Dear Lava Ridge Staff,
I hope you are doing well and enjoying the summer. Like everything during the pandemic, this summer has been a bit different at the DeFrang house, but with lemons you might as well make lemonade, right? We maximized our time together with local trips to lakes and the river, completed house projects (finally got the fence re-stained!) and appreciated the opportunity to slow down and be together as a family.
As we head into this school year and all of the unknowns we will experience I feel so fortunate to be able to work alongside each of you to serve our students and families. In the weeks since returning to school I have been inspired by the positive vibe in the building and everyone’s spirit. For those who have returned to school you have likely noticed that Mike and Gordon have Lava Ridge looking like new and that Miriam and Amber have the office up and running ahead of schedule. Speaking of the office, don’t be surprised if you receive an email from Mrs. Hawkins-this is our recently married Lybe. Congratulations Mrs. Hawkins!
With a month to go until the first day of school and lots of new information to process I will be starting to send weekly correspondence to you via Week at a Glance. This year you can count on me to send you weekly notes via this blog and ask that you give the information contained a deep read with the goal of us all being well informed of what is happening at Lava Ridge and in Bend-La Pine. Please also count on some spelling and grammatical errors and an occasional try at some humor. 🙂
Staff First Week Back: Some of our inservice time (ie. meeting/training time) will be in person (socially distanced and masked) and some via Webex. Wednesday, Lybe and I will be attending the administrative welcome back and will be learning more about the schedule for September 1-September 11. I will have more details to share with you next week.
This year, our district is working on developing a common elementary school schedule and teaching standards of practice in order to support a more uniform roll-out of Comprehensive Distance Learning. Although we don’t have final materials to share at this point, they will be coming within the next two weeks. This work is being informed by community and staff feedback, as well as input from BEA, the school board, and teacher leadership teams. This schedule outlines teaching times as well as teaching expectations and teaching tools that allow our district to align with state guidelines/requirements. Opportunities to learn more about these standards of practice and ask questions about them will be provided shortly after they are released.
Technology Updates…
The work flow and communication platforms we are using at different grade levels are below:
- K-2: SeeSaw (we have the premium version 🙂 ) John Craft is working on a website with support videos and documentation for teachers and parents.
- 3-5: Google Classroom. Â
Bend-La Pine Schools is planning to provide an iPad for k-2 students and families that do not have a device in September. The district submitted an order recently for devices and are working on a distribution plan. We are hopeful they will arrive prior to September 14 and I will keep you posted on details as I receive them.
The name of our Webex website has changed. The new URL is: https://bls.webex.com/
On July 1, your G Suite (Google) address changed from [email protected] to your regular email address ([email protected]). If you are signed into Google services with your Bend-La Pine Schools account, you may have to sign-in again.
Got questions? Feel free to stop by my office or give me a call at 541-355-2402.
Take care,
Gary