This and That:

• In the article “Shifting the Grading Mindset Starts With Our Words,” author Starr Sackstein makes the argument that a teacher’s words provide a powerful message of promoting (or demoting) a growth mindset and learning amongst students.  She recommends that teachers should “adjust small things in the classroom that will lead to important growth for students.”  Much like teachers communicating learning, I challenge you to pay attention to the words you use this next week.  Do they promote the growth and learning that you are targeting?  Do these words value taking risks, failing and trying again, perseverance and grit?  If not, consider what words you might change in order to communicate your belief in a growth mindset.

Reminders:

• Don’t forget that Monday we’ll be meeting at SVMS for our Horizontal meeting at 3:15.  Here is the agenda.  As you may recall, the majority of our time will be spent with each building sharing one of their “buckets” in the School Design Plan.  Please see the attached agenda for specific talking points.  This should be like talking about a recent trip you just went on (your experiences), and is not intended to be a report you need to study and prepare for.  You have done the work already, the idea behind this time is for us to have honest conversations about the joys and pitfalls of that work, to learn from one another, and to better know how to support the work of our whole tribe.  (I promise no team huddle or chear.)  Lastly, remember to come with a hard copy for everyone (15 copies) of the bucket you will be sharing.
• Wednesday SIW is a district set aside.  I’ll be sending an email out to MS math teachers tomorrow about meeting location reminder (PBMS), science teachers received a reminder earlier this week (meet at Bend High), and Jana has been good at communicating with language arts teachers about where to meet.

This and That:

• Were you aware that parents can log into ParentVue and in a few clicks get signed up to receive email alerts regarding unexcused tardies/absences, final grades, and/or grade progress updates?  This one-page instruction sheet might be something you want to share in a newsletter, PTO/PTA meeting, or other parent forum.  It would be a great way for parents to be notified of their child’s progress – or lack thereof.  Before advertising, you may want to give your teachers a heads-up though.  If a parent elects to be notified if their child falls below 60% (for example) in a teacher’s grade book and that teacher doesn’t update his/her grade book for weeks (even if the student has turned in work to earn an improved grade) then the parent will continue to receive email updates that their child has a lower grade than what might be accurate.  This has potential to create some angst for all parties involved!
• I recently read an article entitled “A Letter to Teachers from ‘That Kid’ ” – and thought it was worth passing along.  It is a quick read and worth the few minutes of your time to remember that there are kids we work with every day who are “that kid.”  Having jobs that demand your attention and more of your time than you have in a day, this article is a reminder about the most important aspect of our profession – the students.  I thought this was a good reminder as we cross the mid-way point in the academic year.
• If you are wanting to carry over any of your allocated funding please communicate this with me.  Although it is discouraged, there have been times when this has been approved under special circumstances.  You will need both my and the finance department’s approval.  Please start with me.  If you’d like to talk about the reasons for or limitations of having a carryover please ask.
• Julianne sent me the following information/reminder that I thought was worth passing along to you:

  Just a quick reminder that we do not allow for the gathering of signatures for ballot titles or candidates at our schools during the teacher contract day.

  Per KJA, “There shall be no distribution of material that is libelous or obscene; that advocates or promotes illegal actions; that is likely to cause a disruption to or interference with the education or discipline of students in the school where the material is posted; promotes, favors, or opposes a candidate for elected office or a ballot measure; or advocates religion or promotes a particular religious viewpoint.”

  More information about restrictions on political campaigns by public employees can be found on the Secretary of State’s website at: http://sos.oregon.gov/elections/Documents/restrictions.pdf

Reminders:

• I learned this week that the TELL Survey deadline has been extended until March 10.  It would be great if you wouldn’t mind nudging those teachers who haven’t completed this yet.
• See you all Monday afternoon for our district Leadership meeting.  Reminder, there will be no New Administrator meeting this month (per Jay’s email Friday afternoon).

This and That:

• You should receive your staffing plans prior to spring break.  The hope is to give you time to complete your plan, return to me for approval, and post any known openings prior to the Job Fair on April 11.
• The current BEA contract is not complete – hence the reason why there is no electronic or paper copy available.  There is some final arm wrestling over wording currently taking place and you will be notified when a final copy is available.  Until then, if you have a specific question regarding contract language please refer those to Jon Lindsay or Debbie Watkins.
• This week the school board took a first look at next year’s school calendars, as well as the 2017-18 Major Dates calendar.  No formal action to approve was taken, but I do not anticipate any changes occurring at the middle level.  All of these calendars can be found here.  Scroll through and find the one that fits your school if you’d like!
• You may be hearing about an awards program for teachers that is sponsored by On Point Credit Union. It sounds like a great thing, but it also looks an awful lot like an ethics violation for the winner.  Please do not advertise this program in any way unless you receive a request to have a flyer placed on the “community bulletin board” at your school.  If you’d like to read more regarding potential ethics violation I will forward you an email from our legal council.

Remember:

• The 5th grade Move Up Day is Thursday, May 19 for all middle schools in Bend.  (Ponderosa may be an exception, but that will be worked through with SVMS, who will still have Move Up Day as scheduled on the 19th.)  I have received some questions about this date earlier in the week, so wanted to make sure we are all on the same page. Gary Timms is also going to confirm this date with all of the elementary principals in the coming days.  The time for this activity is roughly 9:30 – 11:00.  Let me know if you have any questions regarding this.

This and That:

• You can find some additional data/reports on the blog around GALLUP Student Polls.  I’ve included links to three documents here that might prove helpful as you consider your School Design Plan and/or dig into your school GALLUP results.
  • Gallup Huddle Cards – Some ways to build or bust Hope, Engagement, Career/Financial Literacy, and Entrepreneurial skills, conversation starters and ways those who work with youth can help.  Definitely worth a look!
  • Gallup Student Poll Action Planning Guide – Pretty much what it sounds like.  This document provides a possible roadmap for reviewing your data and developing next steps for improving results.
  • Gallup Student Poll Report – This report provides the results from surveys completed in all US public schools this year.  Page 6 of this report breaks down results by grade level.

Reminders:

• Principals are meeting on Monday in the TLC Conference room at 3:15.

This and That:

• It is no surprise to anyone that we are at the midpoint of this academic school year.  What may be a bit of a shock is how quickly we’ve arrived at this place.  This is a point when I will be reflecting back on what my goals were for this year – and being honest about where I am in this journey.  What has been accomplished, what I’ve begun but not finished, and where I have fallen flat.  Whether individually or with a team you work with, I encourage you to take a few moments and reflect on the first 20 weeks with students and see if you are where you want to be as you lead in your school.
• Our district would love your feedback, specifically if you have concerns, regarding the following three questions.  If you could share any negative experiences about any of these please email me so I can collect and then pass them along in an effort to get better results in the future.
  • With our new “sub finder”, have you been unable to request a specific sub?
  • Is there additional work or steps needed at the office manager level in order to do a work around to get a particular sub for the day?
  • With our 1-to-1 iPad implementation, have your heard concerns from your teachers who have had a sub, or from a sub him/herself, around not being able to deliver instruction due to his/her lack of technology skills?
• Although this is not a new article, I do believe it is a timely one.  “The Disciplined Pursuit of Less,” published in the Harvard Business Review, examines why – in the words of author Greg McKeown – “successful people and organizations don’t automatically become very successful.”  McKeown makes a case that “success is a catalyst for failure.”  Consider that.  Success may actually contribute to failure.  Jim Collins states that some fall into failure because of the “undisciplined pursuit of more.”  In the end McKeown urges his readers to pursue “the disciplined pursuit of less.  Not just haphazardly saying no, but purposefully, deliberately, and strategically eliminating the nonessentials.” After reading this article, consider how this might apply to your School Design Plan.  What might this mean for you as an instructional leader?  What message (singular, focused, essential above all else) should you give your staff to focus on?

Reminders:

• And speaking of mid point in the school year, don’t forget to begin having SLGG mid-year review conferences with your teachers.  If a PLC or team have set common goals then these meetings can be done as a group rather than individually.  During these conversations please get to whether the teacher feels that she/he is on the right path of reaching the goal(s), and discuss any possible modifications that may be needed to the goal(s) [no way to meet, or has already met the goal].  Also, I’d recommend you count these conferences as a mini observation and document it in Talent Ed. (This year’s SLGG form does not have a spot for you to record any information regarding a mid-year conference.)  You should include, at a minimum, the date of your conversation and “SLGG mid-year review” as the subject observed.  You may also want to include any reminder of your conversation under the notes section.
• Monday is a MAC Survey day.  All funds generated from this survey are used to support FAN, so please help encourage your teachers to complete this survey.

This and That:

• An article, Empathy: A Note, was shared with me and I thought is well worth passing along to you.  This is the time of year when empathy (as well as patience) often runs thin.  A time when situations that were met with compassion months ago are no longer.  Often these are associated with student behavior – but it could also be true of teaching and learning.  At one point in the article the author, as a teacher herself, confesses that: “Empathy nudges me to sidle inside another’s mind and heart and see what it’s like in there, even to glimpse what I look and sound like from within that other world.”  Hope you are able to take a few minutes and read this article – and sharing it with others as you think appropriate.
• Here are a few follow-ups from our Horizontal meeting earlier this week:
  • I will check on a few ACR questions that came up and hope to have answers for you as soon as next week (i.e. Can we put the form online? Can we have one district message around ACR? How will we communicate our ACR message?, etc.)
  • I have sent an email to Sal, Debbie and Candy regarding the questions that came up when discussing Extra Duty.  Most of these questions were associated to athletic hirings and therefore may be addressed through AD meetings.  I will communicate with you if I receive any updates.
  • 6th grade Move Up: I decided that each MS would host their feeder 5th graders on May 19  (or some day that week) this year.  Here are some expectations that I have around that visit (and let me know if you have any questions/concerns with any of these):
    • You will make reach out to all of your feeder schools to finalize date and time for this visit.
    • You will determine, with your feeder schools, which schools will need transportation and who will be contacting the bus garage to make necessary arrangements.
    • Costs for transportation is the school’s responsibility (and should not be a large amount).  Feel free to negotiate with your feeders, but ultimately this is something we are going to make happen so don’t push for them to pay.

Reminders:

• I have jury duty these next two weeks.  As you probably know, that requires me to make a call in the evening to see if I need to report the next day.  If I do need to report then I will let you know via email.
• The TELL survey will be open from Feb. 1 – 29.  In mid-January you should have received letters to hand out to your teaching staff.  If you haven’t already, please hand out those letters today.  Here is a 1-page overview of the TELL survey with additional details.  If you can make it work, it is more than appropriate to provide time for your staff to complete this survey.
• Leadership meeting for everyone on Monday at 3:15.  A New Administrator Academy will precede it beginning at 2:00.

This and That:

• There is some work being done on the Principal Summative Evaluation.  The focus of this work is around some proposed changes for this year – including reducing the number of areas to be evaluated (scored) from 51 Standards to a maximum of 12 Domains.  All of the former Standards are still included in the evaluation, but serve more as “look fors” when scoring the Domains, whereas the old evaluation did not require a score for the overall Domain.  Yesterday a team met (including all of those involved with creating the current principal evaluation) to hear the details of this recommendation, with the feedback gathered going to Cabinet for consideration on Monday.  If changes are recommended, they will be presented at our February Leadership meeting and implemented this on this spring’s administrator evaluation.  Stay tuned for more on this…
• Here is some exciting news!  PSU and Center for Geography Education is sponsoring a 16 day trip across Spain this July.  Any PreK-12 Oregon teacher may apply for this wonderful opportunity.  Most expenses are covered (besides a few meals and tuition for the credits) – which is the amazing part of this opportunity.  Feel free to pass this along to any of your teachers, as this is not limited to those with social science degrees.
• I recently received a jury summons (again) for serving a two-week term.  Earlier this fall I received my first summons, and asked for a deferral – which I received until now.  February 1 – 12 is my two-week appointment.  Obviously, I do not know if I will actually be required to appear or not, but I did want to give you a heads-up that it may be possible.  If I do have to report I will check email and texts as often as I can, but office voicemail will not be as available and thus not checked as often.
• Here are updates, as of Jan. 20, 2016, of your building SIF and Discretionary Funds.  Let me know if you have any questions regarding these.
• And finally, a shout-out to Roger as one of our country’s newest citizens!  Roger recently went through the rigors of being tested on US History topics, filling out paperwork, being scanned, fingerprinted and saying the right things in his interview to become a US Citizen.  Way to go, eh!

Reminders:

• Our Horizontal meeting is Monday from 3:15 – 4:45.  We’ll be meeting at HDMS.  Here is the agenda. (Please either bring a copy or you will find it within TRIBE documents.) I’m excited that Don Stearns is able to join us (and future Horizontal meetings as his schedule allows).  I think this is a great way to deepen our connections and work with BEA.  Don’t forget to look over and come prepared to provide your building’s feedback regarding the draft 2016-17 school calendar.
• We have a new District website and it is LIVE!  Thanks to Alandra for being the point person on this changeover, and to all of you for your work on your building’s web site.  If you haven’t yet, you might want to check it out!

This and That:

• One of the agenda items for our Jan. 25 Horizontal meeting is to take a look and provide feedback on next year’s district calendar.  You can find a draft of the 2016-17 calendar here, or in the Documents folder of this blog.  (You are able to rotate the calendar for better viewing by clicking on the printer icon and then opening it as a PDF – then rotating it.)  Please take a look at, feel free to share with others in your building, and be prepared to discuss at our meeting on the 25th.  I will also have two color copies of this draft calendar per building to hand out at that meeting.  I will need any feedback you might have by Friday, January 29.  Feedback will then be presented to Cabinet and union representation for consideration prior to going to the Board for final approval.

• The Math Curriculum Review Team has been working on establishing Core Beliefs and narrowing down math programs for further review. Your Math Curriculum Review Team representative has a task to complete between now and February 5th. He/she needs to find a time to share the Core Beliefs with the math teachers at their site and get questions, wonderings, and level of agreement from their school. This task will probably take approximately 20 minutes. 

  Additionally, the middle schools are invited to add an additional representative. I would like this to be a discussion between the administrator and your current team member.  At this time, the representative should be someone who has common beliefs as the ones indicated in the Core Beliefs (also found in the documents folder). Every teacher at your school will have the opportunity to provide feedback regarding programs at a later time.

  Let Kerry Morton know if you have questions or concerns.

Reminders:

• Next Wednesday is a District SIW.  As the instructional leaders of your building, please use your voice to communicate the importance of your teachers attendance at these PD opportunities.   Each of these groups are meeting from 1:45 – 3:15 except for ELL, which is 1:30 – 4:00. Following are the meeting locations:
  • ELL – Ed Center, room 230
  • ELA – IBD @ Ed Center, room 314; StudySync @ CMS; Units of Study @ HDMS media center [You and your ELA teachers received an email from Jana with direction on which location to attend]
  • Math – Pacific Crest Middle School [There is a bit of preparation needed for your math teachers prior to then.  I emailed you and your math folks a document today outlining what grade group they will be in, as well as what they will need to be prepared with.]
  • Science – Bend High School
• HR is needing “letters of support” for any 3rd year probationary teacher in your building that you are recommending to move to contract status by January 22 – next Friday.  These are letters that the Board reviews and strongly considers when making the decision to move someone to a more permanent employment status.  If you have any questions regarding this please see Jon’s email sent on Jan. 11, 2016.

This and That:

• I want to use this first bullet to thank you for the leadership you provide at your building.  After a break, during the winter months and what is often the time of year when we (ourselves… and our staff) do not possess the same positive outlook that we possessed four months ago.  There is no doubt that these are the days/weeks when keeping ourselves and others positive is more of a challenge.  So, thank you for your leadership to know what you need and what your staff needs in order to still see the good in those we have the privilege to work with.
• Following is some information regarding student growth percentiles (SGPs) and median student growth percentiles (median SGPs).  This data was included as part of our school’s annual state Report Card information.  A very appropriate question to ask (or that may be asked of you) has to do with: “How can our student SBAC scores be compared to last year’s OAKS scores in reading and math – they are totally different types of assessments?”  And, indeed, they are.  This is where SGPs and median SGPs come in.  First, here are our district, by school, median SGPs in ELA and math for 2014-15.  Next, there is some additional information regarding how SGPs are determined and what is the difference between these two growth percentiles.

  Overview of Student Growth Percentiles

  Student Growth Percentiles are based on the statewide model for student growth. Oregon’s Growth Model measures year-to-year progress of students on the statewide assessments. The model has been in place since 2012 and is used in the annual Report Card ratings for districts and schools.

  § Student Growth Percentiles measure growth for individual students by comparing the improvement in his or her achievement on Smarter Balanced to that of his or her “academic peers” (i.e. those who have similar historical assessment results).

  § Median Student Growth Percentile represents the exact middle of the Student Growth Percentile scores for the educator’s students. In other words, half of the educator’s students performed above or below the median score.

  This video is from Washington state, but it came from a document issued by ODE and the explanation also applies to Oregon.  I believe it does a pretty nice job of explaining these two types of growth percentiles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6e_j9QwjVWk

Reminders:

• The next district SIW will be January 20.  ELA, math, science and ELL teachers will all be meeting at various locations on this day.  There is an updated District SIW calendar available here, or can be found within the TRIBE Documents shortcut on the main page.
  • ELA – IBD @ Ed Center, room 314; StudySync @ CMS; Units of Study @ HDMS media center [You and your ELA teachers received an email from Jana with direction on which location to attend]
  • math – PCMS @ 1:45 [More to come on this… including grade-level groups and some needed prior preparation for math teachers to complete prior to the 20th.]
  • science – Bend High @ 1:45
  • ELL – Ed Center, room 230 @ 1:30