Archive for December 11, 2023

December 11th, 2023

December 11, 2023

Our EME Focus

  • Tier 1 Instruction
  • Belonging
  • Define what it means to be an Art Focused School

Thoughts of the Week

Recently I was fortunate to have a wonderful conversation with a teacher here. She said something at the end of our conversation about Gifted and Talented students and the fact that all students are gifted in their own way. I couldn’t agree more! It reminded me of my cover letter from my first teaching application, almost 20 years ago. Here is a sentence that has been in every cover letter I have ever written:   

I believe every child has been given a gift, and this gift is the key to his or her purpose in life. It is our responsibility as educators to help each child unlock this gift and motivate them toward it.

I still believe this today! I have always found it interesting that we talk about how important math and reading are, and how kids may not make it without those skills. Then we flock to the movies, concerts, plays, and art galleries in our spare time. These are all art based activities and math and reading truly do not make a defining difference in these careers. When I was the Director of curriculum I always felt bad for those kids struggling with Algebra I or Algebra II. Having to tell them that, “some day, this will come in handy,” knowing full well I have not used either since I took them. I worked to help rewrite our math path to graduation, giving ways around Algebra for some of our students. Telling them that they can’t graduate because they could not pass Algebra did not make any sense to me because that was not their gift. Holding back a diploma so they could not get a job and allow them to make a livable wage was asinine. Some of those kids are now welders, sculptures, craftsmen, and mechanics. They make more than a livable wage. I have been to math and spelling competitions and came away wowed, but I have seen students create art and left in awe! I have heard music that left me in tears and I have watched plays and left thankful for the opportunity to see the magic. I am so proud to be a part of a school that is “Art Focused”! After the workshops, I was amazed at all the kids who produced something, and did not feel less then. Thank you for that, and thank you for helping each child unlock their gift and motivate them toward it!

The Coming Week

MONDAY
  • Admin Meeting 6:45-7:15
  • Staff Meeting 2:30-3:15
TUESDAY:
  • Office Staff Meeting 10:00-10:30
  • Elk Meadow Site-Walk & Safety Walk Through 1:00-2:00
  • ICCL Meeting 2:30-3:00
  • Care Teams Meeting 2:30-3:15
WEDNESDAY:
  • EA Meeting 8:15-8:45
  • SIW – Holiday Party 1:00-?
THURSDAY:
  • MTSS building wide 2:30-3:15
FRIDAY:
  • EME Sped Meeting 2:00-2:45
UPCOMING DATES
  • December 20 – Natalie’s Birthday
  • December 24 – Sue’s Birthday
  • January 4 – Julia’s Birthday

Updates

  • Wayfinder:
    • Please share this document with teachers on how to mark a lesson/activity complete in Wayfinder. Checking it off is part of a successful implementation to the program. In doing this, you will be able to see how the implementation is going in your schools as well.
  • Student Services:
  • Counseling: School Counseling Blog
  • Safety: Updated SRO List as of 11/14/23.
  • OSU–Outdoor School Survey–You can get paid $25! OSU manages the Outdoor School grants for the state and they need information from the districts they support. We are one of those districts and they have received very few surveys from BLS. They are seeking some input through this survey on the following topics:
    • Roles and time you invest in coordinating and reporting on outdoor school
    • Suggestions for how OSU’s Outdoor School team could make your job easier
    • Strategies and lessons learned that might be helpful to others new to coordinating and reporting on outdoor school
    • Let’s help them out and take the survey—it will pay off—literally!! The survey takes about 15 minutes, and you’ll get a $25 gift card!
  • From Julie in Curriculum, Instruction, and Systems: Please share with your staff, these direct Links to Partner Up activities in Wayfinder: Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th
  • The SIW plan for Educator Network Day on January 10th from 1:45-3:15 will be lead by Admin/ICCL and will be dedicated to introducing and planning for the changes to the Oregon Math Standards. Please share this plan with your staff.
  • From Scott in IT: Greetings! We have a couple of items to share as we look toward winter break.
    • Signing into Synergy: This is the final reminder regarding a change of process for staff who sign into Synergy Mobile applications. From now on, be sure you choose  “Sign In with BLS” whenever you are given the option.
    • The regular Username and Password fields will no longer provide access beginning this coming weekend.
    • Video streaming tips for classroom AV: Now that all our schools have Apple TV’s available in their classrooms, there has been some confusion about how best to stream video.   Apple TVs use  “Apple Airplay” to share what is on your computer with your classroom projector or flat panel TV. It is a very handy service that allows teachers to project wirelessly.  However, Apple Airplay does not support most video streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime.   It is important to note that this is a function of Apple Airplay that protects image quality and unintended buffering (delays).  NO, this is not a district setting that can be enabled or changed 😊.   On the rare occasion that video streaming is necessary in the classroom, teachers must use the HDMI cord and dongle that was originally provided with every classroom AV system. 
    • Does your classroom have a ceiling mounted projector? Be sure to unplug your HDMI cord from the wall plate and store it when not in use.  Wall plates are easily damaged by feet and vacuums.  Not to mention, they will cost your school $500 to replace if damaged! 

Important Dates

  • Dec 12 (3:30): TAG Meeting- Meeting Link Here
  • Dec. 18-January 1: Winter Break—See you all back in 2024!
  • Jan. 10. Educator Network Day, in your buildings from 1:45-3:15
  • Jan. 15 No School in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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December 4th, 2023

December 4, 2023

Our EME Focus

  • Tier 1 Instruction
  • Belonging
  • Define what it means to be an Art Focused School

Thoughts of the Week

The Right Stuff

One of the books I have been reading lately, called Hidden Potential, had a fascinating study.  In the late 1980s Tennessee launched a bold experiment at 79 schools, many of which were low income. They randomly assigned over 11,000 students to different classrooms in kindergarten through third grade. The original goal was to test whether smaller classes were better for learning.  But an economist named Raj Chetty Realized that since both students and teachers were randomly assigned to classrooms, he could go back to the data to analyze whether other features of the classrooms made a difference. The research suggested that excellence depends less on our natural talents than we might expect. The Tennessee experiment contained a startling result! He was able to predict the success students would achieve as adults, simply by looking at who taught their kindergarten class. By age 25 students that happened to have more experienced kindergarten teachers were earning significantly more money than their peers. Chetty and his colleagues calculated that moving from an inexperienced kindergarten teacher To a more experienced one would add over $1,000 to each student’s annual income in their 20’s.  For a class of 20 students an above average kindergarten teacher could be worth additional lifetime income of $320,000. 

You’re probably asking yourself why do kindergarten teachers end up casting such a long shadow 20 years later. The intuitive answer is that experienced teachers help develop better cognitive skills such as math and reading and build a solid foundation for students to understand numbers and words. Sure enough students with experienced teachers scored higher on math and reading tests at the end of kindergarten, but over the next few years they’re peers caught up.  To figure out what students were carrying with them from kindergarten to adulthood, Chetty’s team turned to another possible explanation. In 4th and  8th grade the students were rated by their teachers on some other qualities. 

  • Proactive, how often did they take initiative to ask questions , volunteer answers, seek information from books, and engage the teacher to learn outside of class? 
  • Prosocial, how well did they get along and collaborate with their peers?
  • Disciplined, how effectively did they pay attention and resist the impulse to disrupt the class?  
  • Determined, How consistently did they take on challenging problems, do more than the assigned work, and persist in the face of obstacles?

When students were taught by more experienced kindergarten teachers, their fourth grade teachers rated them higher on all four of these attributes.  As did their eighth grade teachers. The capacities to be preactive, prosocial, disciplined, and determined stayed with them longer and ultimately proved more powerful than early math and reading skills. When Chetty and his colleagues predicted adult income on 4th grade scores, these behaviors matter 2.4 times as much as math and reading performance on standardized tests!. Surprised? Although many people see those behaviors as innate, they are actually taught in kindergarten. Regardless of where students start learning these behaviors, they set students up for success decades later! It wasn’t that these teachers were better at teaching math and reading, it was that they had realized that the bigger bang for your buck was to teach kids the ability to be Proactive, Prosocial, Disciplined, and Determined.  In the end, it is not about the experience of the teacher but the lessons taught. If are students are reliant on us teaching them all the cognitive skills they know, Lord help them! The true gift from a teacher to a student is not teaching them what to know, but how to learn! Creating life long learners is the most important thing we can do as educators. On a side note… I would not trade our Kindergarten teachers for anything!

The Coming Week

MONDAY
  • Admin Meeting 6:45-7:15
  • Holmberg Field Trip – Bend Science Station 9:15-11:15
  • McClarty Field Trip – Bend Science Station 11:45-1:45
TUESDAY:
  • Safety Meeting 7:00-7:30
  • Sieh Field Trip – Bend Science Station 9:15-11:15
  • Office Staff Meeting 10:00-10:30
  • ICCL Meeting at Jewell 3:00-5:00
WEDNESDAY:
  • 2nd Grade ELL Field Trip 8:30-12:00
  • SIW – Teacher Prep 1:00-2:30
  • 1st Grade MTSS
THURSDAY:
  • MTSS building wide 2:30-3:15
FRIDAY:
  • 5th Grade Field Trip 9:15-1:30
  • Movie Night 6:00-8:00
UPCOMING DATES
  • December 14 – Fire Drill 9:30
  • December 20 – Natalie’s Birthday
  • December 24 – Sue’s Birthday
  • January 4 – Julia’s Birthday

Updates from Downtown

Reminders:

New Notes

From Curriculum and Instruction:

  • Life and Career Readiness: Please share these resources in your staff memo. Wayfinder has some great resources for Community Connection. Click on this link to get the directions on how to access the resources in Wayfinder’s Collections and the direct links. 
  • Update on Language Arts Adoption: EL Education by Imagine Learning is our finalist (not yet adopted) for English Language Arts Curriculum. Currently, we have 28 teachers teaching modules and providing feedback on implementation and professional learning needs. In January we will recommend to the board and then have a month to collect additional feedback. We will go back to the board in February to present feedback and ask for board approval moving forward. 
  • Winter DIBELS Schedule (check your scheduled date)
  • Upcoming Professional Learning: Here are a few dates next week where classroom teachers may be out of the building for professional learning:
    • 12/4- Math Leadership Academy -12-4 at Miller Elementary (Teachers from North Star and Miller)
    • 12/5-Co-Learning Studio -ALL  day at Pine Ridge (only teachers at Pine Ridge)
    • 12/7- Literacy Lab for 1st and 3rd year new hires-12:00-3:15 (Teachers from across the district)
    • 12/4- Admin/ICCL meeting -3:15-5:15 -Jewell Cafeteria
    • 12/7- Kindergarten Innovation and Design Team meeting- 4:00-6:00. Boardroom

Medical Moment:

  • How to Register for CPR/First Aid Training/Renewal Course for BLS Staff
    • UKG > My Info (drop down menu, 3 stacked lines upper left side, above your initials) > My Career > My Learning > Access Learning (upper right side) > Training (top black menu bar) > Courses > First Aid (on right side) > Click on First Aid Link > Click on green Enroll Now button
    • Online Course: Once staff have registered for the CPR/First Aid course, staff will receive an email with a link for the online course portion of the training. (If you do not receive a link within the next business day, please check your junk email. If it is not in your junk email, please email Michelle Spetic at [email protected])
    • In-Person Skills Training: Once the online portion of the training is completed, staff will receive a Google form to sign up for the 20 minute in-person skills training.
    • Certification Card: Staff will receive an email with your CPR/First Aid certification card within 1-2 business days after completing the in-person skills class.
    • List of Certified CPR/First Aid Trained Staff at Your Site: Stephanie Bend sends out quarterly reports to all schools that include cpr/first aid certified school staff names.
  • OAR 581-022-2220 –Each school shall have, at a minimum, at least one staff member with a current first aid/CPR/AED card for every 60 students enrolled, as set by ORS 339.345, and 342.664 and who are trained annually on the district and building emergency plans. Emergency planning will include the presence of at least one staff member with a current first aid/CPR/AED card for every 60 students for school-sponsored activities where students are present. (This includes field trips.)

From the Office of DEI:

  • Upcoming Dates:
    • Thurs, Dec 7th: First night of Hanukkah.  Please avoid scheduling events this evening.  Also, there is a public Menorah lighting at the Old Mill the evening of Dec. 7th—details here.  Please consider attending and/or encouraging your staff to attend if interested in supporting this community celebration.  
    • Tues, Dec 12th: Our Lady of Guadalupe Feast Day.  This is a holiday celebrated by many within the Latino/Hispanic Catholic community in particular.  For your awareness and scheduling, this includes evening church activities that many of our families attend.  
  • Family Liaison Team: Here is the updated information about our team of linguistically- and/or culturally-specific Family Liaisons: English version, Spanish version.

Inclement Weather: HERE are the Inclement Weather Guidelines for the 2023-2024 school year, which detail the guidelines and procedures to be followed in the event of severe weather conditions. To stay informed and receive timely updates, please subscribe to BLConnect so that you can receive notifications via text. To learn more about how weather-related decisions are made, visit the BLS inclement weather page: https://www.bend.k12.or.us/district/news-events/alerts-updates

TLC Update: November 29th TLC Update about Wayfinder, movement, and reserving coding robots!

From IT: Google recently made a change to their sign in mechanism that better complies with federal CIPPA rules.  Beginning this week, they require school districts to verify any applications or websites that require students to sign in with Google. In readiness, our district performed this pre-verification work beginning last summer.  Because our primary methods for signing into applications are either Microsoft or Clever (for most student applications) our list for Google was very short. In fact, Google has never been our preferred sign in authentication provider for any application or service.  

In IT we anticipated that there would be users who would need direction to alternative log in methods. Unfortunately, there were two other factors that were more difficult for us to predict:

  1. Students and teachers were accessing our known licensed apps using Google regardless of the instructed preferred methods.  This is understandable, as there can be a bit of automatic reaction when you see “sign in with Google” vs lesser-known alternatives.
  2. There were a multitude of applications that were neither known by Instruction or IT in use in our schools. These applications were not pre-verified.

I hope that this helps many folks understand the situation and I would encourage you to review the preferred log in methods for essential applications that you use in your classroom or position. If this method is not known to you, reach out for support in the following order:

  1. Check with a colleague who also uses the application.
  2. Look for guidance from training materials or the Instructional Tools website.
  3. Reach out to an instructional coach or the IT Help Desk.

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