TO DO:

• Enjoy these next two weeks!  Give the gift of time to your family and friends, laugh, sleep in, stay up late, eat your favorite foods, read a book for fun, complete a puzzle, watch a movie (or two), let yourself emotionally release from your work… Enjoy this Christmas season and the New Year!
• The following information, from Kerry Morton (BLS math coach), should not be new learning for your math teachers, but it may be for you. Feel free to take a look yourself and pass along to your building math team: The Middle School Math Curriculum Review Team reviewed the pilot of Eureka in 2016-2017. Based on those results, the team decided to explore alternative programs. The team started with four programs: EnVision 2.0, Ready Math, Open Up, and Discovery. We only have Open Up remaining at this time. Before making a recommendation, we want to try out a series of lessons in several classrooms and compare it to the programs we reviewed in 2015: CMP3 and CPM. If you would like to learn more about Open Up, you can use my account:https://im.openupresources.org/Username: [email protected]

  Password: bendbend1

THIS AND THAT:

• I wanted to let you know that the HDMS principal posting will go live on Monday (1/8/18) when we return from break.  It will close on Feb. 2, and interviews will be on Feb. 20.  I hope you consider coming to the community forum that evening at HDMS.
• An article, entitled “Tether Yourself:  The Enlightening Talk Parents Aren’t Having to Keep Teens from a Damaging Drift” was recently shared with me.  I thought the message was not only a good one to pass along, but (unfortunately) the feelings of too many (anxiety, loss, stress, feelings of not meeting expectations) also seems to be on target this time of year.  I hope you consider reading the entire article in the next few weeks. To wet your appetite, here is an excerpt in which the author, also a mom, shares a letter of advice she has written to her teen daughter related to the danger of spending too much time in front of an electronic screen:

Tether yourself
To real people, real conversations, and real scenery.

Tether yourself
To furry animals, interesting books, good music, the great outdoors.

Tether yourself
To spatulas, hammers, cameras, paintbrushes, and yoga mats.

When your worth is in question … when you feel lost and alone … when you feel sad and can’t explain why, tether yourself to real life. Tether yourself to real people. Tether yourself to real love. And I will help you set limits because I know teens feel pressure to be available 24/7. But you need and deserve time to be alone with your thoughts, doing things you enjoy, without constant pressure and interruptions from the outside world. 

As you practice these self-regulation skills that will benefit you for life, I vow to do the same. I am here to set an example of a well-rounded life and to help you navigate this challenging territory. You can always hold on to me.

Tether Yourself: The Enlightening Talk Parents Aren’t Having Can Keep Teens from a Damaging Drift

REMINDERS:

• The first day back with students is January 8, 2018.  It may feel a bit awkward to not come back sooner, but I’m hoping you’ll get used to it.
• We are not having a Leadership meeting in January.  Our next Leadership will be on Feb. 5, 2018.
• We will come together for a Horizontal meeting on Jan. 22 (3:15pm) at PCMS.

TO DO:

• Please add this to your calendar: The TELL Survey (for all certified educators in Oregon) will be coming in February.  Two years ago we piloted a similar survey for our classified staff and are planning to concurrently have this available again this year. In addition to receiving and being able to review your building’s results, there is also a District Leadership Team that reviews (and creates goals) based on our district’s data.  Because we’d love your staff input, I’m thinking of offering a prize for the MS with the highest percentage of staff participation.  Let me know if you have any ideas (without breaking my bank) of what might incentivize your staff!

THIS AND THAT:

• As you know, having an authentic audience for students to demonstrate her/his learning to adds value and accountability.  Quite simply, it makes learning more meaningful to the student (and very likely for the teacher as well!).  Along this thinking, I recently ran across some examples of student speeches presented as part of Project Soapbox.  I don’t know a lot about this initiative, but believe the students get to choose her/his own topic to speak on (another obvious learning engagement strategy) and it appears they present their speech to an audience (which I can only assume includes more than their class) at a “real” setting (auditorium with a podium and microphone).  Creating a moment of learning and sharing of that learning like this wouldn’t take much additional effort on a teacher’s part, but I’m willing to bet the lasting memories and authentic learning on the student’s part would be forever.  Here is an example of a Project Soapbox speech given by high school student Christopher Watkins on bullying.  Let me know if you are aware of any teachers in your building creating other “moments” of learning for students – I’d love to share those in a future TRIBE update.

REMINDERS:

• Principals, if you haven’t already, don’t forget to complete your SLGGs in TalentEd.  I’ve met with each of you to discuss what your goals are (or your plan for them), which I’ve greatly appreciated.  Thank you for making your goals meaningful to the work you are engaged in.

TO DO:

• If you, or someone else in your building (e.g. counselor, school psych) has not attended a STATS training (the new Student Threat Assessment process), there will be one more opportunity to do so this year.  It will occur on Jan. 31, from 1:00 – 4:00 at the HDESD.  Please have anyone attending email Misty Groom so she will have a head count for materials.

THIS AND THAT:

• I remember Steve Kerr as a NBA player, before he was a championship coach.  The thing I remember about Kerr (the player), besides his ability to knock down wide open long-range jumpers, was his constant movement on the floor.  Steve was not blessed with great quickness, so when on offense he would run around the floor – between and off of screens from his teammates to get open and his shot off.  There was a well designed plan for what Steve was going to accomplish well in advance of actually getting the opportunity to demonstrate what he was good at. To me, student feedback is similar to this. (Stick with me, as I attempt to connect these dots.) If a teacher only provides a score/ grade on an assignment, then moves on to the next thing he/she must teach, I would argue that student learning was not optimized.  [Sure, Kerr the player beat his defender off of the dribble a few times, but there were no plays set up for him to go 0ne-on-one because everyone knew that was not his strength.] However, if a teacher spends time planning not only on the lesson that will be delivered, but also the tasks students will be asked to complete, as well as the type of timely feedback each will receive, student learning becomes more tailored to the student, maximizing growth potential. Dylan Wiliam is an expert on how to design quality student feedback. His article, The Secret of Effective Feedback, highlights his thinking while also providing some very practical examples of how to strengthen the quality of student work.
• As you likely are aware, each of our elementary schools are now implementing the Raptor system for parent/community check-in at the front office.  A couple of our middle schools have also implemented.  If any of you would also like to begin using Raptor after the start of January please let Julianne know – this is an option.  Otherwise, be aware that the plan is to have all secondary schools implement and use Raptor in the fall of 2018.
• Here is an update relating to long-term subs and overtime pay…  In an email I received this week from Paul Andrews at the HDESD and a BOLI representative, it has been determined that, by statute, long-term substitute teachers are not eligible for overtime. (This is great news!)

REMINDERS:

• As I mentioned last week, I will be in Salem on Monday and Tuesday for an AdvancEd board meeting.  If you need to reach me, please send a text and I will call you as soon I have a break to do so.
• In order to stay on track with your required certified observations this year, you should have completed two before you leave for the winter break.  Don’t forget that your follow-up conversation needs to happen within 72 hours after your mini and not all need to be direct observation of instruction and that you need to log your observations in TalentEd.
• One last reminder (I promise) to complete the 4-question (and one short response if you’d like) survey regarding your Round 1 Site Visits and process we used to set those up.  The feedback thus far has been insightful and will be used as we prepare for our next round. [Thank you to all that have already completed the survey!]

TO DO:

• Wish Susan Heberlein a “Happy Birthday” on Monday!

THIS AND THAT:

• First in a series of articles around “quality work” comes this one from EL Education and is a shoutout to our very own Roger White.  Attributes of High Quality Work is a short article outlining the three key EL Education attributes of complexity, craftsmanship and authenticity.  Staff and students at REALMS speak of these attributes often; as they design lessons, provide instruction, conduct field work and assess student work. Although REALMS is our only EL school, I believe we could all benefit from thinking about and leading with these three qualities of student work attributes in mind.
• The following is from Sean Reinhart.  Feel free to reach out to him directly if you have any questions.  (I will also be sharing this will all MS counselors early next week.)

  I am excited to let you know we have entered into an agreement with The Child Center.  The Child center is an outpatient counseling clinic that is located in Bend.  We have entered into an agreement that states the following:

  ·         BLPSD, in conjunction with parents, will make referrals to The Child Center (form attached).  Parents need to sign permission, much like with DCBH referrals.  The child would become a client of The Child Center. 

  ·         With parent permission and in coordination with school leadership, we will allow The Child Center to see their clients (our students) in our schools.  This will need to occur at a mutually beneficial time per school, parent, and therapist.  In other words, we don’t want to pull kids too much from core content. This only applies to OHP eligible students. 

  ·         They will also see OHP and Non-OHP clients in their Bend offices. 

  ·         This is mostly for students of lower acuity…WRAP referrals need to go directly through Deschutes County Behavioral Health through the ITCS referral form available on their website.

• Lastly, I wanted to give you a heads-up that I will be in Salem on Dec. 11 & 12 for a board meeting with a group called AdvancEd.  This is an entity that provides accreditation reviews (and stamp of approvals if warranted) to schools across the country (and world for that matter).  I likely won’t be able to check email during the day, but if you need something please feel free to text me and I’ll give you a call as quickly as I can.

REMINDERS:

• We will be meeting as a Leadership Team on Monday afternoon (starting at 3:15).  This will be a shorter meeting, followed by a gathering at McMenamins from 4:30 – 6:00.  Due to the discussion we will be having during Leadership, this would not be a meeting to invite an administrative intern to attend. Also, you have received this link from Jay (when he sent out the agenda earlier this week), but I wanted to pass it along again.  Your feedback is very helpful as we plan for the next round of school visits so if you haven’t completed this short survey yet, please do so in the coming days.

To Do:

• Have a fantastic (and well-deserved!) time away from work – instead focusing your energy on those who love you most: your family and friends. (Not that those you work with don’t love you, but… well… you get it.) I am looking forward to a few days out of town with Christie prior to all of our kids being home and Thanksgiving with my side of the family. It may seem a little cliche to say at this time, but I am honestly “thankful” to have the opportunity to work with, alongside, and for you. I am truly blessed because of you.

This and That:

• On Monday I sent you (MS admin) a one question survey regarding our Horizontal meeting currently scheduled for the afternoon of Monday, Nov. 27 – our first day back after the Thanksgiving break. It was sent out to 13 of you, and 12 of you had shared your thinking by this morning.  The results are clear, the overwhelming majority of you (8) would love to be in your building for the full day – so I am going to cancel our Horizontal this month.  The other four votes were split between rescheduling for December (2) and meeting to share a “best practice” (2) occurring in your building. [A graphic of the results are below.] Please continue to be diligent in reading through TRIBE so you don’t miss any important information that I need to share with you or ask you to communicate with me.
• Starting in December and continuing through January at least, I am going to be including articles in TRIBE around a theme.  Next month I’ll be focusing on the broad theme of “high quality work.”  After the first of the year the theme will be “persistence” – mainly as it relates to students (but there could also be some applications with your staff). I’d love to hear if this theme approach is something that you enjoy, or if you prefer the various “choose your own adventure” topics that I’ve woven into previous posts.
• As I had mentioned earlier, SVMS hosted a Make-a-thon event this week that was a great success.  The link is a story from today’s paper (front page no less!) if you happened to have missed seeing it. Kudos to Scott and Brian and their work on providing this opportunity to students and staff alike!
• You have all heard the phrases “shared leadership” or “collective leadership” or even “distributed leadership” – and I know you understand the concepts and benefits of not having a school run via a hierarchy of one.  In an article (that Dr. VanLoo recently passed along) by Madeline Will and published in Education Week Teacher, it claims one of the benefits of teachers having voice in leadership (decision-making) within a school is increased test scores.  This was a benefit I did not anticipate.  Hope you have a few minutes to be reminded and/or learn something new regarding shared leadership with teachers and how that will benefit not only school culture, but also student learning.

Reminders:

• Wednesday, Nov. 29 is a district SIW.  All of your math and science teachers (and possibly others) should know where they are meeting.
• Thursday, Nov. 30 at 6:00pm, PCMS will be hosting the second in a series of parent informational meetings.  The focus of this workshop is Internet Safety. Feel free to advertise this to parents and staff as all are invited to attend.

To Do:

• As you likely know by now, there were some synching issues with TalentEd Perform which has caused you to not have the correct people assigned to you for evaluation – or changing from correct to incorrect lists overnight.  This issue has been resolved and you should now have the correct folks.  First, please check your list in Perform to make sure this is accurate.  Second, my list was also not accurate (until a few days ag0), which resulted in you not being able to complete your SLGGs for this year.  You are now able to fill out your SLGGs.  As a reminder, this will be a topic of discussion when I come meet with you in either November or December during our scheduled visit.
• Consider passing along this art contest information to any staff or student that you think might be interested.  The Oregon Health Authority sponsors an annual calendar focused on Problem Gambling Awareness and ask for MS student art work to be highlighted each month. I have a sample of the 2018 calendar and can get many more copies for you if you’d like to share them as an example. I’ve linked some general entry details (deadline is March 30, 2018) and ideas.  Jessica McDonald ([email protected] / 541-322-7454) with Deschutes Co. Health Services is our local contact for this and can answer any additional questions you might have. There is a monetary prize for each the drawings selected from across our state for the cover and each month of the calendar!

This and That:

• Shay recently passed along an article to Cabinet members that he wanted us to read and reflect on.  The piece is titled Leadership in the Age of Complexity: From Hero to Host. In essence, the authors make a case for the common practice of people viewing leaders as hero’s (and leaders accepting this role). Hero’s have the answers, or will come up with the right one, she/he swoops in and saves the day. Usually this also involves the followers giving up autonomy or control so these hero leaders can be allowed to do their hero thing. A leader as a host, on the contrary, is not as common and usually requires months of trust development and  consistent behavior before his/her followers begin to believe in this alternative model of leading. After reading this article (or at least the characteristics of a host leader), I’d ask that you reflect on your building leadership style.  Are you viewed by your staff as the hero (the one with the answers) or a host? What, if anything, would you like to change regarding your leadership style or processes in your building? Specifically, the authors exert that host leaders must:

  • provide conditions and good group processes for people to work together.

  • provide resources of time, the scarcest commodity of all.

  • insist that people and the system learn from experience, frequently.

  • offer unequivocal support—people know the leader is there for them.

  • keep the bureaucracy at bay, creating oases (or bunkers) where people are less encumbered by senseless demands for reports and administrivia.

  • play defense with other leaders who want to take back control, who are critical that people have been given too much freedom.

  • reflect back to people on a regular basis how they’re doing, what they’re accomplishing, how far they’ve journeyed.

  • work with people to develop relevant measures of progress to make their achievements visible.

  • value conviviality and esprit de corps—not false rah‐rah activities, but the spirit that arises in any group that accomplishes difficult work together.

• A few of you are aware of the first Tech Trek week-long STEM camp for girls (between 7th and 8th grade year) that occurred at the OSU-Cascades campus last summer.  I just learned that there will be a second annual camp this summer (June 24 – 30, 2018) and girls from every BLS middle school will be sought out to participate.  (I’m guessing there will be two girls selected from every school, maybe three.)  Nothing for you to do at this time, but here is an overview of the process that will be occurring over the next number of months:

  December:  Contact central administrators about the process

  January:  Materials about Tech Trek to all schools

  January 30: Student applications due

  Mid-February: Teacher recommendations due

  Mid-February-Spring Break:  Applicants interviewed by AAUW (the sponsor of this camp)

  After Spring Break: 76 campers selected and alternates identified

  Mid-April- May 30:  Registration materials completed for every camper and alternate and $50 collected from every camper.  (Last year some staff and/or schools provided $50 scholarships.  If you would like to do this, know AAUW of Oregon is a 501(c)3 and every scholarship would be tax deductible.  I can provide the needed form if you have interest in this.)

  Mid-June:  Camper list finalized 

  June 24-30:  Tech Trek Central Oregon

Reminders:

• SVMS Makeathon is taking place next Wednesday afternoon/evening, check in with Scott if you have any questions or are interested in attending part/all of this activity.
• Next Thursday is College Day district-wide.

To Do:

• Take a look within the “Team Drives” folder within our district Google Drive and find the tab for your school. As you will recall, this is the location where we’d like each of our schools to document with whom, when and the focus of your School Design visits.  As a heads-up, you’ll be receiving a very short survey very soon regarding the process we’ve used prior to this round of school visits.  Questions will ask you to reflect on both our Leadership meeting and your site visits.  Obviously, you’ll be better able to complete this survey if you’ve completed two or more of your site visits. We’ll need to have folks complete this survey prior to the end of December so we can use this information to plan for our next SDP-focused Leadership meeting in February. (You can still complete your SDP site visits in January if need be – as we do not have a Leadership meeting scheduled that month.)
• Check out these activities that will be taking place at SVMS and PCMS that you can be involved with! Please also feel free to pass these opportunities on to your staff as you see fit.  (Additional info on both can be found through the below hot links and/or in the PD tab in our shared TRIBE Google Doc folder.)
  • First, Sky View will have Central Oregon’s first Makeathon on Nov. 15 and they need a few more adults to participate with their students.  Read the details and consider supporting SVMS – as well as learn more about this activity through your participation.  Let Scott know if you have questions or are interested in being involved.
  • Also, PCMS will be hosting the second (of four) Parent Workshops on Nov. 30, with a focus on Internet Safety.  KIDS Center will be providing this two-hour training to help adults keep children safe online. The first parent workshop was attended by over 150 parents and was a great success!

This and That:

• I will be away from my office, but available by cell (call or text), from Thursday afternoon through the end of next week (11/9 – 11/11).  Many of the folks on Cabinet will be in Portland for an annual OSBA Conference with our School Board. I’m sure most of you will not be working on Friday (Veterans Day observed), but if you need anything Thursday afternoon or any time Friday, please try reaching me on my cell phone first.
• I pulled the following out of Marshall Memo, and am passing it along because I thought it was a great example of an authentic audience for your students.  An online site for students to publish their science research – In this article in American Educator, Olivia Ho-Shing describes the Journal of Emerging Investigators, a nonprofit online science publication to which middle and high-school students can submit original research, receive feedback from expert scientists, and have their work published. It’s at https://www.emerginginvestigators.org.“From Students to Scientists” by Olivia Ho-Shing in American Educator, Fall 2017 (Vol. 41, #3, p. 16-19), https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/ae_fall2017_ho-shing.pdf
• Each of our middle schools were involved with the Ed Foundation’s Principal for the Day event yesterday, but only one of you were lucky enough to be included in a news clip on KTVZ.

Reminders:

• Daylight Savings Time ends this Sunday… don’t forget to “fall back” and adjust your clock by an hour.
• Monday, Nov. 6, was our agreed upon date to have all unexcused Synervoice attendance calls change from once a day (morning only) to morning and afternoon calls (so parents are notified early of any AM absences, but also in the afternoon if there is only a PM absence – but not both times if the unexcused is all day).  As you will recall, we discussed this at our Oct. 16 Horizontal meeting.
• We have a district Safety Committee. (Is this a reminder?)  Teri has graciously volunteered to be your MS representative for this monthly meeting. People representing a broad stroke of district jobs and departments are represented on this committee.  Here are the meeting minutes from our last (and first of the year) gathering.  If you have any safety trends or concerns from your building, please let Teri know and she will share that with this group in an effort to be aware of what is occurring across our district, problem-solve and answer at this meeting, or make a referral for another person or group to follow-up with and get back to you.  Let Teri or I know if you have any questions about this group or it’s function. Thank you Teri for taking on this role for our TRIBE!

To Do:

• Mark your calendars!  Our annual Move-Up Day for 5th graders to come visit your building will be on May 22, 2018.  I’ve communicated this with Gary – who will let the elementary principals know – so other out of town events will not be scheduled on this day.
• As you are aware, Oregon Health Teens Survey (grades 6 & 8) is offered ever other year.  Student Wellness Survey is offered in opposite years.  We’ve decided, from a Deschutes Co. Health Services suggestion, to only be involved with the OHT Survey – with the belief that if we only engage in one survey, every other year, we will have more schools participate (and receive better data) than if we try to continue with two surveys.  So, OHT Survey will be this year – with a January/February survey window (I do not know exact dates).  I’d love for all of our MS to be involved this year, but it is not mandatory.  Please let me know by next Friday (Nov. 3) if you would be interested/willing, or not this year, to have your 6th & 8th graders participate.
• If you haven’t already, please begin completing your SLGGs for this year.  Principals, you should find yours within your TalentEd folder now.  VPs, if your SLGG form is not in your folder, then your principal can add it.  A reminder that I’d like to discuss this year’s SLGGs with principals when I come visit you at our Nov/Dec meeting (I’m only meeting with you one time during these months).

This and That:

• If you missed it last night on the news, SVMS got some props for their You Matter campaign.  Always nice to receive some positive press for the enriching activities/events at one of our schools.  Kudos to Scott, Brian and the team at SVMS!
• As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I wanted to pass along to you the goals/targets that your counselors (and all HS counselors as well) have, as a group, set for themselves to accomplish this year as part of their ongoing work in created a Comprehensive Guidance and Counseling Program at each school.  First of all, I need to tell you how impressed I am with the work all of our counselors are doing in creating systems, based on your school data, to serve the needs of all students. They would love to hear a “thank you” from you as you learn more about what they’ve been up to.  Here is a list of items they will be working towards in the coming weeks (they have a due date of Dec. 1) and I hope you will ask your counselor about these activities and support their work:
  • Mission and Vision Statements (For counseling department)
  • School Data Profile (DART data to help identify gaps in learning – and areas for focus for counselors)
  • Program goals (Hopefully also used for counselor SLGGs)
  • Mindsets and Behaviors Planning Tool
  • Closing-the-gap, School Counseling Core Curriculum and Small Group Action Plans (These are three different plans)
  • Plans for data collection (What pre/post data are counselors going to collect to see whether goals are met)
  • Annual Calendar (Completed and shared with building admin)
  • Annual Agreement (Completed and shared with building admin)
• You are probably already aware of this change, but may not be aware of why it has occurred.  Terry Cashman is now overseeing custodians.  To be clear, Walt Norris is still the direct supervisor of building custodians, but Terry (instead of Mike Tiller) is now overseeing Walt.  The reason for this is because of the burden our new bond has put on Mike’s time.  Some responsibilities had to be peeled away from Mike, as he adds a number of other bond-related, new items of responsibility.  In case you are asked, this move does not result in any cost to our general fund.  If you have a question or concern with a custodian Walt is still your first contact.
• Some new things are on the horizon around transportation and parent communication.  I’ll provide you the overview here, with more to come (likely from transportation folks) in the not-so-distant future:
  • GPS – These units are currently being installed on all of our busses.  With a downloadable app, parents will be able to track their child’s bus location.
  • RFID – If a parent is interested and volunteers, their child will carry a card (think plastic card swipe) that will, again with a downloadable app, let the parent know when their child gets on the bus and when they exit the bus.  This should be up an running by this December.

Reminders:

• For most of you, next Thursday, 11/2, will bring a new “principal” to your building.  The Education Foundation has sponsored this event for a number of years, matching a community person with a building principal for the morning to get a first-hand, behind-the-scenes look at what it is like to be a school principal.  I encourage you, if you have a guest principal, to take this opportunity to show your guest some of the great work you and your staff are engaged in, some tasks this individual can’t believe you “have to deal with” and some of the things you love about your job.  I believe, overall, there is great community support for our schools.  Take this opportunity to develop a new supporter!

To Do:

• I wonder what you think about a statement I recently read… 80% of managers feel like they frequently recognize employee contributions, while 20% of employees feel like they often receive recognition.  That is a pretty wide disconnect.  I wonder, as leaders, if we feel like we are positively recognizing those we work with – when it does not feel like that at all to the receiver?  I’m pretty sure this is true of me.  This makes me (want to be) more aware of how my recognition is received than how/what I give.
• File this one under “to do” and “reminder”… The goal district-wide is to have two mini observations done (especially for those receiving a summative this year and temp employees) prior to winter break.  Conferences next week may be a great time to get some “professional observations” completed!

This and That:

• A few weeks ago I shared some SBAC data with you.  This week I wanted to share some additional data in two different formats (same data).  In addition to what you have already seen, this data also includes “like-school” comparisons in ELA and Math, and “growth percentile” data for ELA and Math.  One of the data sheets is represented by a line graph.  School data is displayed vertically on this page, with specific numbers listed by each data point (which are hard to read in some cases).  The other next page displays data in bar graph format, organized by data points. For example, all schools are grouped around “ELA Score” – which is next to all schools being grouped around “ELA Like-School” data.  On this page schools are represented by color and can be tracked by that color across the page.  Also, the specific percentage for each school is listed about their bar.  (3RVRS Note: only ELA and Math scores signify grades 6 – 8 results.  All other data percentages are indicators of grades 3 – 8 due to the fact that ODE only provides these data by school, not by grade level.)
• There are some new laws around abbreviated school days for students. In a nutshell, we can NOT unilaterally decide that a student will have a shortened day. We must have parent consent.  For students on an IEP, the IEP team can make a decision. Please be sure you are working with your Special Programs support person, Colleen, if you are considering a shortened day for a student on an IEP. She will help you be sure to comply with all requirements.We will need to complete a step up plan and have a signed parent letter for any student on an abbreviated day. Please work with me if you are considering an abbreviated day for any student not on an IEP. I will help you with the letter and step up plan to be sure we are fulfilling all of our obligations.
• The title of an article from Marshall Memo 701 (Sept. 4, 2017) caught my attention. The article, The Five Characteristics of a Highly Effective Team claims that the members of a team matter less than the qualities that a team possesses. This short article outlines the five qualities the author recommends are needed in order to accomplish highly effective work.

Reminders:

• I mentioned to you at our meeting on Monday afternoon that I would share the Simon Sinek video with you that we began to watch.  Again, this is my edited version, while the entire video can be viewed on YouTube. (I also saved this edited video in the PD folder of our TRIBE Google Doc.)

To Do:

• Begin thinking about your own SLGGs for this year.  During my visit with you at your building in Nov/Dec I plan on spending some of our time together discussing your goals.  Let me know if you have any questions regarding this.
• Reflect on this quote I received from Shay this week: “Our job is not to prepare students for something.  Our job is to help students prepare themselves for anything.”  (A. J. Juliani)  Sounds like a shift from Student A to Student B to me!  Thank you for your tireless efforts in helping students prepare themselves for their future.

This and That:

• A position posting:The district will be posting the position of Principal for a new small high school in the days to come.  Alice Dewittie has been leading a team of teacher leaders in these last months in design work that is the preparation for opening a new small high school in the fall of 2018.  Alice has done an outstanding job casting a vision, facilitating teacher leadership and digging into the nuts and bolts of logistical planning on this project.  She will be making a hand-off to a to-be-hired leader.  Alice has decided to step away from her work in Bend – La Pine following this current school year, and is looking forward to pursuing new challenges and options.  Our district owes much to Dr. Dewittie.  Her leadership at Summit High has been nothing short of transformational for that school.  Her design leadership in the opening stages of this new small high school have set that school on a path for innovative success for years to come in our community.  The Principal position at Summit HS will likely be posted in December.  Big shoes to fill…
• As some of you know, I have a “man crush” on Chip and Dan Heath, brothers and authors of a few books, including Switch, that I have read a number of times.  Well, their new book is out and I will finish reading it this weekend.  It is titled The Power of Moments and I am loving it so far.  In case you’d like to know a bit more about this book, you can read the first chapter, before you decide to purchase 20 copies to give as gifts to family and friends.  (No need to get me a copy, I’ve already got one.)
• In case you haven’t heard yet, your counselors will participate in two days of PD this year, facilitated by an American School Counseling Association trainer, that will focus on the creation and implementation of a Comprehensive Guidance and Counseling Program. The first all-day training will take place on Monday, Oct. 23 at the Ed Center.  I am thrilled with the work your counselors are making toward this plan and their eagerness to be stretched and create systematic ways to serve all of our students. I’ll provide more details of the work your counselors are engaged in this year after this first training.
• Dr. Van Loo recently passed along some of John Hattie’s work (250 Influences on Student Achievement) that is not only thought-provoking, but also comes in a very user-friendly format.  This may not be new information to you, but I hope you find this well organized, two-page, color coded examples easy to read and useful.  This would make a great resource to refer to or share with your ICCLs (or whole staff) when you are wondering about the value of a particular support or intervention.

Reminders:

• We are meeting as a Horizontal on Monday at SVMS;PLEASE NOTE THIS CHANGE IN LOCATION.  We will begin at 3:15.  Once again, the agenda is packed and I’m excited about getting together with you all. You may want to bring your laptop in order to access a Google Doc signup connected to an Erin’s Law discussion we’ll be having.