Welcome to “Tribe” – the new blog for BLS middle school news. This blog will take the place of the weekly emails that I have been sending this year. This came from a great idea/recommendation that I heard when visiting schools recently (thank you Chris!). The idea is that it would be much easier to find or refer back to information that I’ve sent out if it were all in one spot (blog) versus digging through previous emails and finding what you needed. Also note that located just under the title “Tribe” you will find a “MS CALENDAR” and “DOCUMENTS” hot link that should take you right to our shared MS Calendar in Google Drive where you sign up for my monthly site visits, or a page with all of the documents that I’ve included in these communications, respectively. On the right side you will notice that I’ve included all of my past weekly email updates for you to reference. Hope this is helpful. Please let me know if there are other things you would like included within this blog and I’ll work to figure out how to make it happen.
Lastly, I need to thank Christie (my wife) for her help in creating and encouraging me to move forward with this blog. Not only does she take care of me personally (not an easy job), but also provides me with tons of technical assistance and book recommendations! Woo Hoo!
This and That:
Instead of asking students “What’s wrong with you?” — Principal Jim Sporleder asked “What happened to you?” This change in thinking and practice, which focused on understanding the trauma many of his students had experienced, sparked dramatic change at his school in Walla Walla, Washington. Graduation rates soared, while expulsions and suspensions plummeted — something he attributes to a focus on youth who had Adverse Childhood Experiences. Sporleder and four students at Lincoln High School are the focus of an award-winning documentary, “Paper Tigers,” which will be screened in the auditorium at Bend Senior High School, 6 p.m. Friday, Dec. 11. Afterward, Sporleder will offer a presentation on trauma-informed education and ACEs and will answer questions. A few weeks ago “Paper Tigers” was shown at La Pine High School and received a great reception. I would highly recommend you attend this showing at Bend High if you are able and have students in your school who have had to deal with traumatic events (parental drug addition, poverty, abuse, death of loved one, etc.) – which we all do.
Thank you goes to Robi for her work towards building a middle school science Tribe! She will be co-facilitating a discussion with four secondary science teachers (two MS and two HS) on the remaining district SIW dates (Jan, March and May) that involves all secondary science teachers. So, your science teachers (along with your math and ELA) will all be invited to attend PD trainings outside of the building on the remaining three district SIWs. The two MS co-facilitators for this are Sara Trakselis from PCMS and Stacy Welsh from LPMS. Additionally, Robi has invited all MS science teachers to gather and share ideas – and was very creative in pulling folks together. The following email was sent out to your science folks and should be self-explanatory:
Greetings Science Teachers!
As we continue to shift to the adoption of NGSS, we thought it would be great to get all Science teachers together for an informal gathering to get to know each other, as well as share ideas about science.
We will meet next Thursday, December 10th, 4pm at McMenamins (main pub)
OSTA will provide appetizers and will be giving all attendees a free OSTA membership- if you are not a member already.
This is an informal gathering and we hope to gather ideas, question, and concerns about science in our district.
RSVP is appreciated! Let me know if you have questions.
**Please pass this on to anyone I may have missed! ALL science teachers are welcome.
As you probably are aware, our district has access to translation and interpreter services. There has been an overuse of printed translation services. Not in the sense of too many pieces being translated, but in that our translator has been asked to quickly translate a printed piece so it could be sent out (nearly) immediately. This process usually takes 3 – 5 business days. With that in mind, this form outlines when and how translation and interpreter requests should be processed. Please let Skip know if you have any questions about this.
Reminders:
If you haven’t already, please let me know if you would like to help “interview” prospective teachers from the OSU-Cascades education program on President’s Day, Feb. 15. We need to have an idea of whether we will have enough administrators available before we commit to participating. You should not feel any pressure to participate… just to let me know if you would like to be involved this year or not. Obviously, your schedule may change between now and then, so be assured you will not be shunned if you change your mind.