TO DO:
If you haven’t already, please plan on sharing a link to your two school videos in the appropriate Google folder. Here is the folder for the Questions from 5th Graders. And here is the folder for your General School Video (that most of you already had completed. Both of these video folders can be found in Collective – BLS Docs – and are titled: General MS Videos and Questions from 5th Graders Videos. _________________________________________________________________________________
OSU-Cascades is starting to get a little nervous about finding spots for just a few teacher candidates for next year. Would you be willing to talk with a SS or ELA teacher or two to see if they would be interested/willing to be a supervising teacher next year? A humanities placement would also work. As of today, they are only looking for one SS placement and one ELA placement. Please let me know if you have a potential match and I’ll communicate with Erin at OSU-C. _________________________________________________________________________________
Save the date… Paul and Courtney from BRYT will be in Central Oregon the week of May 24. During their visit we have set aside some time for them to connect with our MS building admin. Please consider blocking out Thursday, May 27 from 2:00 – 3:30 for this conversation. This is not a “must” but rather an “if you are available” time to connect. We’ll be meeting in-person at CMS and will also have a Webex option so you do not need to leave your building if you’d prefer. _________________________________________________________________________________
Save the date II UPDATED DATES… We’ll talk more about this at Horizontal next week. June 23 & 24 (first Wed. & Thurs. after classes end) will be a training/work time with BRYT leadership. These will be “mostly full days” (maybe 5 hours?) and one of the main goals is to provide you insights and time to create a draft of your BRYT operational plan. Please plan on inviting two or three other members of your school team (recently hired EA and/or Clinician would be great) so you have multiple eyes and ideas for your planning. _________________________________________________________________________________
And speaking of BRYT work, here is an opportunity for you to receive some direct support from BRYT that Sean has asked to be passed along: One of the first steps in the BRYT planning process for a building team is the MTSS mapping process. Given that the year is ending soon, there will not be time for every building team to go through this process this year. That said, BRYT has opened up a few spots for building teams that want to get a jump start and do the MTSS mapping this spring. This will be a process that involves your building support team that will be working most closely with BRYT and the Student Success Clinician/Coordinator (SSCC). If you have already identified your SSCC, then this is a strong reason to consider participating if you have the bandwidth. Click the link here to pick a 60 or 90-minute time slot that starts in June.
THIS and THAT:
As you know, the deadline for ACRs has come and gone. And as you know, generally, we are only approving ACRs that are a 1-to-1 match of school and grade level. Here is an update regarding approving ACRs… Beginning today, Jo will be checking the spreadsheet every Friday to see if there are any 1-to-1 matches to approve. If there is, Jo will notify both principals involved to let you know to check the spreadsheet and approve this request. _________________________________________________________________________________
You have likely read or heard about the CDC updating their guidance around mask wearing and folks who have been vaccinated. And you also probably heard that Gov. Brown is going to move Oregon requirements regarding mask-wearing (indoors and outdoors) to align with this new CDC guidance. What you may or may not have caught in the small print (so to speak) is that Gov. Brown also said that for schools, we will continue to follow current RSSL guidance regarding social distancing and mask-wearing for the remainder of this school year (see end of third paragraph). In other words, no changes for us (as of now anyway!) in how we do school this spring. _________________________________________________________________________________
From Alandra: We are planning to share a press release celebrating our Excellence in Education award recipients May 21, hoping that will give enough time for schools that want to make the awards a surprise (if you have a conflict, let Alandra know and we may be able to push back the release date). Alandra is also collecting photos of the honorees and is looking for 1-2 events to attend, so if you have something fun planned for your recipients, let her know. _________________________________________________________________________________
You will be receiving an email today from Marsha Baro regarding a requirement (SB 155) to display a poster that is a reminder for reporting sexual conduct and child abuse. Please post this where you have other required documents for staff to see.
REMINDERS:
Michele Oakes sent you the following email last week – and I just want to share it again in case you haven’t passed it along to your staff yet. (If you haven’t yet, please do so soon!).
As part of our work with the Regional Educator Network, BLS has defined a need to increase the number of counselors in our district, especially those who identify as BIPOC. As you know, counselors support our students, teachers, families and community. As we increase the number of BIPOC counselors in our district, we will positively impact the students and community that we serve.
In order to determine who is interested, we have created a survey for staff. Please send this survey to all certified and classified staff. https://forms.gle/NMyVf19aSyP4tfna7 _________________________________________________________________________________
An email that was sent out this week that I’d like to highlight is one you received from Paul on 5/11 at 2:27 (so you can find it easily if need be!). In it he provided a number of timely Covid updates, including: Gov. Brown’s changes to county metrics that may move Deschutes Co into a “low risk” category soon; the move from a 10-day to a 14-day mandatory quarantine beginning this Monday; a message that we are not following or enforcing other program quarantines (yes, a youth could be quarantined at Boys and Girls Club, but attend school); an approved vaccine for 12-15 year olds may be available/given at one or more of our MS buildings outside of school time – parent permission required; and the balance between poor air quality and Covid requirements. Whew! _________________________________________________________________________________
MS Horizontal will meet next Tuesday at 8:00.