Bronco Notes

December 1 SIW- Our SIW on December 1 will be a writing PLC. We will meet in the library and sit in grade levels to work on writing. Your focus should be one of the four PLC questions (What do we expect students to learn? How will we know if they learn? How do we respond if students experience difficulty learning? How do we respond when students do learn?). We are not dictating which question your team will be working on, only that it be around writing. You might be planning the next unit by identifying the power standards addressed in that unit or determining the success criteria for meeting those standards. You might be grading student papers from an end of unit writing assessment. Others might be looking at assessment data to determine which students met the success criteria and which didn’t, and determining what to do with students who did or did not meet the standard. The only thing you need to do to prepare is to determine beforehand what you will be working on and what you agree to have done as a team before December 1.

Staff Partay!!- December 11th from 3pm-5pm at Trampoline Zone/Pickle Ball Zone, 63040 NE 18th St, Bend, OR 9770, 541-323-3040 (Lounge is booked from 3pm-6pm) $15.00/per person. Please sign up and pay by Friday, 11/12 (or ASAP). Staff, significant others and children are invited.

There will be a no-host bar and pizza to eat. A pickle ball pro will be on hand (see below) to instruct those that have never played before. The total cost is $288 for the courts and $60 for the pickle ball pro. Pizza’s are $10/per person. (because we are eating pizza they will cook they are waving the rental fee on the lounge) We will start out with 5 pizza’s and order more as we need them so they will be hot. Children can come up and grab a slice or buy food at the cafe downstairs. Total is $448 for the courts, pro & 5 pizzas to start. I need to put 1/2 down as a deposit. We have 46 staff – that is $9.73/per person – let’s pad that a little and say $15/per person would cover the night.

Title Reading- Each week, our Title team administers progress monitoring to around 100 students. The team thanks you in advance for helping them with this by allowing your students to leave if/when a Title team member comes to get a student for progress monitoring. The total time it takes for a student is only about 3 minutes so they won’t miss much for this very important check.

EBISS- We are going to suspend EBISS for the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas break. We will pick it up again in January. The new dates will be on the master meeting schedule.

Holiday Fun at Buckingham- Thanks to Becky for preparing a feast of fun holiday activities for us upon our return.

From Jennifer Hauth- Director of SEL- Are you currently using social emotional learning (SEL) curriculum or strategies in your classroom or school building? Please take a moment to apply to be on our SEL steering committee by Friday, December 3rd. We are looking for certified, classified and administrators to serve on the team. Student and family input will be part of the process as well. We will meet monthly beginning in mid-December.

SEL Steering Committee Survey

We made it! Here’s to good food, good company and a well deserved week away from work. We are thankful to get to work with such a dedicated, caring, hard working, group of professionals that call Buckingham their home away from home. Thanks for all you do.

Find below some of the things in “Red” from our bosses:

From Jackie Wilson – Here are the Standard Operating Procedures for Holiday Shutdowns. Please see that these can be done before you break for the week okk.  Holiday shut down – As the Thanksgiving break is upon us, please help remind staff that they are responsible for shutting down all classroom electronics at the power strip to prevent unnecessary energy use over the holiday and to empty and unplug any mini-fridges. The Standard Operating Procedure (Holiday SOP) is attached to review.

Technology Support–from Brenna  The instructional technology department has created this easy one-page document, complete with hyperlinks, outlining where to find specific support around technology questions.  Please share it with your staff. 

Employee Assistance Program (EAP)– Please share this with your staff.  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 Reliant Behavioral Health (RBH).  The services they offer at no cost to Bend La-Pine School district staff members (minus substitute teachers) are outlined below.  

Counseling Resources

• 24- hour Crisis Help
• In-Person Counseling
• Telephonic Counseling
• Online Consultations

Work-Life Resources

• Childcare Resources
• Adult/Eldercare Resources
• Financial Services
• Legal Services
• Mediation Services
• Online Legal Forms
• Home Ownership Programs
• Identity Theft Services

The counseling resources come with three visits in a rolling calendar year with the possibility of additional visits on a case-by-case situation as determined by a RBH.  The goal is to offer counseling services for single focused short term mental health.  

To find out more about your EAP, schedule a counseling appointment, or access services call RHB at 866-750-1327 or visit MyRBH.com to find out more.  Access Code is OEBB.  You can also access EAP information on the portal as well as this  flyer about EAP services.  Thanks, the  HR Benefits Team ([email protected])

Upcoming Events

November 22-26- Thanksgiving Break- No School

December 1- SIW- Writing PLC

December 7- Fire Drill- 12:55

December 7- Staff Meeting

December 8- SIW- STEM

December 11- Staff Party- Trampoline pickle zone

December 15- SIW- Teacher Prep

Finally, today, a little nostalgia for us Oregonians. This is played during all the Oregon football games with the video on the big screen and 55,000 fans singing along. Enjoy!

Bronco Book Award- Please be sure to enter a weekly Bronco Buck Book winner. Thanks to Bridget for keeping up on this and making sure these students get a fantastic book to call their own.

PLC document- One more thanks to the PLC team for their work on our SIW. Please let us know if your team needs any help completing the template during your twice monthly meetings. As you will recall, the first question for PLC’s is, “What do we want students to learn?” This question is really asking about a learning target, a learning goal, and objective… whatever you want to call it. The importance of learning targets can’t be overstated. Hard for anyone to learn something if they don’t know what they are learning. Learning targets should be clearly communicated to students throughout a lesson. Students should know what the target is. As such, Jon and I will be looking for learning targets when we do mini observations and will include questions about learning targets during our post conferences.

SLGG’s and Eval’s- We thought it important to link one more time information about slgg’s and eval.’s that was reviewed at our staff meeting Tuesday. Please let us know if you have any questions.

College Day- Next Friday is college day. Sport the gear of your favorite college or your alma mater. We still do not have word on whether or not ‘oregon state’ gear counts as a college.

ILLNESS REPORTING- All district staff are required to report illness to their supervisor, particularly COVID-19 primary symptoms, exposure, a positive test result, or a directive to quarantine or isolate. Supervisors must pass on reports of primary COVID-19 symptoms, exposures, and positive cases to the Health Services Team for follow-up investigation.

In addition to reporting to their supervisor, staff can also report their status via this new tool:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScLC1rRILWcqZSTu3RyJOA68L9AVR7vKudyhJi75Q07utINow/viewform

We’ll end today with a little history lesson. Thanks to our veterans.

Upcoming Events

November 17- Kindergarten EBISS

November 17- SIW- Teacher Preparation

November 19- College Day

November 19- Fire Drill- 1:35

November 22-26- Thanksgiving Break- No School

The new header picture is brought to you by the sunrise over Buckingham earlier this week. Benefits of students arriving at dark. 🙂

Staff Meeting Change- We are moving the staff meeting scheduled for November 16 to November 9. There are a couple of time sensitive items we would like to cover and it will free up an afternoon the week before Thanksgiving.  One of the things we will be covering at the meeting are this year’s guidelines around mini observations, eval.’s and slggs.

Arrival Change- Beginning Monday, we will be making a change to our arrival procedure. As mentioned in previous notes, the start of the day has been moved up 5 minutes this year, from 7:45 to 7:40. Last year we picked students up five minutes before the official start to the day. Students, including bus riders, did not arrive to school until 7:30, so they only had to wait in line for 10 minutes.  In order to provide more time before school for teachers we decided to not move up the time you greet students, but leave it at 7:40. Buses arrive and drop off at 7:20 each morning, meaning that some students wait in line for a full 20 minutes before going inside. While we thought it was worth a try, after two months we realize that is a lot to expect of students, so we are going to ask that you pick students up in line at 7:35. Thank you for your cooperation.

Bronco Spirit- PBIS team has been hard at work thinking of ways to increase our Bronco spirit. Beginning next week, every Friday is Bronco Blue Day! Wear your blue, wear your t-shirt, wear your Buckingham gear. Our 5th grade leadership team (more on that another time) will be planning spirit days on Friday’s throughout the year to switch it up a little and keep it fresh! See you in Blue next Friday.

Recruiting- We currently have two positions open at Buckingham. District Title I dollars had more carry over than years past due to being in person for only 1/2 the year, so we are able to post a 5 hour Title EA position. In addition, SPED is posting a .5 EA for Buckingham. If you know anyone who might be interested and have the skills we need, let us know.

From Skip and Tammy:

Each week, we get a blog from our bosses. They have begun to give us a few things each week that .. “definitely have to be shared with your staff.” Below items come from the principal blog to you:

From Scott Bojanowski-

As a reminder, the following are Standard Response Protocols: Lockout, Secure, Evacuate, Shelter, and Hold. In Bend-LaPine, we use the I Love U Guys Foundation program. 

We now need to provide the full one-hour training to new employees and any staff that may have missed the full training this fall, or anyone that just wants the full training as a refresher. Any new hires since January 2021 need to attend one of the training dates below, between now and May 2022. These training dates are in PD Place on the portal for sign-up and they will receive one hour of professional development for attending.  Please contact your new hires and have them sign up for one of the following trainings.

WHEN:  Choose one of the following dates:  11/10, 12/8, 1/12, 2/9, 3/9, 4/6, 5/11

WHEN:  3:00-4:00, one hour in-person

WHERE:  Ed Center room 314

Amazon Shopping – Because of some inappropriate material that has started appearing on Amazon we are blocking the Amazon shopping website for students.  This will only apply for students so teachers and staff will still be able to access the site. 

Flu Shots – please remind staff about flu shots.  Maybe post the shot schedule in several spots in your building. Let’s try to keep our staff healthy and at work.

Upcoming Events

November 9- Staff Meeting- 2:30- Library

November 10- 1st Grade EBISS- 1:00- 1st grade classroom

November 10- SIW- 1:45- Library

November 11- Veterans’ Day- No School

November 19- Fire Drill- 1:35

November 22-26- Thanksgiving Break- No School

It’s been a long couple of days. We are going to keep notes short for you so you can begin the recovery early. 🙂

Conferences- Thank you for all of the time, effort, thought, energy and commitment you put into conferences. We realize how mentally draining they are. You are, after all, talking with people about the MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD TO THEM- their kids. We’ve heard so many positives from parents. It’s been a testament to the great job you are doing. Thank you. We appreciate it.

Websites- Third and first grade have both created fantastic websites to share information with their parents. These are great communication tools as well as something that keeps the teams working together and keeping pace with each other. This helps PLC’s run more smoothly as well as giving parents comfort that no matter what teacher their child has, they’ll be getting the same curriculum. Great work, first and third!

Final Thoughts- One of my favorite activities is following the sports of track and field, cross country, and running in general. The University of Oregon is to track and field what Hollywood is to movie making and Wall Street is to finance. Running track and field at the University of Oregon is a dream for most every high school runner, yet only the elite, the best of the best, ever get an opportunity to run at Oregon. In the same way, every college runner’s dream is to sign a professional contract with a shoe company like Nike, Adidas or Brooks. Outside of making an  Olympic team or World Championship team, signing a professional contract with a shoe company is the pinnacle of the sport.  At the University of Oregon, for those who love running but aren’t one of the elite few to make the team, students have the opportunity to join the running club. Below is a video of University of Oregon student, Justin Gallegos. Justin has Cerebral Palsy. Justin loves to run and has dedicated himself to pursue his goals and passion for running, even if he will never run for Oregon or make an Olympic team. Justin is proof that when you work your hardest at something you love, good things happen. If you haven’t already (or even if you have-I’ve watched it multiple times and it’s still super dusty in my office) seen this video, it is well worth the 2:36.

We are fortunate to have a job where everyday we get to be a part of helping students find and pursue their passion. Thanks for helping your students’ dreams come true.

Have a fantastic three day weekend.

Upcoming Events

November 2- Staff Meeting- 2:30- Library

November 3- 2nd Grade EBISS- 1:00- 2nd grade classroom

November 3- SIW- Library- 1:45

November 10- 1st Grade EBISS- 1:00- 1st grade classroom

November 10- SIW- 1:45- Library

November 11- Veterans’ Day- No School

November 19- Fire Drill- 1:35

November 22-26- Thanksgiving Break- No School

Oops Slips- Please use this google link for oops slips. There were some issues with the old one and we hope they’ve been cleared up a bit.

Conferences- Please let us know if you are going to do your conferences from here or home. This will help us know how much grub to buy as we will be providing meals for those staying here on Wednesday and Thursday. Expect food to arrive around 4:30 on Wed. and Thurs.

Please complete your schedule if you haven’t already.

Webex Practice for Conferences- From Erica- It would be a great idea to plan some time on Monday or Tuesday to practice logging into Webex with your students. This is especially important for families who will be using their student iPad for conferences. Consider opening your Webex room and walking students through the process of joingina nd setting the permissions (like allow mic and camera).

Here is a video from Brenna Frost that shows the student sign in steps. Hopefully a practice round can help to limit the stress caused by tech issues and keep things on track.

K-1 teachers- sound like a nightmare? Ask Erica for some time to come be an extra set of hands to help those little ones.

From Human Resources –  We are excited to announce that you can now check your Record of Credit through Employee Online.  Record of Credit has been added to the Personal Information tab – see screen print below.  We have entered all credits we have received up through today so this information is up to date.  We respectfully ask that when you send in new credits moving forward, you allow us a couple weeks to get them entered before following up to see if we have received them. Let us know if you have any questions. 

Tuesday Parties– A few guidelines for your Tuesday parties:

• Masks should only be worn during the party
• (The party should NOT last the entire day)
• Keep blood and gore out
• No weapons
• Adults in Star Wars costumes are kind of nerdy
• Wigs/ face paint ok (as long as not gory)
• Store bought individually wrapped food items only

Upcoming Events

October 26- ICCL

October 27- SIW- Conference Prep

October 27, 28- Conferences- No School

October 29- No School

November 2- Staff Meeting- 2:30

November 11- Veterans’ Day- No School

Bus Evacuation Drill- Please have your class view this bus evacuation video by October 15 (if you haven’t checked the calendar, today is October 15, so if you haven’t shown this video yet, you can do it Monday). We are required to show it and then we have to sign off that all our students have had the opportunity to view. Please let us know when you have so we can sign our assurance form.

Conferences- We’ve completed sibling conference scheduling. Please see our timeline and make sure you are up to date. Let us know if you need any help.

Please see district conference suggestions provided by Skip and Tammy.

If you would like someone to attend a conference (admin, sped, ELL, etc.) please sign up on this google doc. In addition, please write your schedule under your tab. The office gets lots of phone calls about conference times and if we have your schedule it is much easier for us to pass it along and answer questions.

Dismissal- We’ve had a month + to practice our dismissal procedures and we are getting pretty good. Beginning Monday, we will begin dismissing with k and 1 at 2:05 rather than 2:00. Announcement for k and 1 will be at 2:05, 2 and 3 around 2:07 or 2:08, and 4/5 at the usual 2:10.

Goal Team Meetings- We will be meeting in our goal teams (STEM, PBIS, PLC) on Tuesday at 2:30 in the library. The hope is that we can get these near completed. Once team leaders submit their team’s planning, Jon and Gary will use your input to schedule our SIW’s for the year. We will share this with ICCL’s for feedback, then take it to the whole staff. Thank you for the work on this. We really hope that these teams will help us to move forward and improve in these all important areas.

Evaluations- We have divided up evaluations. Generally speaking, Jon will be taking kinder, 2, 4, title and sped. Gary will be taking 1, 3, 5, PE and Music. We may do some switching if it helps logistically. Both of us will still be trying to get into all rooms, but in terms of mini observations and completing the eval’s, the above will apply. We still have no information on SLGG requirements and there has been talk of once again changing the number of required mini observations. We’ll let you know if/when we hear something.

Short notes this week is our Friday gift to you. Get out of here as soon as you can today. Enjoy what may be our last couple days of warm sunshine and have a fantastic weekend!

Upcoming Events

October 19- Goal Team meetings- 2:30 in same room as last time!

October 26- ICCL

October 20 & 27- SIW- Conference Prep

October 27, 28- Conferences- No School

October 29- No School

November 2- Staff Meeting- 2:30

November 11- Veterans’ Day- No School

Conferences- Please send out the parent input forms for conferences if you haven’t already done so. Please read our guidelines and timeline. Our next step in the process is sibling scheduling on Thursday at 2:30 in the library. We were told in our principal notes today that conferences WILL BE VIRTUAL.

Title I Compact- Please send home asap. Encourage students in any way possible to return these to us. Please keep track of returned compacts and connect with parents about it at conferences for those who have not returned them. We will be putting reminders in the newsletter the next couple weeks.

Educator Network- Please sign up for an Educator Network event if you haven’t already done so. K and 1 must choose the Foundational Skills Training. It will take place right here at Buckingham and be led by our own Laci Fisher and Jon Lindsay! The rest of you have a menu of options, both in person and virtual.

A friendly reminder about 3 feet distancing – This is from our principal notes:

“one of the questions that will be asked during contact tracing is “were students 3 feet apart?”  As you walk your school and observe classrooms you might want to pay particular attention to this rule and give students and staff a friendly reminder about the 3 feet rule and masking.”

Long Absences- Thanks to Erica for sharing the expectations around students who have long absences- Ready, Set, Go- Targeted Remote Learning. If you get any push back from parents, please let Jon or Gary know and we can brainstorm ideas for helping our students stay up on things as much as possible.

Halloween Party!!- Individually wrapped, store bought candy etc. is acceptable for the parties.

EA Training Opportunity- The Ed Center is offering a training opportunities for EA’s on October 27 (conference day). Please sign up on Performance Matters if you would like to attend. Let us know if you need assistance signing up.

Upcoming Events

October 11- Earthquake/ Fire Drill- 8:55 A.M.

October 13- SIW- District “Educator Network”

October 19- Goal Team meetings- 2:30 in same room as last time!

October 20 & 27- SIW- Conference Prep

October 27, 28- Conferences- No School

October 29- No School

Welcome to October! Can’t believe we are already here.

Goal Teams- First, thank you for all of your thinking, input and energy on Wednesday during our goal team meetings. ICCL’s met yesterday and decided that we will meet again in our goal teams on Tuesday, October 19 from 2:30-3:15 in hopes of getting your plans “finalized” (we know it’s a work in progress always).

As we embark on this work, it is important for us to remember the scope of what we try to accomplish. If we try to do too much, we probably won’t do anything well and we’ll all end up frustrated and burned out. Remember as you work in your teams to keep the focus on a few things that we can do incredibly well- a few things that we knock out of the park. Then, once we have those things mastered, we can think about how to improve and move forward.

Don’t try to bite off more than we can chew. Your first priority is taking care of the kids in front of you. Our school improvement work should, if we are not taking on too much, make your jobs easier and you more effective, not harder and less effective. Again, thanks for all of your thought. We should feel good about the things we are working on and know that little steps implemented really well will pay great dividends. Thank you!

Conferences- We will discuss conference scheduling and logistics at our staff meeting on Tuesday. As of right now, conferences will be virtual, although if our county numbers decrease enough we may be able to provide in person options for families who want that.

SIW- Next Wednesday’s SIW will focus on STEM, specifically our membership in the NSTA (National Science Teachers Association) . We will start in library at 1:45, then beginning at 2, we will have a livestream training on how to best utilize resouces that come with our membership in NSTA.

Arrival Time- The official start of school this year is 7:40. Last year it was 7:45, and we had you pick up your students at 7:40 to be ready for 7:45 start. We decided to not change the time you pick up, keeping it at 7:40 in order to not take more time away from your morning. We are asking that you be there right at 7:40 to bring your kids in. The first bus drops off at 7:20, which makes for a really long wait in line for some students and even that extra minute or two waiting in line if you aren’t there at 7:40 makes a difference. Thanks for your help.

Dismissal- While masks are not required at recess or meal times, there are new guidelines around masking during dismissal and arrival.

All individuals 5 years of age and older are to wear a face covering outdoors when individuals cannot or do not consistently maintain at least 6 feet of physical distance from people not in their household.

Due to these new guidelines, we’ve been told to have you please wear your mask during arrival and dismissal. Students should wear masks in line while waiting in the morning. Thank you for your cooperation.

Bus Evacuation Drill- Please have your class view this bus evacuation video by October 15. We are required to show it and then we have to sign off that all our students have had the opportunity to view.

Fire/Lockdown Drill- Thanks for your flexibility with fire drill postponement. Kevin G. was out and Tony and I weren’t positive about how to turn the alarm off and I started getting flashbacks to the drill last year that went on for EVER… and when you are trying to turn it off and know 400 people are waiting for EVER becomes even longer.

So, we will have our make up on Tuesday, October 5 at same time- 12:55… as long as Kevin G. is here. We will have our first lockdown on Thursday, October 7 at 8:10.

Upcoming Events

October 5- Fire Drill- 12:55

October 5- Staff Meeting- 2:30- Library

October 6- 4th grade EBISS- 1:00- fourth grade classroom

October 6- SIW- STEM- 1:45- Library

October 7- Lockdown- 8:10

October 13- SIW- District “Educator Network”

October 20 & 27- SIW- Conference Prep

Reading Intervention Groups- Shout out to Laci for organizing a smooth, efficient Dibels day. Groups will start Monday. If you didn’t yet read Laci’s email with schedule and directions, please do so.

Education Foundation Grants- The Education Foundation grant process is now open. Please complete the application if you are interested in pursuing this opportunity.

Open House- We sent the office slide to you earlier today. It is very simple as we didn’t want to take time away from your presentation. Please share it during your two sessions Tuesday night. Thank you!

SIW- Our SIW on September 29 will be focused on our goal teams. We will be start in the library with some directions before breaking into our three teams to begin the work of identifying focus and actions for the year in our three areas: STEM, PLC, PBIS. We will wrap things up back in the library with share outs from each group so everyone has a picture of where we are headed in each area. Please be sure that you have signed up for one of the teams as it’s important for everyone to be involved.

OOPS- Whenever possible please use the google doc form for oops slips. In addition to this link, you probably also received an email from Deborah granting you access to the form.

Lost and Found- Please put any lost masks IN THE GARBAGE rather than lost and found. I don’t think we need any further explanation. Thanks!

Bend Science Station Opportunity for 2^nd and 3^rd Grade Teachers –

Good news! This October, the Bend Science Station will conduct 2nd + 3rd grade teacher trainings on Amplify units they helped enhance and modify over the past year. Working with a master team of BLPS teachers, they identified what stays and what goes, created an achievable scope + sequence, and developed additional hands-on, “wow” experiments for students. (The first phase of this project focused on the 4th + 5th grade curriculum and was successfully introduced in the fall of 2019.)

Teachers may register for one OR two afternoon trainings for these newly designed units. Training sessions run from 3-6 pm and will take place at the Bend Science Station on the OSU-C campus. Ideally, we would like to have at least one 2nd and one 3rd grade teacher from each elementary school participate in a training. 

Teachers will be compensated by the district at the curriculum rate for these training sessions. In addition, the Science Station will be offering food and drinks, daily incentives, and a raffle for a possible class field trip this spring! 

Please sign up here! Bend Science Station Amplify Training – Google Sheets

Here is an overview and the dates of the training.  We hope to get as many teachers here as possible! 😊

Grade 2 
Session 1: Monday, October 4^th 
3:00 – 6:00 PM 
Lab 1: Plant + Animal Relationships
Lab 2: Changing Landforms

Session 2: Tuesday, October 5^th
3:00 – 6:00 PM 
Lab 1: Plant + Animal Relationships
Lab 2: Changing Landforms

Grade 3
Session 1: Monday, October 11^th  
3:00 – 6:00 PM 
Lab 1: Balancing Forces
Lab 2: Inheritance + Traits

Session 2: Tuesday, October 12^th 
3:00 – 6:00 PM 
Lab 1: Balancing Forces
Lab 2: Inheritance + Traits

(Teachers may attend one or both sessions)

Please talk with your grade level team to see if one or more want to participate and let Jon or Gary know your team’s plan.

Please sign up here! Bend Science Station Amplify Training – Google Sheets

Learning- Everyone, including the adults, in a school is a learner. This week I learned some valuable lessons from a few students that I though important to share.

•  I learned from a kindergartner that you should NOT, no matter what, EVER, slide your body and head up between the rails on the ramp on the primary playground. If you do, you’ll probably get stuck and won’t be able to get out. You will try to squeeze up and it will squish your back and chest. You’ll get super panicky and try to squeeze out the other way and your head will get stuck and your ear will get squished and you’ll start screaming and a bunch of adults will come out and tell you to calm down and that’ll just make you more freaked out and you’ll scream louder and then they’ll try more to calm you down and then, only by a miracle, just before the adults are about to call for the jaws of life, you will accidentally move in the right direction and get out. So, don’t do that. EVER.
• I learned from fourth graders at lunch recess that helping others who may have challenges or special needs join into your soccer game actually makes you and the others feel way better than even scoring a goal. Kudos to those kids at soccer for helping a couple students have their best recess ever. It really was an awesome thing to watch. Want more details? Ask Laci and see if she can tell you without tearing up.

Have a fantastic weekend and enjoy the last few days of summer weather!

Upcoming Events

September 28- Open House

September 29- Fifth grade EBISS- 1:00-1:45- fifth grade classroom

September 29- SIW- Goal Teams- 1:45-3:15

Schedules- Please complete your master schedule if your grade level hasn’t already done so. We know that they will evolve a bit during the year (we don’t expect kinders to do 45 minutes writing in September). Please keep them up to date with any changes so that specialists are able to support as needed. Thank you!

Schedules part 2- The master meeting schedule has been updated as well as the SIW schedule. You will notice that there are blank spots in both, especially on the meeting schedule for goal teams. The reason for this is that goal teams will be creating these schedules when they meet during our 9/29 SIW. The SIW schedule is color coded. Red days are district days. Green days are teachers to use how you want. Blue are days that are school directed. For Buckingham, our goal teams will work together to determine our needs, and then plan SIW’s to meet those needs around STEM, PBIS and PLC’s.

Dibels- Our Dibels day is next Tuesday. Please refer to the link below for a schedule. A runner will come and get your class to take them to the library. Please be sure to have students bring a book to read while they wait. Please see Laci’s email from September 14 for more details. Thanks to Laci for all the work setting up our schedule.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NPXHNckLmXFRHFdDsxD-v0DfmuBBNBtTW35NWenjdq4/edit

Goal Teams- If you haven’t already joined a goal team (STEM, PBIS, PLC) please sign up in the work room. SIW’s will be directed by goal teams and a few of our SIW’s will be goal team meetings so we want everyone to have a part and join the team that they are most excited about.

PBIS- Remember to be handing out Bronco Bucks. We have begun our Friday ice cream drawings and thanks to Bridget, we will be continuing the weekly book give aways. In addition, don’t forget about giving class Broncos when you see a class doing an awesome job in the hall, the lunch line, outside or any other time.

Thanks to Kelly Sproba for an amazing Rules Rodeo. Appreciate the work that went into it and appreciate the benefits we will get from it.

Oops Slips- You can use the paper copies or the google form for oops slips. We are working on a revision and will get that to you as soon as possible, but for now use what we have. If you need a refresher training, let Gary know.

Safety Drills- The safety drill schedule is complete. We will have a bit of review at our staff meeting Tuesday. The first fire drill will be next Wednesday. I’ve tried to put them right before a recess like last year so some grades can just stay outside. It’s a little clunky, but will work for some. Fire drills were dialed in last year. I was so impressed with how smoothly they went so I don’t anticipate any issues moving forward. Please know that scheduling out the whole year of drills this far in advance is difficult. We will probably have to make some changes. We will do our best to keep you up to date on changes as well as reminders.

Safe Schools Trainings- Please remember that all staff are required to complete our annual safety training that are available online. These include child abuse, universal precautions and the like. These are due by the first of the year, which may seem like a long time from now, but will sneak up on us.

SLGG’s/ Mini Observations-  The type A folks out there are probably already wondering about slggs and mini observations and evaluations. Others probably don’t remember what those are. At this time, we know no more about slggs than anyone else other than they are working on them. So, for now, do NOT worry a minute about slggs. When we know what we have to do, we will share with you in a blog or staff meeting and make it as painless and efficient as possible.

As for minis, we believe that we will be back to the old required number of minis (can’t remember exactly how many that is right now).  In order to not have to cram 6 minis in during June, we will start our minis in the next week or two. In the meantime, you just keep teaching and we’ll take care of the rest…if we don’t do your minis or get the slgg info to you, it’s on us not you. 🙂

From Kevin G.- All desks get fogged in the morning. Please clear desks off before heading out to recess so that he can clean desks at lunch. If you are able to stack chairs 4 or 5 high, it will help the evening cleaning go a bit smoother. We realize that may be a tall task for some classes, so don’t worry if you can’t, but if you are able, it will help them to cover and clean more ground. Thank you!

Ending Thought- It’s never too late to start planning for retirement.  BLP schools have a lot of resources that you might want to take advantage of…PERS retirement seminars, Oregon Savings Growth Plan investment opportunities and more. Reach out to Human Resources if you haven’t already. On the other hand, this is also an option (this is in no way an endorsement of Mass Mutual):

Upcoming Events

September 21- Dibels Day

September 21- Staff Meeting- 2:30- library

September 22- SIW- Teacher Prep

September 28- Virtual Open House

September 29- SIW- Goal Teams