Thank you for letting Miriam know of any visitors coming to your class who do not volunteer for you on a regular basis. This advance notice provides time to make sure the person has completed their background check and so we know they are scheduled to be on campus in the event of any emergencies.
Look what this 5th grader can do! Nice work Mrs. Sanderson, Mr. Caswell, Ms. Gottschalk, Ms. Sultzer and Mr. Faith!
I reached out to Lora Nordquist with the question that came up at SIW on Wednesday about why TAG students are not considered a Historically Underserved group. Lora’s response was:
“when we talk about “underserved students,” we are referencing those groups of students who historically have performed below their non-HU counterparts on basically every metric related to schools: test scores, graduation rates, representation in advanced classes, etc. While we can absolutely talk about better ways to challenge our TAG students…and all students, for that matter, these students typically perform very well on all these measures.”
Week at a Glance for October 14th – October 18th
Monday:
Tuesday:
Sibling and ELL Conference Scheduling @ 2:45 in the Media Center. Thank you for not scheduling any conferences prior to this time. 🙂
Wednesday:
School Improvement Wednesday: Conference preparation time.
Learning Lab math activity with two digit addition. Lots of opportunities for sense making and discourse!
The Children’s Forest of Central Oregon has the goal of providing all children and youth in Central Oregon first hand connections with nature by providing meaningful, inspirational, and interdisciplinary education programs. More information about lessons, resources, and field trip grants can be found here.
Number songs and smiles in KindergartenA PE lesson summary? Not so fast! Mystery Bucket voting. Staff receiving votes included Ms. Roth, Mrs. Dunn, Ms. Crumpton… 🙂Installation of the PTO purchased water bottle fill stations. Thank you PTO!
It is SLGG time! 🙂 The good news is that nothing has changed…still two goals that are based on 100% of students demonstrating growth. The standard form (DIBELS, easy CBM, Lucy) and other form for creating your own goals have not changed. We will put some copies of the standard form by the mailboxes. Thank you for returning to my mailbox by November 1.
Can’t access a Google Doc that has been shared with you? Make sure you are signed in with your gapps account. Often the reason a person can not open a file that has been shared with them is because they are signed in with their personal gmail account. Thank you!
Your assistance having band-aids available for minor scrapes and limiting the number of students sent to the health room for ice-packs is so helpful and is really helping Amber and Miriam to be better able to meet the needs of students in the health room and managing visitors/volunteers and our phone system. Thank you! These moves, in addition to having students use classroom phones to make phone calls home, are making a huge difference.
Staff Meeting @ 2:45 – EBISS, State Assessment Results…and yes, another round of 2:45 trivia!
Wednesday:
International Walk and Roll to School Day. Commute Options will have prizes for walkers/riders/rollers and bus riders (they had to walk to the bus stop, right?) at both entrances in the morning.
School Improvement Wednesday: Time for grade levels to work on Lava Read. We are planning that all walk-to-read groups are up and running by October 7th
Thank you for your input into our Conference schedule for the year. Here are the results.
We know how helpful pictures and realia are for our students working to acquire English as they are making sense of text, right? Check out the characters and setting on this chart. The pictures were selected purposefully and sent to Print Shop in advance to help students in understanding this story. This person shared with me that one of their goals this year is to plan reading lessons ahead so they have pictures or other visuals for lessons so their students can better understand text.
In August I shared information with you about a couple of grant opportunities. A repost of this information is below:
The Education Foundation has a new grant program this year! Deadline is October 18th. Here‘s the scoop.
Here is another grant opportunity from Selco Credit Union. Grants are awarded for up to $1000 for classroom projects through September 30th
Amanda Schook is the Behavior Coach assigned to Lava Ridge this year. Amanda works closely with Hailey (the Skills Trainer you may have already seen on site) to assist our students learning behavioral skills
The 2019 Inventerprise contest is open. Inventerprise is an annual science contest sponsored by Lonza (formerly Bend Research, Inc) with help from Bend-La Pine School District and Central Oregon Community College. The contest is open to all K-12 students in Central Oregon. Please subscribe to this email list if you are interested in participating or learning more.
Week at a Glance for September 23rd-27th
Monday:
Tuesday:
PLC Meeting with a Math Focus @ 2:45-3:30- Here are your Focus Questions
Wednesday:
Lion Dash Assembly @ 10:20
Lion Pride Monthly Drawing at Lunches
School Improvement Wednesday 2:00-3:30: ELL Information, PE Information, Partnering Ideas
Thursday:
DIBELS Day
Friday:
Bus Evacuation Drills @ 9:15 (Schedule coming Monday)
**Lockdown drill scheduled for Monday, September 30
The duty schedule for the next two weeks is below. This is for September 23-October 4.
I really enjoy reading the classroom newsletters you send home to our families! This is one of the ways I try to stay up to speed with what is happening in our classrooms. If you are emailing one home and could include me in your list that would be great! Thank you!
This year one of the Skills Trainers you may see on campus is Haley Alden
Early this week we sent out information to 3rd-5th grade teachers with some updates/changes in the world of digital learning this year. If you are interested this info can located here. One change that could impact all of our students is that Google Images is no longer accessible to students in grades K-8. An alternative site for image searches is: http://bit.ly/BLSimage_search
Starting to build it up!
Certified Staff: What should our schedule be for Conferences this year? These dates are October 23-25 and April 8-10. Please complete the one question Conference Survey to give your input into this decision. The survey will close on Thursday at 12:00.
The PTO is at it again! In the coming weeks, thanks to PTO, we will be upgrading two of our drinking fountains to water filling stations. One will be outside the music room and the other at the Main Entrance in the North hallway that leads to Discovery Falls.
Notes from the September 11th ICCL Meeting can be found here.
What a wonderful start to the school year for our Lions! The first week is always extra busy and this one went very smoothly. Thank you for all of your efforts that made this happen.
Welcome to Lorri Harnden and Mackenzie Eriksen two new members of our resource educational assistant team. The Walking School Bus is back! Mornings and afternoons April Frey is walking with our students making sure they get home safely.
Wednesday is our first School Improvement Wednesday. The ICCL Team discussed the scheduling of this time and have landed with 2:00-3:30. Below are some ideas behind the selection of this time.
It aligns with District SIW time
Provides an hour of time for teachers to work in classrooms right after school 🙂
Student dismissal issues/bus delays should not impact
This year, the SIWs below will be available for teachers to work in classrooms or if you choose, to meet with other colleagues. Each elementary school has set aside the same dates to provide the potential for cross-school collaboration. These dates are: September 18, October 23, November 20, December 18, January 8, February 19, March 18, April 8, May 20.
PTO Welcome Breakfast for kindergarten families
Welcome Hillary George! Hillary will be serving as a 3.75 hour educational assistant this year. Hillary will be leading Lava Read groups and also supervising students at recess. Welcome to Tami Catalano Sign Language Interpreter
Week at a Glance for September 9th-13th
Monday:
7:30 Arrival choice begins (recess or breakfast) + Visitor/Volunteer stickers in the morning too! (Thank you for escorting anyone without a sticker to the office)
easyCBM Window Opens for 1st-5th grade
3:00 PBIS Meeting in the Media Center
Tuesday:
Staff Meeting @ 2:45-3:30 in the Media Center
Wednesday:
1:00 Dismissal (If you can remind families that would be wonderful!)
School Improvement Wednesday 2:00-3:30
Thursday:
Friday:
Assembly at 8:05 (Kick-off for Safety theme) Staff are invited to wear safety gear for the assembly! 🙂
Free lunch for families through Nutrition Services
Thank you for all of your hard work this week! It was great to have our staff back together and to feel that synergy of us all working together to make it a great start to the school year!
What a fun week! Here is the Staff Field Trip Video (You may have to first download the video and then VLC should open as the option to play the video.)
A reminder that the first day of school we will follow a Tuesday Specials Schedule
First assembly will be on Friday, September 13th time TBD soon!
I am looking forward to seeing everyone this week! For Tuesday, we will be up moving a lot so I would suggest comfortable shoes and clothing. Also, while we have been advertising since June that Tuesday and Wednesday would be inservice days it is now looking like we should have about 2 hours of work in classroom time on Wednesday. 🙂
With our new school hours we are moving most meetings to after school. Below is our plan for meetings. Site Council, ICCL, and some others are still TBD.
Tuesday 2:45-3:30: Either Staff Meetings (first Tuesday) or PLC Meetings (all others)
School Improvement Wednesday meeting time TBD; potentially from 2:00-3:30 (I learned on Friday that is the time frame for the 4 district SIWs this year)
Thursdays 2:45-3:30 EBISS Meetings
Nicole Stefano has taken a new job and will not be serving as our FAN Advocate. Tarra Ha was recently hired as our new advocate and will begin in the position this week.
We learned last week that Kim Worchester will be serving this year at North Star and Sky View and will not be at Lava supporting our students this year.
Day #1 of the Innovative Teaching Conference off to a great start! Mary Ehrenworth got us excited about writing to start the day.
Greetings! I hope your summer has been wonderful. The DeFrang’s had a fun one. We stayed close to home for the most part with visits to Sunriver, some camping, and time at the coast. It was nice to have extra time at home for gardening, walking the dog, Netflixing, trying to catch up on house projects, etc. Lots of family time. Priceless.
This year I will again send out notes to you via this blog once a week. It will contain reminders about the upcoming week and other information for you. Thank you for making this a must read before the start of the next week so you are up to speed on goings on at Lava Ridge and are in the know with all of the information posted. Again this year, you will be able to toggle back in time for attached documents, website addresses, and information from earlier in the year.
Bike ride and shaved ice in Sunriver with the boys
It has been a busy summer on campus. Below are some pictures of some of the work that was happened at Lava Ridge.
New shelving and learning alcove in the Media CenterYahoo! New carpet in the music room. Fresh paving on the South Playground and in the parking lot by the main entrance. The Maintenance Department will pave the North Playground during a later summer.
In early August we send welcome letters to families via U.S Mail. Here are copies of the letters: 1st-5th letter and kindergarten
The Education Foundation has a new grant program this year! Deadline is October 18th. Here‘s the scoop.
Here is another grant opportunity from Selco Credit Union. Grants are awarded for up to $1000 for classroom projects through September 30th
Through, August 26th the building alarm will be set at 4:00 everyday. If you need to access the building after 4:00 be ready to disarm the building alarm after you enter through the Main Entrance. Be sure to also write your name on the whiteboard and reset the alarm after you leave. Your attention to detail is appreciated. Thank you! Each false alarm costs our school $50+ dollars and potential sanctions from the Fire Department.
Work Hour Adjustments for 2019-20: A reminder that Certified Staff work hours this year are 7:30-3:30. The Main Office hours will be 7:30-3:30. Miriam and Amber are planning to work from 7:00-3:30. Certified substitute teacher hours are 7:15-3:15.
Here are some classroom set-up ideas from Saif I was asked to share with you.
Details below for August 26th-September 4th
Monday, August 26th
New Teacher Day at Sky View
PBIS Meeting at 10:00
Potential Day to Work in Classrooms (ie day #188)
Tuesday, August 27th
Welcome back in Media Center at 7:30. We are planning for a fun kick-off to the year! Some of our activities this morning will get us up and moving outside before we eat lunch together and head to Bend High School for the Bend-La Pine Schools celebration.
Thank you for a wonderful school year! I feel fortunate to have been able to work alongside you this year. I hope you have a fun and restful summer!
Thank you for taking the time to provide input into the decision of when we have recesses and lunches next year. The consensus feedback on the draft from staff was positive. Lunch and recess times for 2019-20 can be located here.
Go Golden Ticket Recipients!
Fifth grade promotion was a very special event. Picture below. This was the first year in sometime that the 5th grade teachers did not present the Step Up Award. Lisa, Paul and Michele decided this spring to not include the award due to the difficulty in narrowing selection in such a wonderful class to the list of nominees and then the very difficult task of selecting winners. The team also felt that as a school we are doing a really great job of recognizing students with PAW, Golden Tickets, and the other recognition systems that are part of Lava Ridge.
Thank you for your input into the decision to have Open House on Thursday, August 29 from 3:00-5:00
We finished up ICCL interviews on Friday. Below is our team for next year.
