items moved out.
K-5 Instructional Tech – One page doc with most important tech tools. Especially useful for our new team members.
From Jackie Wilson our Sustainability Coordinator – A small team of staff can join or the whole school as a team to complete challenges. It should not take more than an hour to complete.
If the school is interested, the game runs from 8 am August 30 – 12 pm September on 3. It is through a mobile app called GooseChase. The winning team will receive a great prize.
Participants can join the game by following these simple steps:
1. Download the GooseChase iOS or Android app.
2. Choose to play as a guest, or register for a personal account with a username & password of your choice.
3. Search for and select the Elementary School sustainability Challenge game, or search by game code ZM8BKQ.
Please let me know the name of the staff member interested in serving as the sustainability advisor. Our first virtual Sustainability coordinator meeting will be Wednesday, September 22.
High Desert Museum Event
Given the rising COVID numbers we’ve made the decision to move Teachers’ Night Out on October 7th to a virtual ONLY experience.
We will be sending out more information nest week. The date for the event has not changed.
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:
