TO DO:

George Fox is looking for a health placement for a MAT candidate. Do you have an outstanding health teacher who might be interested in working with this candidate? This placement would run from Jan. 4 – April 23, 2021. Other requirements can be found here. If you have a health teacher who is interested in serving as the Cooperative Teacher, please let me know. _______________________________________________________________________________

In the blog three weeks ago (10/30/20) I included an item regarding free tutoring services for Bend-area middle schoolers. There are 20 slots available, so I assigned you all (Bend-area MS) a certain number of slots. As of today, only six of those slots have been taken. Because the grant funds used to pay for this free service expire on Dec. 31, 2020 – I am going to open up the 14 remaining slots on a first-come, first-served basis. If you have a student attending a Bend-area MS that could benefit from free tutoring, please help make a connection soon as there are only a few weeks remaining. Here is part of what I shared three weeks ago: Because we have limited funding to start, we’d like to enroll students directly through referrals from school leaders, counselors, and teachers, who know best which children have academic and financial need. Please share this private link with families/students whom you’d like to refer to this program: Request a Free Tutor (This is a separate registration process from the one available on the Bloom Tutors website.)
For more information and general inquiries, please go to the Bloom Tutors website: https://bloomtutors.com. ________________________________________________________________________________

At our next Horizontal (Dec. 1) we’ll be spending some time looking at and discussing Equitable Grading Practices. Following are two documents that I’d like for you to review prior to our meeting. The first is from Corvallis SD. The second is some thinking that Katie and HS admin have begun to discuss. Looking forward to our conversation! ________________________________________________________________________________

This one is a not today or tomorrow “to do” item, but one that I wanted to get on your radar. Our elementary schools have gone through a process of contacting subs they have used in the past in order to gauge their availability during Hybrid (and even in-person) instruction. As you know, we are using very few subs during CDL, but our need will drastically change beginning with Hybrid. You may want to begin having your Office Manager (or other) reach out to subs you have used (or possibly expanding that list) in the past to inquire about their availability. Our elementary schools found their sub interest/availability is dramatically reduced – even from the fall of last year. Reach out to me if you’d like to process this further. _______________________________________________________________________________

THIS and THAT:

As you recall, a few weeks ago you helped provide survey links to parents and students in order to capture their feedback regarding CDL this fall. Principals, I’ve added you as “collaborators” to this survey so you can see the results. You will also be able to add others from your building as collaborators if you would like to (I leave this up to you). Here are the links (accessible to principals only at this time) for the student survey, family survey, and Spanish language family survey. ________________________________________________________________________________

Just over a week ago we spent much of our Horizontal meeting time talking about the high numbers of F grades earned after the first six week of this school year. At the end of that meeting I asked a question about what you might commit to doing – an action step – in order to have fewer students failing class(es) at your school. Some of you were able to answer (put on the spot really) and others of you were not. Some of you talked about identifying/personally getting to know who these students are, others talked about opening up your building to non-English speaking families to share (or gather) information. One thing that I am going to commit to doing (that I also think I heard from one ore more of you) is using the translation service available to call a couple of MS families of non-English speakers… to hear more about what their experience is and how we might improve it for them and their child. I will have this done prior to our next Excellence & Equity training on Dec. 9 (as it fits in with our homework assignment!). _________________________________________________________________________________

Here is some information from Amy T. that is both timely and informative…

WebEx Security Updates

Just a reminder that our WebEx instance will be upgraded to be more secure on Monday, November 30th.  At that time, students who are logged in will be able to go directly to their teacher’s WebEx room, whereas those who are not logged in will be in the waiting room until they are let in by their teacher.  We are recommending that teachers have all students login to WebEx before that date.

Hot Spots

Leaders, we have passed out more than 1000 hot spots for internet access and have once again run out of inventory.  Of the 1000 devices that have been distributed, about 200 have never been used or are not currently active.  Could you please help us get those back so they can be distributed to families who need them?  A note in your parent communication would be great.  Something to the effect of “If your family has a wireless hot spot that is not being used, please return it to our school office so we can redistribute it to families in need.  It has become increasingly hard to get these devices and our inventory is limited so your help with this is appreciated!”

One more reminder about hot spots:  Please know that these are NOT intended for staff, as staff can work on site.  If they have been distributed to staff members we appreciate your getting them back so they can go to students and families in need.

Grade Guardian 

We are excited to start our implementation of Grade Guardian in early December. The vendor will be offering two options for live, synchronous training for “Advisors and Allies” which include administrators, counselors, grad coaches and student success instructors on December 3rd and 4th.  Both sessions are at 1 PM.  The “Advisors and Allies” live sessions and Canvas course are for staff who are not tied to any individual course sections in Synergy. Please register by using this form:  https://forms.gle/ZDwv2sTsoGkPfB569

For those that would like to start their learning ahead of these vendor-led sessions, you can enroll in a Canvas “Grade Guardian 101 – Advisors” course by clicking this link:  https://bls.instructure.com/enroll/LCL76A

You will need a Canvas account to access both the Grade Guardian 101 course, and Grade Guardian itself.  If you don’t yet have an account, please request one by filling out this form:  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfWl16wzrdMgviSumkOq5e5lUkC-H2-i_bkI4WWaSK0KsfAhw/viewform

Please note that training for teachers, ELL staff, SPED staff (and others as needed) will happen after these initial sessions.

After School Specials

And finally, here is some information regarding a few available technology trainings for staff, or “After School Specials.” ________________________________________________________________________________

Here is an opportunity for an opportunistic teacher! Stanford is offering a free course for MS/HS teachers around “How to Teach Online” that will be offered November 21 & 22. _________________________________________________________________________________

As you may recall, our district, due to what we believe are privacy issues, do not place a copy of STAS documents in a student’s permanent record. However, we do upload and keep a record of these documents hidden (accessible by admin and whoever enters discipline incidents at the building) within Synergy. This video is of Amy Stafford describing (and showing) how an admin can access STAS documents within Synergy. If you have an incident at your school that requires a STAS process, please continue to inter-district mail (or BLSend) these documents to Amy who will keep an original copy, as well as upload it into Synergy. Also, STAS documents have been updated on the Portal – so please use this version rather than any you might have saved on your computer or in a file drawer. ________________________________________________________________________________

I’ve been a part of a few conversations around students not having cameras on during Webex instruction. As you know, this is not a mandate (that all students have cameras on) – and also can be very frustrating to the teacher. Here is an article that I just found in the Marshall Memo that had what I thought was both good philosophy and ideas regarding better student engagement in this area. It is a one-page read, so I hope you all take a few minutes to check it out! ________________________________________________________________________________

Here is a flyer that outlines some best practices for schools who have social media accounts. ________________________________________________________________________________

REMINDERS:

[This was in last week’s blog, but some of you may have missed it as I added it late!] Building admin, if you have an awesome classified staff member who brings diverse talents, background, and/or expertise to our district and might be interested in becoming a certified educator in a hard-to-fill role, please reach out to them to recommend they consider attending the Info Session coming up next week.  See this flyer for details (this has been shared with all classified, but personal invitations go a long way). ________________________________________________________________________________

As I mentioned to you earlier this week, as part of the Governor’s “two week pause” we are not adding additional students to LIPI at this time. We are, however, continuing to offer LIPI to those students who have been participating. You can continue to work on lists and processes for adding additional students so you are ready to go when LIPI expansion is once again given the green light. _________________________________________________________________________________

I trust you will all take some time away from thinking about or engaging in your professional work next week. Walking away temporarily will help you be fresher when you come back – so please allow yourself to take a break. Then, I’ll see you all December 1 at 2:00 for Horizontal! _________________________________________________________________________________

The following is a copy and paste from last week – and only needs to be reviewed if it has not been completed yet… As I have previously mentioned, we have contracted with YouthTruth to conduct student surveys with us. There is some “pre-work” that needs to begin occurring – prior to the survey window of Jan. 4 – 22, 2021. At least one building administrator at every MS needs to become familiar with all things YouthTruth. Today I’m sharing two of the things that this administrator needs to do. First, here is a 20-minute kick-off Webinar to watch. This Webinar contains important information regarding these student, staff, and family surveys. This needs to be viewed no later than Nov. 20th. Second, here is a survey timeline that has been developed between YouthTruth and BLS. Please read over and become familiar with this. Third, on Nov. 23 you will receive an email from Whitney Ivie, from YouthTruth, regarding how to access the Student Implementation Guide, so you’ll have time to prepare for this survey before the window opens. _______________________________________________________________________________

This last “reminder” isn’t for you – but definitely is for me. I will forever (really… forever) remember the moment you created for me at this week’s Horizontal meeting. Intentional or not, this was definitely a “Power of Moments” (always looking for a way to pitch the Heath Brothers!) moment for me. Thanks again to Matt for organizing and for all of your willingness to participate. It really meant a lot. And, when I tell my kids about this I’m pretty sure they will all want to have a shirt in an effort to support their mother’s candidacy! 😉