To Do:
- As a follow-up from last week, we have learned that DHS does not want any paper copy of abuse referrals. They only want a phone call. However, please continue to fill out the reporting form, keep one copy, and send one copy to Jody in the Office of School Support.
- Here is a great opportunity from the Cascade Culinary Institute at OSU-Cascades. This is worth a read and consideration of how you might make a connection with them.
- Would you share this PD opportunity with your science teachers – or better yet, let a few of them know that you’d like to pay for them to attend? The Oregon Science Teacher Association is hosting an introduction to Argument-Driven Inquiry (ADI) instructional model on Nov. 30 at Redmond HS from 8:00 – 3:00. The cost is only $160 per teacher. Check out this flyer for more information on this great opportunity!
This and that:
- In this, the look at the last “question” in Jennifer Gonzalez’s 5 Questions to Ask Yourself About Your Unmotivated Students, you’ll be asked to consider how instructional content is being made relevant to the learner. Likewise, are we asking our employees to perform worthwhile tasks – ones where the relevance is obvious? I certainly don’t ask myself this question often enough. Is it possible that relevance has an affect on building culture?
- And, just for fun, I’m also sending you this article about a retired teacher with no musical background who recently played for a high school band. I hope you enjoy the article… and consider how you might have some of your kids make connections with an older generation. I have no doubt our kids can/will learn much and give much to others, including those less able to come to our schools and volunteer.
- Please mark your calendar for an upcoming CONNECT training from 1:15 – 3:15 on both Dec. 18 & 19. The intended audience is MS building admin and counselors. I hope to have one MS admin and counselor attend from each building. Here is more of what this training will be about: Engage and build capacity for key members of our school community to respond to suicide. The goal of suicide post-vention training is to promote healing and reduce risk of future suicides. Participants will become competent and confident to respond to suicidal incidents across the lifespan. They will use a community-based approach for early recognition, skill-building, and to promote healing and reduce risk after a suicide.
- School hours have been decided for next year. (There may be some small adjustments to this, but you can count on the following being your approximate start/end times with kids.)
- Elementary will be 8:00-2:30 (8:00-1:00 on Wednesdays)
- Middle School will be 8:45- 3:40 (8:45 – 1:55 on Wednesdays)
- High School will be 8:45-3:45
The District Lead Together team is currently working on a process to collect input in order to determine work hours for our employees beginning next year. This will likely involve the ask to have you provide time for your staff to complete a survey in the coming weeks. The basic question to answer around this is, do we want to continue having staff “on duty” 30 prior to and after classes, or does it make more sense at this time to make before or after school a longer chunk of time and the opposite (before/after) a shorter amount of time. I’ll let you know more once the survey has been created.
- I’m not sure if this is a reminder or not, but wanted to clear up any misunderstanding (because I was unclear) around the labeling of student absences this year. Last year, ODE published draft guidance suggesting that students should be marked absent for time spent traveling during the school day for extra-curricular activities. Final guidance has not yet been published by ODE. Therefore, in 2018-2019 we will submit attendance data using the same calculations that we have used for the past several years. In other words, this year student absences for school-sponsored events (e.g. music, athletic, or field trip travel) will be considered EXCUSED absences. Please touch base with your attendance secretary to verify this is how these absences have been categorized.
Reminders:
- Veteran’s Day – no school – on Monday, Nov. 12.
- BrightBytes survey opens next week (through Nov. 30).
- Thanksgiving break is Nov. 19 – 23.