{"id":555,"date":"2020-02-21T17:37:25","date_gmt":"2020-02-21T17:37:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bend.k12.or.us\/brian.kissell\/?p=555"},"modified":"2020-02-21T17:37:25","modified_gmt":"2020-02-21T17:37:25","slug":"2-21-20-weekly-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bend.k12.or.us\/brian.kissell\/2020\/02\/21\/2-21-20-weekly-update\/","title":{"rendered":"2\/21\/20 Weekly Update"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

6!  <\/strong>Six is the number of times I have walked out my office door straight into Shawna (Sory Shawna)\u2026.still working on getting used to the new office layout.  Change is hard…especially when you hit your toes on those chair wheels!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MAC Day – Monday 2\/24<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Message from Eileen: Our Winter MAC survey day is scheduled for next Monday, February 24th. This is the day that your work with our students around any medical, mental health, dental, vision, substance abuse or connections to OHP can generate funds for our district. Please start thinking about any students that may need these connections or have had these connections, but need to be followed up on.\u00a0 More, lots more, tons more, you’ll be so tired of hearing about MAC more, later.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Welcome, Shahayla Evans! <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Please join me in welcoming Shahayla Evans to our team.  Shahayla will be leaving us for awhile to have her baby at some point in the spring, but we look forward to her being a part of the Highland family upon her return.  Be sure to go downstairs and introduce yourself when you get an opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SIW and Staff Meetings<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I made some adjustments to the staff meeting times so they did not fall on the Storyline SIWs.  These are reflected on the master schedule document and calendar. The good news for those of you who prefer consistency is we are starting at 1:30 every Wednesday through the end of the year.  I also need to point out that this format creates a long gap due to conferences, vacations, etc between meetings (similar to the gap in the fall). As always, I reserve the right to cancel if there is no pressing need to meet and give you that time back.  If you feel there is something that needs to be on a staff meeting agenda, be sure to let me know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sibling Conferences – Due to this long gap we will not have a staff meeting at an ideal time to schedule sibling conferences.  My suggestion is that you use some of the individual teacher prep day on Wednesday 3\/18 to accomplish this task with each other.  If anyone has a better idea, let me know, but if I don\u2019t hear from anyone this will be our plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BrainPOP – <\/strong>Thanks to Cami and Evette Nishikawa our BrainPOP is back, baby!  The account is reactivated for free for the rest of the year. Evette is working with the district and the hope is that this resource might get included in our apps next year, but for now, you have continued access for the remainder of the year.  If you would like to meet with Evette and get a quick refresher, let me know and we\u2019ll do our best to find the time to make this happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Core Effectiveness Meetings – <\/strong>thank you for taking the time on Tuesday to work on the core effectiveness documents.  I did a quick read-through on each of them for my own learning. The following thoughts came to mind that I would like to share with the whole group; <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Don\u2019t skip the celebrations<\/strong>.  When you think of a graph of Performance versus Growth, our students are all in that upper-right quadrant with high performance and high growth.  <\/li>
  2. Keep the focus on the whole group.<\/strong>  What\u2019s working for everyone (students)?  And what needs to be tweaked in order to work smarter, not harder?  EBISS will focus on the interventions for the at-risk students, but this process is about what is working on a global scale.<\/li>
  3. Be sure you share strategies that work.  <\/strong>This is really your only apples-to-apples comparison between your classes.  If one of you is struggling ask what your teammates are doing differently. If one of you is feeling particularly successful with a particular strategy, then share.  It\u2019s not a competition between classes, it\u2019s a method to improve learning for the entire grade level. (I know you are pretty good at this, but just in case you need a little prompting\u2026.)<\/li>
  4. Keep it simple and short. <\/strong> I did not use SIW time for these meetings for the very specific purpose of imposing a time limit.  Don\u2019t dwell on things too much. You have the skills and you are surrounded by supportive colleagues and you are already doing great work.  If we use this process well, it will provide a support system for new team members in the future or some of those particularly challenging groups of students who come through from time to time.<\/li>
  5. Learning is not a finite game. <\/strong> There is no finish line; in fact, the finish line keeps moving away.  Because of this, it is often difficult to feel like you are \u201cwinning\u201d, but if our job could ever be simplified to a win versus lose paradigm,  know that you won. Even on the roughest day of the school year, you already won the moment you stepped out of bed to come here. Every now and then throw your arms up in the air (like you just don\u2019t care) and claim it – you deserve it!<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    These meetings and the documents will be a topic at a future leadership meeting, so if you have some suggestions pass them along to your rep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    2020-2021 Master Schedule<\/strong> – Most feedback\/questions\/concerns with the schedule for next year seem to be centered on reading intervention timing.  There might be some potential changes to intervention times for some, but this can likely be accomplished without major changes to the overall schedule.  I have not heard from every grade level yet, so reps please be sure to check in with me if you have not already.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    SBAC Training Modules –<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n