To Do:

• Here is a great suggestion that I pulled out of a recent ELL newsletter that Kinsey Martin sent out – and hope you find a way to share it with your staff as I believe it is a powerful way to give voice to our students who are often voiceless:

  Do you want your students to feel they belong in your school? Here is an easy step toward that goal: spell and pronounce student names correctly! This shows interest and respect for their identity, and is a tangible step to overcome cultural or linguistic differences. If you aren’t sure, ask the student or family. Instead of calling roll on the first day, teachers can listen to students say their names, and find the names on their class lists.

This and That:

• I want to give you a heads-up that I will likely be bringing along a friend or two during my September and October scheduled monthly visit with you. Starting next week – and throughout the next two months – when I come see you I’d like to spend our time looking at your School Design Plan.  For September I’ll be joined by someone in TLC and our conversation will center around what type of support you need (and how can TLC help provide it) to reach your goals. I’ve added a name next to your Sept. visit date (Lora, Skip or Sean) in our shared MS Calendar if you’d like to know whom will be joining me.  During our October visit I’ll have Dave or Austin (or both) join me and we’ll focus on the assessment/upstream measures for your goals – and what support they could provide. So, please not only make sure your SDP is updated in Google Drive, but also be prepared to have a conversation around your Plan through these two lens’ of how we might better support the work you are engaged in.
• You may have heard that the Oregon Report Card is getting an overhaul that will be implemented next year.  As part of that process, ODE is collecting feedback on what types of information – and in what format – these revised Report Cards will provide. I recently completed this ODE survey about the Report Card redesign and found it to provide some insight into what is coming.  It states that it will take 20 minutes to complete, but I did mine in nine minutes.  If you are wanting to learn a bit more about what changes might be coming I encourage you to take this survey for yourself.
• An article that Shay shared with the School Board a few weeks ago I thought was definitely worth passing along to you. The article is entitled The School Climate – Student Achievement Connection: If We Want Achievement Gains, We Need to Begin by Improving the Climate. The title says it all, and I hope you take a few minutes to read the entire article, or at least the charts on page 3 and highlights/summary on pages 6 & 7.  There is some great potential work to be done around “empathy” (think Design Cycle) in terms of listening to your stakeholders to learn more about how you might improve your school climate.

Reminders:

• There are two board policies that I want to remind you of (because of concerns they are not being universally adhered to).  First, remember that all fundraising activities (there is a form for this) need to have the principal’s approval prior to the start of that fundraiser. Second, all out of state travel (field trip, band competition, Robotics show – anything), or MS athletic travel beyond 75 miles from school, both need prior superintendent approval. (In other words, don’t plan on going unless Shay gives the OK.) Let me know if you have questions regarding either of these.
• You may be aware that next week is National Suicide Awareness Week.  What you might not be aware of is that there are a number of activities planned here in Central Oregon that you may be interested in being involved with, or passing along.