TO DO:

Many/Most of you have not completed your SIF or MS Alt. budgets for this year yet. Please do so very soon. You’ll find both of these as tabs within your Staffing Plan folder for your school. _____________________________________________________________________________

And speaking of completing plans, please take a look at the High School Success funds allocated to your school this year and complete the plan for this. This needs to be completed by Oct. 30. Here is the link to access your plan. Wendy Reeves can help you with any questions you might have regarding this. ______________________________________________________________________________

And one more to do if you haven’t already… Principals, please complete your year work calendar (best guess – knowing that it could change) if you haven’t already. VPs, work with your principal to complete yours if you haven’t already done so also. ______________________________________________________________________________

Here is a flyer from the state of Oregon regarding OHP insurance. This might be a good one for you to share with your families (and, it is already translated!). I’ve put it in Google docs – and have set it as “anyone with the link can view” so you won’t need to make a copy if you don’t want to. ______________________________________________________________________________

Here is another piece of information (this one regarding school photos) that I’d ask you to pass along to parents in your next regular communication:

We are excited to be working with a new photography company for school picture days this year, Dorian Studio. Founded in 1914, Dorian Studio is family owned and operated and headquartered in the northwest.

We will be reaching out to families with picture day information after we return to a balanced/hybrid or all-in teaching and learning model. Look for an update from us in January with more information. ______________________________________________________________________________

You likely have some teachers that have tried to use YouTube videos as part of their teaching experience… only to have the video not work because it is blocked. Well, Chad Brewer in IT worked some magic and there is now a workaround allowing teachers to (mindfully) approve videos. Here is a district web link/blog post that describes how a student can view (by signing in to YouTube using their district email) that approved YouTube video. ______________________________________________________________________________

I believe many/most of you have sent out parent communication regarding the change in our fall conferences. If you haven’t, please do so in your next communication with parents. Following is what was shared in district communication to families on Oct. 8:

Update to calendar: Oct. 28-30. 

Originally, fall conferences were slated to take place Oct. 28-30. Those days will now be regular school days and teachers will be connecting with families as part of Comprehensive Distance Learning. Families are also invited to connect with teachers anytime with questions or concerns. 

Actialización del calendario: Oct. 28-30. 

En un principio las conferencias del otoño estaban programadas para el 28-30 de octubre. Ahora esos días serán días de clase y los maestros se comunicarán con las familias como parte del aprendizaje a distancia. También se invita a las familias a comunicarse con sus maestros en cualquier momento cuando tengan preguntas y/preocupaciones.  ________________________________________________________________________________

THIS and THAT:

Here is an updated message regarding “sick leave” for staff. It has been jointly crafted by BEA (Sarah) and HR (Jon) and hopefully provides some clarity to both you (admin) an all staff around expectations/process regarding sick leave during remote teaching. I believe this will be shared with all staff the first part of next week – so I recommend you waiting until then to share/address with your staff. ________________________________________________________________________________

From Becky in IT:

The student support line, 541-355-8700 has been successful with helping students with their iPads, thanks to your staff, instructional coaches, site technicians and IT helpdesk folks.

The calls coming to the 8700 line have reduced to 15 or less per day and are now specific to school sites.  Beginning November 2, 2020 we will return to the typical model where these calls will go directly to the schools for support.  The helpdesk will no longer receive the calls or voice mails.  The phone number, 355-8700 will still be used by families.  If needed, your tier 1 support staff member can continue to reach out to your site technician or the helpdesk for support.

Here is a simple Tech Help Flow Chart that shows how a student can get help with their iPad.

Families should continue to work with their internet provider to help with equipment, network or internet issues.

Calls are currently going to your tier 1 support staff member’s phone line.  We will continue to use this phone line. _______________________________________________________________________________

A couple of updates from Paul:

LIPI cohorts and staff interactions

Q – Under LIPI, if a counselor meets with an individual student, does this count toward the staff members limit of 3 cohorts a day?  If so, then the counselor can only meet with 3 individuals in a day or a total of five one-on-one sessions with students in a week? 

ODE answer: Ready Schools, Safe Learners defines a stable cohort as “a group of students that are consistently in contact with each other or in multiple cohort groups” (section 1a). One student working with a teacher, by definition, does not constitute a cohort. Teachers can be in three cohorts of no more than 10, OR a total of 30 interactions, each day. If teachers are involved in individual 1 to 1 interactions and not cohorts of multiple students, they can still only interact with no more  than 30 total students a day.

It’s important to distinguish differences in the roles staff play within schools. Typically a specialist or counselor as you mentioned work with individual students, and not always cohorts. Given that, these interactions can be thought of more as total contacts.

LIPI and After School Planning Guide

Useful document from BSHS tracking on campus student groups for LIPI and after school activities.

LIPI and Transportation (From Kim)

Reminder: Here are the links to the LIPI forms, along with time offerings. Staff must use their BLPS google account for these links.

Elementary Form  https://forms.gle/gHMoq4V16tyqdnXv6       

MS/HS Form  https://forms.gle/4kXkXqmMQft4QpQF6     

Q:    What time does the bus drop the student off at school?

A:     The bus will arrive approximately 15 minutes prior to the start of class time- assuming we have not been held up by an accident, train, traffic, construction (ex. class time is 7:30-9:30, bus will arrive about 7:15). The driver will then take roll for contract tracing and be ready to send them into the school. We need staff available to take students at this time. Buses then need to be sanitized and drivers head to their next stop/school. This also gives students time to transition to class and be ready for school. 

Q:    What time does the bus pick up after school?

A:    The bus will be there at the end of the school day. We give students 8 minutes to load prior to leaving. 

Q:    I know the bus stops at the corner of 3rd & Wilson, can I add students to that stop that live nearby?

A:     No, you must complete a LIPI form and follow the time guidelines to add a student. Each student is assigned a specific seat on each bus. We are receiving forms daily and process them by the time stamp. Forms received by Friday, will be processed the following week and the student can start riding the week after that. Ex.  You submit the form 10/21, we work on the routing the week of 10/26, the student can start riding the week of 11/2.

Q:    How do families find out their bus stop times?

A:    The driver will call each family on their route. Some students have different times each day (depending on who is riding that day). Families can expect a phone call the evening before their start date. ______________________________________________________________________________

This message is from Marsha Baro: The SafeSchools Safety Data Management Program is now available to all staff on our staff portal.  It is my hope that this information might be shared at each site’s Safety Team meeting so that all staff are aware of this tool. A QR code sheet can be printed and posted if schools see fit. _______________________________________________________________________________

REMINDERS:

See you all Tuesday at 2:00.

TO DO:

In preparation of next Wednesday’s Excellence and Equity Collaborative training, each of you (everyone!) is being asked to create, bring, and be ready to share with your group an I Am poem. Here are the prompts to follow in creating this poem. (Plus an example poem from our presenter). _____________________________________________________________________________

If you haven’t lately, please remind your staff that their workday hours are 8:00am – 4:00pm. A question about work hours has recently come up (at all levels) and I want to make sure all MS certified employee groups (teacher and admin) had this reminder. Please share this as appropriate. _____________________________________________________________________________

We have an opportunity to send one teacher from each school to “Rethinking the Classroom:  Digital Best Practices that Maximize Student Learning in Virtual, In-Person, and Hybrid Environments,” on October 26^th and 27^th.  This opportunity is offered via the Teacher’s College Reading and Writing Project and will be offered virtually through Zoom.   

Here is a brief description of the institute 

Grade:  K-8 

The pandemic of 2020 transformed teachers all over the world into digital teachers overnight.  The initial scramble led the Teacher’s College Reading and Writing Project to support teachers in doing whatever they could to connect with students, build community and provide access and support for a high volume of reading and writing.  This institute will include workshops on various aspects of digital teaching, with opportunities to choose the learning that feels right for your particular situation and learners.  Part of the time will be focused on what we have learned about synchronous and asynchronous teaching, considering the pros and cons of both methods.  Presenters will highlight ways that technology can provide access to our most vulnerable readers and writers to help them flourish, opening up the modes in which students can participate in learning.   

Our timeline to attend this training is very tight!!!  Please choose one teacher from your building that would like to attend. In addition to your teacher participants, principals can also attend if they would like.  You must apply for this institute.  Click here to apply.  You will have to create an account and then apply.  Once you receive a notification that your application has been accepted you will want to use your school credit card to pay for the training.  You can work with Wendy Reeves to get an account code.  _____________________________________________________________________________

THIS and THAT:

I mentioned to you earlier this week – in our Horizontal – that we are going to make some changes to our calendar of leadership-type meetings. The first change is that we will no longer have any “informational” Leadership meetings for the rest of this year (those that were scheduled to meet the first Wednesday of the month). Second, our horizontal meeting that falls during the same week as when Leadership meetings were scheduled will now solely become time spent on Instructional Framework PD. The dates for these can be found here (green column). If you have any questions about these changes – or leadership meetings this year in general, please let me know. _____________________________________________________________________________

Another item that I mentioned to you earlier this week was that you’d likely receive an update to staff “sick leave” language – with the goal of adding clarity for all. I had anticipated that this update would be included in this week’s blog, but now it will likely be sent out from Jon on this coming Monday instead. (The delay is due to a health-related meeting that is occurring today that will confirm a process included in this update… so the delay for accuracy sake is a good thing.). ______________________________________________________________________________

And speaking of leadership-type meetings (and noted above), next Wednesday you should have an Excellence and Equity Collaboration meeting on your calendar. We are meeting at PCMS from 3:30 – 5:00pm. NOTE: We are meeting in person like we did in August. You can take a look at this page if you don’t recall where you met last time. Courtney Tucker with BRYT will be facilitating these meetings for us – and each MS group will have a “local” facilitator as well for breakout discussions. _____________________________________________________________________________

Here is this month’s ELL newsletter. There are a number of pieces of useful information here – including a teaser regarding interpreter/translation services. _____________________________________________________________________________

Here is a LIPI question from Paul: If a student comes into a building Monday through Friday for 2 hours each day, does he/she counts as 1 person toward the 250 weekly max? (Answer below.) I also hear that Paul is giving out prizes for correct answers… 🏅 _____________________________________________________________________________

Here are two other topics from Paul to read about (and respond to if you’d like/haven’t already)…

District Family Connections Team Update

Our district teams meets every other Friday and very much wants to support your school’s efforts to keep students engaged and supported with their physical needs.  Thank you for listing your school’s contact on this spreadsheet.

A few schools are experimenting with a mobile bus model to deliver food, clothing, supplies, instructional materials and other items to students’ homes and needy neighborhoods. Email Paul if you like to inquire how this might work at your school.

Some of you requested community resources to support your families and we’ve attached two links below:

• BLS Family In Need Website –  https://www.bend.k12.or.us/district/parents/families-need 
• Bend Food Resources English/Spanish

We will be working with the tech department to run attendance reports per school to measure the level of student engagement and then reaching out to schools to see how we can support your work.

Hybrid Learning

The following document has been reviewed by the health professionals and our local county health partners to assist staff in safety measures when designing learning tasks. Risk Mitigation in Implementing Instructional Best Practices.  Please email Paul if you have other instructional best practices that you’d like us to create a safe practices checklist for.  _____________________________________________________________________________

The first of 3 upcoming Disciplinary Literacy Trainings is coming up on October 28^th from 2:00-4:00.  Here is some talking points for you here.  This training is for new hires (not just new teachers.)  There are a few exceptions: Special education teachers, English Language Teachers, Counselors, DI teachers, World Language teachers, teachers under .5 FTE.  If you would like a specific list of your teachers attending please reach out to Dean. ______________________________________________________________________________

An update from Jon… As you know, we agreed with the BEA to have a committee work on our Performance Evaluation Manual and make recommendations on what should and shouldn’t be evaluated in a CDL model.  For now, we are going to put SLGSs and Evaluations on hold until we get the committee’s recommendation.  We have received several calls asking if principals should be doing mini observations and/or formal observations.  You are welcome to start observations.  We realize that some teachers are a little anxious, to say the least, about being observed on Webex.  This is a great time to remind teachers that we use a collaborative/coaching model for observations.  We are here to help improve instruction and to facilitate a positive learning environment so that students can grow, succeed, and achieve.  We can argue that teachers need more support now, than they have needed in the past.  Also, don’t forget that TLC has developed some classes and materials for teachers that need some support.  We’ll get through this together. _____________________________________________________________________________ 

This section is a mix of updates and reminders from Scott Bojack. Whoever oversees emergency drills should spend some time and dig into this. First, here is our Portal page with district safety training and drill info. (Note: The BLS “guidance” document is worth the read as you plan your drills this year.) Second, the following is a summary of the guidance from the ODE Ready Schools, Safe Learners that requires schools to continue to conduct drills/education during CDL and is on page 6 of the BLS Safety Drills Guidelines:

In accordance with ORS 336.071 and OAR 581-022-2225 all schools in the district (including those operating a Comprehensive Distance Learning model) are required to instruct students on emergency procedures in the school setting and conduct drills to practice emergency procedures. Emergency drills will continue throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic as per existing rules, statutes, and board policy.

We have posted the information about fire and emergency drills during CDL on our district website under the “Emergency Preparedness” page:  https://www.bend.k12.or.us/district/home/emergency-preparedness

Drills can and should be carried out as close as possible to the procedures that would be used in an actual emergency. For example, a fire drill should be carried out with the same alerts and same routes as normal. If appropriate and practicable, COVID-19 physical distancing measures can be implemented, but only if they do not compromise the drill.  

Staff should be trained in changes to drills prior to return to school and conducting any drills in the school setting. All standard collaboration (i.e. fire department, alarm company) and documentation remains required.  

We have also updated the BLS COVID-19 Cleaning Protocols document to reflect the change to our new cleaning and disinfecting product. I’ve asked Deby in IT to update the Return to Schools website with this current document. https://www.bend.k12.or.us/district/home/return-school

Links to Additional Resources for Drills/Education:
These are from the Bend Fire Department: 

Videos:  https://www.bendoregon.gov/government/departments/fire-rescue/education-videos-and-virtual-tours

Educational curriculum:  https://www.bendoregon.gov/government/departments/fire-rescue/teachers-parents-and-kids

This link is to the I Love U Guys Foundation and has videos/training for our Lockdown, Lockout, Evacuation, and Shelter drills: https://iloveuguys.org/downloads/. _________________________________________________________________________

AIR QUALITY PROCESS REMINDERS

Bend-La Pine Schools service area spans 1,600 square miles. Three DEQ AQI reporting stations track air quality within the district boundaries; two in Bend and one in La Pine.

STAFF
When readings are over 200, staff working outdoors should be moved indoors.

In La Pine, we watch the DEQ station and utilize the most recent reading.

In Bend, we watch the two DEQ stations and take the higher of the two for the Bend area.

We do not use the 5-3-1/Visibility Scale for conditions at or over 200 AQI, unless the DEQ monitors are down for three or more hours.

STUDENT ACTIVITIES

Decision makers should be familiar with the following: https://www.osaa.org/health-safety/air-quality and  https://sharedsystems.dhsoha.state.or.us/DHSForms/Served/le8815h.pdf.

Decisions should be based on a combination of the nearest active AQI monitor reading (Bend NE 8^th & Emerson, Bend Pump Station, La Pine Rural Fire Dept 103) AND 5-3-1/Visibility Scale. ____________________________________________________________________________

Here is some info from Misty regarding STAS trainings…

Student Threat Assessment System (STAS) refresher training will be via Zoom this year in order to meet Best Practice and Fidelity standards of the Threat Assessment Model.  A Google Doc is attached for sign up.  Training sessions are grouped together by school-level and a maximum of three schools will be able to sign up for the training time.  The refresher training should be attended by the school’s Level 1 team which includes; school’s admin team, school counselor, school psychologist, and school resource officer.  It is not necessary that school psychs and SROs attend multiple sessions if they serve more than one school.  Following the school’s sign up a link for the training will be Zoom link sent to the contact person listed on the sign-up document. 
Training times begin the week of October 26th, I am hoping that you will share the sign-up link and details in your weekly blog as well as an email to assure that each school is able to find a time that Level 1 Teams can attend. 
Please email me with any questions or feel free to call me on my cell at 541-521-8833. Misty 
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DVPfeNJVi50qbGV7uEhfMPRho5MdmwunA4p0cQZoIkU/edit?usp=sharing. ___________________________________________________________________________

REMINDERS:

Looking forward to seeing you all Tuesday at 2:00 for Horizontal! ____________________________________________________________________________

Excellence and Equity training on Wednesday from 3:30 – 5:00pm. MS leaders will be meeting at PCMS (thanks for hosting Lisa!). _____________________________________________________________________________

Answer from Paul: Correct, this student example only counts as 1 towards the 250 student weekly max.

TO DO:

I’ve been in conversations here around LIPI attendance and contact tracing. Seemed pretty simple at first – but turns out it isn’t as easy as I was thinking it might be. Depending on your situation (what day you bring students in on, how many students come for LIPI, etc.), there are quite a few variables. Following is some guidance I’d like you to follow for any LIPI student (when they are on-site). This is likely new information and also possible that it is different than your plan – so communicate to all that need to know this. Please call me if you have any questions!

Students should have the PV absence code removed when they are onsite.  The absence code should be blank (indicating the student is present and onsite).  The students are onsite at the most, 2 hours.  Remove the PV absence code on…

• Middle and high schools:
  • The section(s) and/or teacher associated with the visit  OR
  • The section(s) that is closest to the time the student is onsite

Your teachers can remove the PV code.  If you want your teachers to remove it, please let them know.  The PV codes populate during the Mass Change Attendance process, early in the morning.  Removing the PV absence code ahead of time is not an option right now.

More LIPI students onsite in the future?

Yes, probably.  LIPI may broaden to help additional students.  We will work on a process to help with the attendance piece for these students as well.  Stay tuned!

Blank absence code = Student is present and onsite.

Tamarack and Transition Co-op students at the Education Center:  We will begin to use the Groups with Mass Change Attendance as planned for the hybrid schedule. ____________________________________________________________________________

Another LIPI-related update has been made to this document. You have all been approaching the question of “who to bring in for LIPI” from an EBISS-type lens (which this doc spells out). The update here that I want to highlight is that I’d like to see your building plan when you have it done. (I’ve got yours PCMS!) ____________________________________________________________________________

Here is a page on our district website that would be a nice one to bookmark and share with your staff. Recently added to this page is a very simple and clear metric chart that highlights the individual metrics per week, as well as the potential first day we could return in a Hybrid format. ____________________________________________________________________________

Please share this with your teachers (from Scott McDonald): There will be a big change coming with how Webex is set up that will improve security for teachers using Webex with their students.  This change has not occurred yet, but it is expected within the next week. These changes should help with managing unintended or inappropriate student visitors to your Webex meetings. The students will log into Webex in a similar fashion to how teachers log into Webex. The teachers will have “host” accounts.  These accounts allow them to schedule and create sessions. The students will have “attendee” accounts. These accounts will only allow them to attend sessions. Users from outside the district will not be able to attend Webex sessions that are created by teachers. Look for new instructions for how students will join Webex meetings in the next few days.  By the way, the next update of Webex will also have the most requested item by teachers… a mute button that students can’t unmute! [And a special shout out to Vince Valenti for doing the behind-the-scenes heavy lifting to make sure these changes work!]. _____________________________________________________________________________

THIS and THAT:

ODE has recently shared guidance regarding Educator Evaluations for 2020-21. Here is a copy of this guidance. As a reminder, the district is going to pull a team of teachers, BEA, building and district administrators together to discuss any modifications that may be in place for us this year. Thanks again to Wendy for being our MS rep! ____________________________________________________________________________

As you have heard, we will NOT be having fall conferences as planned and indicated on our district calendars. (These calendars have recently been updated.) If you haven’t already, please communicate to your staff that the week of Oct. 26 will be a regular week – including having school on Friday (10/30). Also share it with your parent community in your next building communication. Here’s how I’d ask you to process classified staff work schedules for these days:

1. Building admin determine who is not scheduled to work these days (I’m sure the Office Manager can help with this)
2. Building admin determine if any of those not scheduled to work are needed for serving students/families on these days
3. In those situations, ask this person (people) if they would like to work – we can’t make them.  If “yes” then start compiling a list. If “no” then see if someone else would be interested in doing this work for the day(s) needed. Some caution here – as we can’t ask someone to do a job that is outside their work category (e.g. receptionist can’t fill in for an EA).
4. Once you have all of the spots you need to be filled actually filled, then please send me that list. I’ll approve it for payment.

____________________________________________________________________________

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Due to the change in fall conferences, our district’s calendar has been updated. Here is a copy of the calendar, with this change indicated. It will also be posted on the website soon, if not already. _____________________________________________________________________________

As you are aware, the special invitation ODE meeting earlier this week didn’t reveal any new changes to state metrics or ODE guidance related to schools opening. I was not a part of this conversation but did find a couple of sentences in the PortlandTribune (Oct. 7, 2020) that caught my eye. Governor Brown was quoted as saying: “Our Oregon health experts together with school administrators will be reevaluating our school metrics in the coming weeks, and we’ll have an update for you on that very soon.” Asked if “reevaluating” meant lowering the benchmarks for schools to reopen, Brown indicated the answer is yes: “We’re still exploring this issue, but I think it’s fair to say that the statewide metric, frankly, is quite challenging for communities around the state. And my top priority is to make sure that we get our kids back into school safely.” ____________________________________________________________________________

Lastly, I recently finished watching the Social Dilemma, a documentary on Netflix. It is definitely one that I’d like my kids (young adult, 20-somethings) to watch. For me, it was a mix of interesting and frightening. I do not assume everyone that watches it will believe or buy into what is being shared, but I do believe it provides some great conversation starting points. One piece that stuck out for me was a short clip of Sen. Rubio speaking to an unidentified crowd with approximately 20 minutes left in the film. (Disclaimer: I am not promoting a political party or stance, simply want to highlight a few sentences that, for me, captured our current world and reality pretty well.). _____________________________________________________________________________

REMINDERS:

Looking forward to seeing you next Tuesday at 2:00!

TO DO:

This document is one that I’d suggest you print, save on your desktop, and share with your entire staff. It provides important communication regarding Covid and outlines step-by-step processes to many of the questions/scenarios you are likely receiving or wondering about. _______________________________________________________________________

When your school begins LIPI, you will have students on your campus around lunchtime. We would love to make sure these students have a lunch available to them. Please complete this document for your school so nutrition services will know how many lunches you’ll need on a daily basis. (Obviously, if your numbers change be sure you notify nutrition services so there are not extra or not enough meals.). You’ll find MS listed on the second tab. _________________________________________________________________________

Stay tuned regarding fall conferences. At present, these are scheduled for the end of this month. There is some discussion about making some modifications to these – but there is no decision made yet. I’ll let you know as soon as I learn more. __________________________________________________________________________

An inspiring MS math teacher reached out to the district in the hopes of finding a student teaching placement for the spring term (mid-January through mid-May). She is earning her degree from Liberty University, so not one of the two primary programs we support. I didn’t make her any promises, but if you have a math teacher that may be interested, here is her resume and a sample math lesson for a bit more background. Please let me know by next week if you have an interested teacher and I’ll help make the connection.

THIS and THAT:

As you likely have heard by now – or seen in the news… There is a planned protest this coming Monday, organized by parents who want our schools to open and kids return to classrooms. There is a statewide component to this protest, but I do not have a clear understanding of how widespread or engaged folks will be in it. There are two parts to this locally. From 4 – 6pm there will be a physical rally to be held on the front lawn of the Ed Center. The other component is more relevant to you – it involves parents being encouraged to not have their student log in and engage in school on Monday. Parents are also being encouraged to notify their child’s teachers in advance, so you may have heard/being hearing about this. ________________________________________________________________________

The following eight (yes, 8!) items are from Paul – who’s been quite busy keeping up with and interpreting ODE guidance for use within our district…

1. New Mask Requirement:  (The following language has been adopted by our district and will be shared in an all BLS Staff email on Tuesday.) A cloth, paper, or disposable face mask that covers the nose and the mouth is the requirement for all BLS students and staff with some exceptions. When exceptions apply, a face shield is permissible, but other safety practices should be implemented, such as more than 6 feet of social distancing and/or added ventilation of fresh air. The exceptions are described below:

A. For provisions applicable to staff/students protected by ADA or IDEA (details from RSSL referenced below).

B. For safety reasons, such as a bus driver whose glasses are fogging up when attempting to wear a mask under specific weather conditions;

C. For specific and time-limited instructional needs such as speech and language, LIPS reading group, ELL lessons or other examples when viewing a teacher’s or student’s mouth is essential to that portion of the lesson. As soon as possible within the lesson, masks should replace the shields;

D. For younger children moving into in-person education who exhibit severe emotional dysregulation when wearing a mask, staff should employ strategies to transition them from shields into mask wearing: mindfulness exercises, increase in the frequency of outdoor mask breaks, and other trauma-informed best practices.

E. People who are deaf or hard of hearing, or those who care for or interact with a person who is hearing impaired.

F. Other time-limited exceptions of short durations may be made with administrative knowledge.

A clear mask is an acceptable option, as is the use of a shield over a mask for added protection.

2. Visitors 

Only BLS staff and essential visitors are allowed to enter buildings beyond the lobby.  Examples of essential visitors are DHS, child protective services, law enforcement, student teachers and their supervisors, CASA advocates, Friends of Children mentors, cadet teachers, and ESD service providers.  When in doubt whether a visitor is ‘essential’, consult with your Level Leader.

3. School Family Connections – Please add your school’s family connections team leader to this document so that the District Family Connections team can collaborate with your school on how best to serve students and families.  See Paul if you have any questions.

4. Level leaders will be coordinating with other district departments to send out weekly “All BLS Staff” emails regarding items in their blogs and other important reminders pertaining to the return to school planning process.

5. Band, Music/Choir, PE Standards of Practice – Juan Cuadros will be coordinating with elementary music, PE teachers and interventionists to develop learning instructional practices that include safety measures aligned with the ODE blueprint.  He will then do the same with MS/HS band, choir, PE teachers and interventionists.  

6. Questions/Concerns about COVID-19 related matters.  Please share this flowchart with your staff.

7. Many thanks to the dynamic duo of Nole Kennedy and HDMS lead custodian, Tim Bennett, for creating this “How To” video instructing staff on daily cleaning routines of desks/tables.  

8. Operation School Bell – The district has approved OSB’s plans to run their program outside with 2 tables and 4 people.  We would go up to a car that drives up, ask them sizes needed for socks and underwear and give them out. __________________________________________________________________________

The OHA document found here is one that I had not seen before, but found to be one that provides nice details around requirements for in-person instruction. (Remember, test positivity rates has temporarily been removed as a metric due to Oregon wildfires.). __________________________________________________________________________

We’ve been working with Bend Park and Recreation Department to provide both a 2- and 3-day childcare option during balanced/hybrid instruction, beginning October 26th (or later, if the district has not yet transitioned to balanced/hybrid instruction by that date). These options will be significantly less expensive than the full program. BPRD hopes to be able to provide care for kindergarten students as well, if they are children of staff members or siblings of other program participants. Look for a survey coming out early next week to gauge staff interest in this option. ___________________________________________________________________________

A tech tip that your teachers may find useful… Here is how you can force YouTube videos to open in their own single window, full screen, without suggested videos off to the side, without ads, etc.: 

• When looking at a YouTube link, they all have the same general look such as: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOru6L22zoM
• To force the video to play in a single screen, modify the url just slightly…
  • Add _popup directly BEFORE the question mark, like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=HOru6L22zoM

Note: This tip does NOT allow blocked videos through our filters though. _________________________________________________________________________

You may not know this, but I have a sister. An older sister. (Not sure why that matters, but seems important to mention.) She’s pretty funny. She sees herself as “not a people person.” (She really is, but says she prefers animals to humans. I love my sister!) Here is a little something she sent me recently that says it all. ___________________________________________________________________________

And this one I snagged from Skip. It’s regarding faculty meetings. It will resonate. Like, maybe too much. __________________________________________________________________________

REMINDERS:

I have previously shared with you a list of dates for this year’s Leadership (all admin) and Excellence and Equity Collaboration (all admin – focus on equity) meetings. [Here it is again.] Our first Leadership is next Wednesday (not Monday) at 3:30 in Lora’s Webex room. ____________________________________________________________________________

Looking forward to seeing you all Tuesday at 2:00. Reminder that we’ll be having a bit of a “challenge” – so bring your A Game! ____________________________________________________________________________

A reminder that Nole Kennedy is the MS representative who sits on our District Safety Team. If you have any safety issues/concerns that are connected with our staff (not student safety) please let Nole know. That team has resumed meeting and is ready to work through safety opportunities.

TO DO:

You’ve turned in your school safety plan in order to begin Limited In-Person Instruction – thank you! Next, you will be bringing in a limited number of students under this plan. Here is a link that will need to be completed for every student you bring in to LIPI that requires transportation support (except those SPED students whom you’ve submitted a bus transportation plan for). If you complete these transportation requests sometime next week, then transportation will begin delivering students to you on Oct. 12. If you have students who do not require district transportation assistance, then you may bring them in prior to Oct. 12. Let me know what questions you have regarding this. ** Staff must be logged in to their district Google account to have access to complete these transportation requests. __________________________________________________________________________

Now that you have completed your School Safety Plan (for bringing in students for LIPI), please make sure you share it with your staff so they are aware of your processes and may ask questions they are not sure about. ___________________________________________________________________________

If you remember (Sean talking about this), our district has the opportunity to have a team of secondary staff trained in Restorative Practices this year. This training will occur over four days (two in November and two in February). Please take a look at this document where there is a flyer with more information and a spot for you to fill in the names of your team members from your school who’ll be attending. (The number next to your school name is how many slots you have for staff – including admin.) Once selected, please notify these folks that they need to each complete the simple registration process (link also found on this page). _________________________________________________________________________

Make sure you read and understand the two documents that nurse Tami emailed you yesterday. Here they are for your review: BLP Staff Symptom Algorithm and Administrator Guidelines for COVID-19 Illness. _________________________________________________________________________

THIS and THAT:

If you have any questions at all regarding school this fall, I hope this graphic will clear up your confusion. (Thanks to Skip for sharing!) _________________________________________________________________________

Following is some important information from Jon regarding temporary changes to our BEA contract: Whenever we change the contract, it gives the union the right to open up bargaining.  We’ve reached a verbal agreement around topics that relate to CDL. (Next will be MOU/Hybrid discussions.) I am sharing some of the agreement (in place through Nov. 11) because it will have an effect on what we can do during CDL.

Lora will be sending out a joint statement with the union regarding the need to follow safety protocols and how to address issues.

We have agreed to work with the union to modify our SLGGs, observations, and evaluation process to reflect CDL and the Hybrid phases.  Information will be shared with administrators after the committee has reached an agreement.

We’ve agreed to give teachers more SIW time and preparation time.  Until November 11^th the district will not increase instructional time requirements from the Comprehensive Distance Learning schedules that were established on September 14^th.   We can adjust the schedules, but we can’t add instructional time.  

We also agreed that only one SIW a month can be building administrator directed.  Other SIWs are reserved for collaboration or individual preparation and planning, unless professional training is requested by the staff. 

Staff meetings may be scheduled before or after the instructional day as needed.  If a staff member can’t attend, they will need to communicate that with the building administrator.  _______________________________________________________________________

Some of you have new teachers to our district that were hired late and did not attend our annual “new teacher day” that was held a few weeks ago. Because of such late hiring this year we are going to hold another round of the activities missed for those hired very late on the afternoon (1:00 – 4:00) of September 30. Here is a letter that will be sent to those that missed this day. If you have any that receive this letter, I hope you work with them to attend the sessions planned for that afternoon. ______________________________________________________________________

I think this is true, but wanted to state it just to be sure… Because we are not offering any school-based athletics at this time, we are also not offering any school-based (in-person) activities at this time. Let me know if you have any questions regarding this. _______________________________________________________________________

Another that I think we’ve talked about, but wanted to check-in again regarding, is music classes and PE. When we get to hybrid, music classes will not be meeting in person and we will not have students playing instruments or singing in person. We are also not planning on having students dress down for PE classes when in hybrid. If this is new information to you or you’d like to discuss further, please let me know. _________________________________________________________________________

I mentioned at our horizontal earlier this week that our tech/Canvas folks have been communicating with Canvas that we need to get the grading synch process up and running ASAP. I learned yesterday afternoon that these conversations have been ongoing and fruitful. As soon as next week we should be testing the synch process with some of our schools (to make sure it works as it should and iron out any wrinkles) and then implement across all secondary schools immediately after. Progress is good! ________________________________________________________________________

Paul wanted me to relay some work that our district return to school advisory team are discussing 

• Shields
• Internal metrics to transition out of k-3 hybrid back to CDL (we hope not)
• Promising practices for PE, Music/Choir, Band
• Meals
• Ventilation

This meeting will be occurring today (9/25).  Look for the notes from this meeting later today or early next week.

Paul is pretty chatty today and would also like you to know that contact tracing for pullout support and other small groups that occur may not be caputured in Synergy (e.g. a student uses a space for becoming regulated, or your speech path works with a student 1-on-1). Here are your options for contract tracing in these situations:

• Paper and pencil daily log that is saved for 30 days and can be produced if/when needed.
• A google form or google sheet that teachers use (design one that works for you)   __________________________________________________________________________

A video for teachers on how to clean commonly used surfaces in their classrooms is being produced and will be shared next week. ________________________________________________________________________

A couple of updates from Amy Tarnow… First, when a student has had a schedule change this fall, both the new class and removed class remained in view – and was causing some definite confusion. These dropped courses should all be gone from student Canvas dashboards and currently enrolled courses should be the only ones visible now. Additionally, teachers should only be seeing students currently enrolled in their sections. Second, all digital curriculum (e.g. Dreambox or SS material) should be working for both student and teacher. If you have any students for which digital curriculum is not working, please collect all of these student names and which curriculum is having issues, then email Amy with this information. She will then route it to the appropriate person on her staff to resolve. ________________________________________________________________________

Recently Carly sent out the schedule for flu shots.  Be aware that family members will not be allowed to enter buildings for shots. However, your office manager may reach out to RiteAid and discuss the possibility of an outside table where family members can get the shot.  Scott B. has sent an email to office managers about exploring this option.  Otherwise, family members will have access outside resources for their shot. _________________________________________________________________________

The Frequently Called Numbers list for schools and admin/support have been updated and are available in the Portal. _________________________________________________________________________

You’ve been doing quite a bit of thinking around Limited In-Person Instruction lately. Here is a document that may be helpful in framing some of your on-going thinking and planning around this topic. __________________________________________________________________________

And speaking of Limited In-Person, here are transportation times for both LIPI and Hybrid models (once we get there). Let me know if you have any questions regarding either of these. ___________________________________________________________________________

This just came in from Kyle Frick at Mid Oregon Credit Union. If you have any thoughts/ideas, please let Kyle know ([email protected]).

We are starting up our One Class at a Time collaboration with NewsChannel 21 to identify classroom needs and stories we can share along with $500 awards to help meet the financial needs.

In particular, right now we are looking for programs that help support the online learning process, do you have any thoughts about where we might be able to help with that? ________________________________________________________________________

Huffpost recently had an article that shared some tweets that people shared regarding “the social awkwardness of Zoom meetings.” If you’d like to end this week’s notes with a smile, here is a smattering of the highlights:

when u enter the zoom chat early and it’s just u and one other person — gary from teen mom (@garyfromteenmom)

have grown to love the tension that arises on a zoom call when a single unaware person has noise happening in their background & everyone knows who it is but everyone is also waiting for it to stop on its own so that no one has to do the “…did everyone silence their mic?” thing— Hanif Abdurraqib (@NifMuhammad)

I love Zoom meetings! Because they are online, we don’t have to allow time to get from one meeting to the next! We can just have meeting after meeting after meeting!— Associate Deans (@ass_deans)

the only good thing about zoom calls is when a dog barks and everyone makes them show the dog, so now you get to see a dog— Lane Moore (@hellolanemoore)

unmuting your microphone just to say “thank you. bye everyone” ❤️— NomaL (@lungeIo)  _____________________________________________________________________

REMINDERS:

See you Tuesday at 2:00! ______________________________________________________________________

We had over 400 BLS staff attend the Webex with Logan Clausen, MD, Chief Medical Officer of Central Oregon Pediatric Associates (COPA) and Nathan Ansbaugh, MD, MPH, St. Charles emergency physician, to learn more about the COVID-19 virus and answer questions submitted by certified and classified staff members.  Since the video quality was low and no visuals were shared, we are providing the audio of the 64-minute session. For those who were unable to attend The COVID-19: What Our Local Medical Professionals Know About The Virus, here is a link to the recording. _________________________________________________________________________

A couple of resource reminders… Canvas demos are both available on our website (ENG and SPAN) AND… our Learning Supports webpage has a ton of additional tech tips, videos and troubleshooting items relevant for families (That is also available in ENG and SPAN).

TO DO:

If you havne’t turned in your monthly Leave Sheet please send Amy Stafford (and myself because Amy has jury duty on Monday) your Leave Sheet as it is due end of day Monday. ________________________________________________________________________

I’m not sure if you have read today’s Daily Digest that Paul has been sending out, well, daily. The information that he has included in today’s “digest” is pretty informative and is the first two pages of the document linked here. It is a heavy dose of information, so you may want to take it in bite-sized chunks.

THIS and THAT:

Here is a link to some important dates to get on your calendar. (If you would prefer to wait for it, I’m guessing that someone will create and share calendar invites for some/all of these.) The first column is our traditional Leadership dates/times. You’ll notice that these have been moved from Monday to Wednesday afternoons. The middle column is meeting dates/times when we plan to gather (via Webex and/or small groups) around the topic of Equity and Excellence (likely similar to what you experienced on Aug. 19). Again, these meetings will be held on Wednesday afternoons. The last column is the nine teacher-driven SIW times as guaranteed in our BEA contract. Currently, I’ve asked you to make sure you have time every Wednesday for teacher-directed activities. Once we move to a hybrid model, you must set aside at least these SIW dates as teacher-directed, but not every SIW. __________________________________________________________________________

This year our middle school 6th and 8th graders (as well as 11th gr.) will be participating in the statewide Student Health Survey. If you recall, this is the merge of two former state surveys (Oregon Health Teens and Student Wellness Survey). The window for this 30 minute, online, anonymous survey is Oct. 5 – 16. There is a passive parent permission letter (all students are opted in, unless a parent returns an opt-out form to the school) that needs to be sent out two weeks prior to your administration date. (You select the date you administer within this window of time.) You will receive an email from me in the first part of next week that explains this (and more) and provides you the parent letter in multiple languages. ____________________________________________________________________________

Here is some guidance from HR regarding substitutes. I hope this is not new information, but more of a clarification of what you’ve already heard from me…

Substitute Guidance for CDL

1. If a teacher is sick for one or two days there are a couple of options.  One, the teacher can do his/her best to get information and work out to students. If a teacher attempts to teach, then the teacher doesn’t need to take a sick day.  If the teacher is sick and can’t do any work, then that teacher needs to take a sick day.
2. If a teacher is sick for more than two-three days, then the teacher and administrator need to try and get information out to students the best way possible.  This will probably mean having someone that works close to that teacher help get information out to students.  If this happens, please have the teacher that helps complete a timesheet for the work.
3. Long-term substitutes.  We will continue to use long-term substitutes for teachers that are out long-term, on FMLA, etc.

Substitute Guidance for Balanced-Hybrid

We have been working with the HDESD to get substitutes training on our systems.  The substitutes that take our trainings will be identified in the HDESD system (AESOP) as being trained and will have preference over substitutes that are not trained. Once we go to hybrid, obviously we’ll need substitutes in the building. ________________________________________________________________________

This message from Scott “Bojack” was sent to office managers yesterday, and asked that we share with you all too!

The district has placed an order for each school to receive 20 distancing floor decals (keep 6 feet apart). We want to make sure all the decals are standardized across the district. 
As soon as they come in, we will get the decals out to all schools. 
Answers to questions we still owe you:

Will we have a standardized location at each school for the floor decals?

Will we have more decals available through our supply chain at the distribution center if schools need more?

As soon as we have an answer to those questions, we will push that information out. ___________________________________________________________________________

Here is a Canvas and BLPSO update, brought to you by Amy T.!

All Synergy-using districts in the state of Oregon who have Canvas are experiencing an issue with dropped classes.  In short, classes dropped in the first 10 days of the term hit the Canvas system in a way that it does not recognize.  Because of that these dropped courses still, show up for students in Canvas, and teachers still see these dropped students in their Canvas courses.  Canvas and Synergy staff are both working with us to resolve this issue and we will let you know when it has been resolved.  In the meantime, it would be awesome if you could let your staff know we are aware of the challenge and don’t have a fix…yet.

Earlier this week our Online Staff started receiving notifications that PEAK classes were full, and because of this they were unable to enroll students in many requested sections.  This is because of higher-than-normal enrollment in online programs across the state and a shortage of Oregon-certified teachers who were trained to teach online.  Fuel Education is working on both short and long term solutions and as of this afternoon we once again had sections available for enrollment.  If you hear of this happening again, please just encourage staff and families to be patient as more sections will be opened as quickly as possible. __________________________________________________________________________

REMINDERS:

See you next Tuesday in Horizontal! ___________________________________________________________________________

This reminder is one of acknowledgment that your work as an educational leader and ours as educators right now is both complex and emotional. This is only funny because of the elements of truth that it holds. Here’s Fold in the Cheese…

TO DO:

Please jot down the following order of contact when you have a potential positive COVID situation that needs to be reported or you need support with (e.g. a potential positive test of a staff member):

1. Tami Pike (Text first: 541-350-8387)
2. Julianne Repman (541-788-6890)
3. Nurse Maria Buagas (541-647-7952) _________________________________________________________________

It has been widely shared that all MS teachers need to record her/his lesson launch and post it in Canvas on the same day – for those students who miss attending the class period. What hasn’t been shared as widely is a recommended (and likely most efficient) way of doing this… until now. Please share this video with all of your teachers. By following these steps, teachers will be able to post their recorded lessons within a short period of time after completing the recording (as opposed to the next day if the recording is saved to Webex). Reach out to your instructional tech coach if you have any questions! ______________________________________________________________

Speaking of Canvas… have you heard yet that all students have a Canvas “icon” (it’s actually a “web clip”) pre-loaded on their iPad… and there is a Canvas “app” in self-serve? Sound confusing? (I was at first too.) Here is a short video that I suggest you share with teachers – and they share with their students in Advisory at some point early next week. If you have easy questions about this, feel free to ask me. If you have hard questions, please reach out to John, Scott Mc., or Christie. 😉 ______________________________________________________________

Please make sure there is someone available to answer your office phone (main and counseling). Obviously, there are times when someone may need to leave a message on a machine if our staff are on the phone already or had to step away for a few minutes… but getting a machine should not be the default. As you can imagine, the experience felt by a parent or community member leaves an impression that may be difficult to change (positive or negative). Let’s leave the caller with feelings of gratefulness and not frustration by giving them an opportunity to speak with someone when they call. ______________________________________________________________

A wondering just came up around whether I should include Office Managers in the group that receives my weekly Collective updates. If you would like your Office Manager to receive these, please let me know and I’d be happy to begin including them. ______________________________________________________________

And speaking of communication, there was a training for attendance secretaries earlier this week and the following two concerns (teachers being informed that they need to take attendance, and teachers being informed about the PV and NPV code) came up a few times. You may have already communicated these items, but your office secretary may not have received it. Please make sure all of your teachers are aware of the need to take attendance beginning on Monday. _________________________________________________________________

Please reach out to Kinsey if you have any small piece of classified hours (e.g. 1 or 1 1/2 hr/day) you are trying to still fill. She has a great candidate for a Latino Liaison position she is trying to fill, but needs a bit more time to make this person full-time. By making a combination like this work, you’d be gaining a fluent Spanish speaker in your building – without having to come up with full-time hours to create a new spot. ______________________________________________________________

THIS and THAT:

As you know, earlier this week BRYT offered a one-hour Self and Collective Care workshop to any BLS employee (similar, but different to the one that you were invited to last week). There wasn’t an overwhelming turnout, but those in attendance found it very helpful/useful. I ended up recording the session and was sent the slides and a worksheet that was used or talked about during it. I’m sharing these with you as a tool or starting place for your Culture of Care school team and/or sharing with your entire staff (as I think it would be useful). It really is good stuff! ____________________________________________________________

Last week I sent you a document called Supervisors Guidelines that is a great resource guide around things you need to be aware of. This week, I’m sending it to you again because it’s been updated to remove language requiring the wearing of face shields by your office staff. Here is the new language: In general, face coverings (masks) are preferred over face shields, as they may provide better containment of small aerosols that can be produced while talking. Clear plastic face shields remain an acceptable alternative in some instances because they enable students to see whole faces. This avoids potential barriers to phonological instruction and reinforces social-emotional cues. ______________________________________________________________

Bend-La Pine’s LEAD Cohort is finalizing a clearinghouse of resources to support all teachers in guiding classroom conversations about anti-racism and equity.  In accordance with the school board and leadership guidance, we want teachers to be brave, proactive, thoughtful, and supported in engaging in these conversations–it is not a question of if we should address the current events of our community and country, but how we approach that dialogue, that we are seeking to support.  
The clearinghouse of resources for teachers will be published soon.  At that point, LEAD Cohort members will begin piloting and demonstrating the use of the materials, for collective reflection and learning.  A meeting with you as building administrators will take place before implementation begins.  
Can you please give your LEAD Cohort representative 10 minutes at a staff meeting to give context for the resources and to invite others to join in trying them out collaboratively?  If you don’t have a staff member from your building on this team, one of the current members is happy to join your staff meeting as a guest and share the information.  Please reach out to Kinsey if you have any questions at this point!   ________________________________________________________________

As you are aware, we have a number of classified employees across our district who are currently not working (mainly transportation and nutrition) due to CDL structure of teaching/learning. A number of these folks want to work and have been given other work to do – some of which is occurring in your building. If you have one of these re-assigned classified employees working at your site then know that she/he has been given an assignment and an on-site supervisor for this work. Do not ask these folks to do other work than what they’ve been assigned. If you have questions regarding this please reach out to Scott Bojanowski. ___________________________________________________________________

One of the building teams that you’ll be forming is for Family Engagement. Likely, this will be a team that includes your FAN advocate (for obvious reasons). This is likely obvious to you, but wanted to mention this just in case. ________________________________________________________________

This is an FYI only. The following two suicide prevention documents have been shared with your health teacher(s) and counselor(s). One is regarding prevention curriculum, the other relates to prevention safety guidelines. ________________________________________________________________

REMINDERS:

Here is a reminder regarding meal service available, free of charge through Dec. 31, 2020, to all students. Please help spread the word to your students and families! ________________________________________________________________

See you all at Horizontal next Tuesday at 2:00. Here is the agenda.

TO DO:

Please help spread the word with your staff: BRYT will be offering an encouraging and voluntary workshop to any district employee on Wednesday, Sept. 9 from 11:00 – 12:00. This is the Webex link for those who would like to participate. Here is a description of this workshop:

Self and Collective Care as a Foundation for Working with Students and Families in 2020-21

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to have an impact on school and district staff members at all levels.  The stress associated with seemingly unending changes, uninvited endings, and evolving expectations about new ways of doing things can feel overwhelming. Factor in the concerns about the well-being of students, their families, our own families, and each other, and levels of stress become an even more serious concern. With this understanding, and grounded in the knowledge that we can’t help others if we’re not okay, this session puts forth a shared responsibility framework for systemic approaches to taking care of ourselves/each other and a set of practical considerations and strategies for self and collective care as we work our way through the school year ahead. __________________________________________________________

Here is a copy of our COVID 19 Administrator/Supervisor Guidelines. Think of this as your “owner’s manual” for all things COVID-related. I’d suggest you keep a copy of this handy (electronic or paper) as you will likely need to refer to it more than once in the coming weeks/months. ___________________________________________________________

As you know, both Park and Rec. and Boys and Girls Club are currently making plans for providing child care in both our and their facilities. In addition to their employees, we are looking for some BLS classified staff to help provide support and supervision at these many sites. If you have a classified employee that could help with this work (and you do not have consistent tasks for her/him to complete), please email me their name. ___________________________________________________________

THIS and THAT:

As a reminder, each school in our district will need to establish four teams (Curriculum/Instruction, Culture of Care/SEL, Family Connections, and Safety). The most urgency is around the work of the safety team due to the fact that you may have students entering your school buildings as soon as Sept. 28 under the “limited in-person” guidelines. Your safety team has some work to do prior to that. Paul will attend our next Horizontal meeting in order for us to spend some time digging into what this means for you/your safety team. The only thing I ask you to do before our horizontal meeting next Tuesday is review this document related to school safety teams. ___________________________________________________________

I was recently asked what the process will be when a student needs his/her iPad repaired this fall. Please share this with folks in your building who will be involved in this process. Here are the steps that I received from Roy:

Swapping out iPads for repair should look similar, if not even better to what was being done in the spring. They’d contact the school or their Tier 1 and get a time set up for a replacement to be prepared for a quick drive to the school and swap for the new while leaving the old to be picked up and brought downtown to be sent in.

Downtown was mainly used over the summer as there wasn’t bodies in the schools. Since all the school’s Tier 1’s should be onsite it’ll be make it easier to have them help with the swaps for as quick a turnaround as possible. ________________________________________________________

Our Canvas Toolkit for Schools is ready!  It is linked here.  This is a compilation of resources that you can deploy to your teachers, families, and staff as you see fit, with other communications.  Note that this also contains recommendations about and directions on accessing and inserting the “Canvas Ready” module into classes!  This module will help students learn the basics of Canvas at the start of the year.  Please don’t send the entire toolkit to your students and families, but instead, familiarize yourself with the resources linked here (it won’t take long!) and deploy the appropriate ones for each audience when needed.  (Thanks to Amy T. and her entire Canvas team who quickly pulled this together!) ________________________________________________________

So, each of the past few weeks I’ve shared the “Guidelines for distribution of materials between school and home” document (with updates each week). Well, here is your latest update. This one includes what to do in the scenario of distributing material to a student’s home (directly). You’ll want to read through these updates, as you need to know the process that is being required when materials are being distributed. This update will live in Google docs, and I have removed the previous versions. _________________________________________________________

HDMS has created a teacher schedule that clearly communicates what a day will look like, as well as a link to activities that can be completed during the 2:30 – 4:00 time slot. You do not have to create a similar schedule – but please make sure you have communicated these same aspects of this schedule to your teachers. __________________________________________________________

A MS Teacher Standards of Practice FAQ document is continually being updated. Feel free to not only read it yourself, but also share this with your staff. __________________________________________________________

Here are a couple of items regarding student attendance: In CDL schedule, teachers will be able to override the PV code with a NPV code .  At 11:00 am the auto dialer will place calls to parents for the previous day’s NPV absences for all schools., therefore a day’s attendance must be completed by 10:00 the following morning. A student is considered present if any of the following occur:

○  Participating in a video class; 
○  Communication from the student to the teacher via chat, text message or email 
○  A phone call with the student, or, for younger students, with the parent;
○  Posting completed coursework to a learning management system or web-based platform or via email; or
○  Turning in completed coursework on a given day. ___________________________________________________________

We’ve been trying to reconcile the different masking requirements offered by OHA (in their August 13 update)  and ODE In their Ready Schools, Safe Learners (RSSL) document with regard to staff who share work spaces with others.  We asked a committee led by Sean Reinhart and Tami Pike with members from Deschutes County Health and local health care providers to make a recommendation to the district.  

Based upon their recommendation, our standard of practice across all BLS sites is ODE’s RSSL requirement of:

Face coverings or face shields for all staff, contractors, other service providers, or visitors or volunteers following CDC guidelines for Face Coverings. Individuals may remove their face coverings while working alone in private offices. 

We are interpreting ‘private offices’ to include any enclosed space with an entry door and where only one employee has been assigned to it (i.e. a classroom).  Therefore, all staff in open-air shared offices, even when 6 ft of distancing can be maintained, must wear a mask.

When choosing between face mask or face shields, please be aware of:

RSSL guidance:

In general, face coverings are preferred over face shields, as they may provide better containment of small aerosols that can be produced while talking. Clear plastic face shields remain an acceptable alternative in some instances because they enable students to see whole faces. This avoids potential barriers to phonological instruction and reinforces social emotional cues.

CDC guidance: 

Clear face coverings are not face shields. CDC does not recommend use of face shields for normal everyday activities or as a substitute for cloth face coverings because of a lack of evidence of their effectiveness for source control. ________________________________________________________

REMINDERS:

Here is a link for administering the math by-pass assessment. As a reminder, students will take both the easyCBM and paper/pencil (this year via GoFormative) assessments. __________________________________________________________

As you know, the telework agreement for Classified Staff has been sent out/shared.  Please read the form so you fully understand what you are agreeing to with your employees.  The idea is the staff member does their work at home and abides by their regular work hours, breaks, etc.  It is not meant to give flexibility to just be available if needed while being at home.  Some staff are confused by our expectation of them performing work this fall versus what they may or may not have been required to do last spring.  It is the understanding that staff work their regular work hours and be available by phone and email during normal work hours.  __________________________________________________________

As I mentioned to you in our Horizontal meeting on Wednesday, student schedules are now visible to students in Canvas (due to a synch with Synergy on Tuesday). If you haven’t already, please let your counseling office know you are aware of this and there is not a “do not show” button to turn on to make the schedules disappear. ________________________________________________________

In case you missed it, this is great news: The summer meals program is going to be extended through December 31, 2020. This will allow us to serve breakfast and lunch at no cost to all children 18 years old and younger. __________________________________________________________

Don’t forget that our weekly MS Horizontal meeting will move back to Tuesday at 2:00. The focus of our meeting this next week will be on “school safety teams.”

TO DO:

Due to staff returning on Tuesday, Sept. 1, let’s change our MS Horizontal to Wednesday (9/2) for next week. We’ll still meet at 2:00 in my personal room. _________________________________________________________

Please share this with your teachers: As you know, a requirement during Comprehensive Distance Learning is to record and post any lesson (launch at a minimum) you deliver on that day. After consulting with legal counsel, student voice, student image, and student name are ALLOWED to be recorded and uploaded/shared within your Canvas classroom. So you may, if you choose, record the first lesson launch you deliver live (in Webex), save that recording to your desktop, and then upload to your Canvas classroom. _________________________________________________________

MS admin, please add this Zoom link to your calendar. This BRYT-sponsored workshop will occur next Friday (9/4) from 10:00 – 11:00. Here is a description of what you’ll be engaged in:

 Self and Collective Care as a Foundation for Transitional Leadership

The stress associated with seemingly unending changes, uninvited endings, and evolving expectations about new ways of doing things can feel overwhelming. Factor in the concerns about the well-being of staff, students, their families, our own families, and each other, and levels of stress become an even more serious concern. With this understanding, and grounded in the knowledge of transition leadership, this session puts forth a shared responsibility framework for systemic approaches and practical considerations for taking care of ourselves as leaders and then shifting to the facilitation of collective care for the staff you work with. ________________________________________________________

Some questions have come up regarding iPad insurance. In a nutshell, parents can still pay for iPad insurance this year. Please refer them to this district site for more information. (You might want to include this in a future parent communication.) ________________________________________________________

Thursday morning at our MS Q & A around schedule and Standards of Practice, there were a number of questions related to attendance. This seems to be an area of “how will this work?” that is currently causing some angst amongst teachers. Here is a document that you should read (or one of you become an expert in if you are part of an admin team at your site) and become familiar with. Let Paul or I know what questions you have. Then, share this with your staff and be ready for their questions to come. 😁. ________________________________________________________

The other popular topic at the MS Q & A was related to Google Voice (a common tool used to transfer incoming calls to your classroom phone forward to your home/cell phone – while disguising your home/cell phone number). Here are some instructions on how to set up Google Voice. There are also these instructions that describe how to enable call forwarding with your school phone. Either/both of these processes will need to be done individually, as there will not be a district process that will occur to make it happen globally. Additionally, you are able to make a call from your personal phone and disguise your number by first dialing *67 (followed by the phone number you are calling). Please share these with your staff. _______________________________________________________

I’m not sure if you’ve had an opportunity to look at our metrics lately, but thought I’d spend a moment highlighting there here. As a reminder, all three of these required metrics (before a hybrid model could be considered by our school board) would need to be met for three consecutive weeks. The state positivity rate must be at or below 5%, our district positivity rate must be at or below 5%, and our case rate per 100,000 people must be at or under 10 cases. This is the metrics page that I find easiest to locate this data. Make sure you select Deschutes County in the top left of the page. ________________________________________________________

You recently received (or soon will!) an email from Alandra with a list of suggested topics to cover with your families in your regular communication channels. You will likely receive a similar email from Alandra every week, for the next handful of weeks. In an effort to coordinate communication coming from your school and the district, please make sure you have disseminated the topics (in your next family communication) that Alandra is suggesting, as you receive them.

THIS and THAT:

From HR: New hires should not be working before they are cleared. We have been working very hard, but the drug and background check is out of our control. Please let new hires know that they can’t attend Monday’s New Teacher Day unless they are cleared. New teachers will have the opportunity to watch the videos at a later time as they will be recorded. If the new hires watch the videos later that they will still get the $100. _______________________________________________________

Following is a clarification of the workdays for your classified EA positions prior to Sept. 14. During the week of Sept. 1 – 4, all classified (who aren’t on the clock yet) have one day of work to report in for – at your discretion. During the week of Sept. 7 – 11, your classified EA (those who haven’t reported to work yet) folks have three days of work – specifically Wednesday – Friday. _________________________________________________________

Here is an UPDATE regarding the distribution and collection of materials (between home and school). Last week in Collective I included a document outlining what you needed to have in place in order to start this distribution process. This document highlights changes that have been made from previous versions. Please use this version moving forward. __________________________________________________________

Here is a document that outlines things to think about and do regarding Welcoming Staff Back into your Building. Please read through and become familiar with these items (so you can ensure they happen). ________________________________________________________

Who doesn’t want to know more about Staff Contract Tracing? Good thing you do… because here is all you ever wanted/needed to know! Please read through this and reach out to Paul or me with questions. ________________________________________________________

There is some concern (hopefully unwarranted?) about the number of students who may wish to transition between Bend-La Pine Online and home school learning platforms. While this will be allowed, students should be encouraged to remain in whichever platform they begin the year with until the end of the first semester. This document was shared with all district counselors today – and would be good for you to be aware of as well so you are ready when conversations or questions arise. _________________________________________________________

If a staff member feels ill after entering a school site, they are to isolate themselves within the building and immediately call their supervisor.
The supervisor will text Tami Pike, Health Services Supervisor, at 541-350-8387 with the following information:
This is [insert your name] and I have a staff member feeling ill.   Please call me.  The staff member can be reached at [insert phone number].
Tami will call you and advise you and the staff member’s next steps. Please share this protocol with your staff. ________________________________________________________

Here is information regarding student Attendance for this year. It is another information heavy document that you need to read through to the end – as that is where it talks about autodialer being a day delayed in reporting. Reach out to Paul or myself if you have any questions on this. _________________________________________________________

Look for an 18 min. COVID-19 Training video created by our district nurses to be released early next week. We would like this video to be a district required training. Everyone should view it before September 11. Staff who have concerns about returning to work may want to watch it prior to coming into the building. ___________________________________________________________

Here is an update on Canvas-related news. You will likely receive some questions about these – so please take a few minutes to read through these. ___________________________________________________________

Here is an update on athletics, grades 6-12. Please reach out to Dave Williams (district AD) or myself if you have any questions:

High School Summer athletic workouts will continue through September 11.  Beginning Monday August 31^st all athletes will be required to register for their sport on Family id and have a current physical on file at their school.  There will be no pay to play fees for season 1!  

The Bend LaPine Schools athletic programs will pause from September 12 through September 27 for the successful start to comprehensive distance learning.  We are tentatively planning a September 28 OSAA season 1 start based on returning to limited in-person instruction.  A firm decision on opening season 1 will be made on September 3^rd.    

Middle school athletics will not be offered in season 1 and we will be working with community partners in the hope of having expanded opportunities for middle school students during this time.  We have traditionally mirrored the high school sports calendar with our middle school offerings and will be continuing in that direction for seasons 2-4.  The tentative start date for middle school season 2 winter sports will be with boys park and recreation basketball in early November, girls basketball and wrestling will tentatively follow beginning in January.  Fall sports will move to a season 3 later in the school year.  The opening dates for season 3 (fall) and season 4 (spring) will be discussed by middle school athletic directors and administration.  Look for plans to be communicated through your school’s athletic department in the coming weeks. _______________________________________________________

As you begin thinking about your “limited in-person instruction” plan, please note that, per ODE guidance, the time a single student or student cohort of any size can spend in your building on a given day cannot exceed 2 consecutive hours (and can’t be intermittent). ___________________________________________________________

The following is from Dana regarding FAN advocates, whom she also emailed with this same info:

Here are some general guidelines.  These are in the process of being finalized but in general are the parameters of working from home.  
FAN Advocates will have the option to work at their site or at home, with these caveats:

• Advocates are expected to be working and available during workdays and during work hours. 
• Principals may require staff to report to the building for a variety of reasons with 24-hour notice: team planning, trainings, to meet clients, etc. 
• If an administrator has concerns about a staff member needing more support, that staff member will be expected to report to the building during working hours. When working at a site, proper safety measures such as wearing a mask, physical distancing, washing hands, and limiting teams to small groups will be expected. 
• Confidentiality needs to be maintained during work hours.  Unless a FAN Advocate can secure a location in a room adjacent to the FAN office, Advocate children will not be able to come to school.  

Please reach out to me any time if you want to discuss these expectations.  As a reminder, these provisions are for CDL only.  New expectations for working during the Hybrid learning option will be shared at a later date.

REMINDERS:

I know I started with this, but that seems like a long time ago! Our Horizontal meeting next week will be on Wednesday (at 2:00) rather than Tuesday.

TO DO:

Take a few minutes to review our district’s Remote Learning Tools web page. This page likely looks familiar to you – it was in existence last spring – and continues to be updated. Please also share this (multiple times, in a variety of contexts) with your teachers as well. With the requirement of teachers to make recorded lesson launches available daily, they need to know how to use at least one of the tools suggested in section 3 (Engage Students) of this document (or another one the district supports). _________________________________________________________

Last week you received a Return to School Survey link to send to your families. (Thank you for doing that!) Here is the link to the MS School Data files with the responses from this survey. Open up your school’s data. FYI, the numbers are higher than actual due to duplicate entries. A good next step is to identify someone(s) in your building who will figure out which families have not responded yet – and then reach out to them via phone. Joanne will be hosting Webex meetings to answer questions and provide info on how to use this data on Monday (8/24) beginning at 9:00, 10:00, and 11:00. Each session should not last more than 30 minutes. __________________________________________________________

Here is a new tool that shows county metrics for opening schools to in-person learning. It will be updated every Wednesday. _________________________________________________________

Please read this message on students switching between Bend-La Pine Online and CDL (or hybrid). Ask me any questions you might have then share it with your staff. You and your staff need to know this information so you are better able to counsel students/parents, but also so your staff are aware that they may gain additional students in her/his classes at any point in the year (particularly when we move to hybrid). Also note: Students who leave your building (including CDL and hybrid) and go to Bend-La Pine Online should keep their iPad. _________________________________________________________

Here is the link (one more time) to the sample MS CDL schedule. If you have not already, please post this schedule (or your school’s specific schedule if you have it now) to your website for parents to view. At some point prior to Sept. 14, plan on communicating to your families what your specific school schedule will be (like this one from SVMS) – and replace the sample MS schedule with your school specific schedule on your website. ___________________________________________________________

From Paul Dean:

Building leaders, please view this CDL Building Contact Tracing Protocols – Staff to Staff google doc.  Our goal is to get these protocols up and running before Friday, August 28.  
I will have a webex at 2:30 pm on Monday to assist schools who have questions or need assistance.  If the instructions are self-explanatory, you don’t need to attend the webex.  https://bls.webex.com/meet/paul.dean  __________________________________________________________

THIS and THAT:

Today I received this ‘inservice week” work calendar for certified staff (thank you Katie!). Please share – if you haven’t already – with your staff. ________________________________________________________

You may begin sharing items between school and home. (Some of you have asked about this, whether it is sending yearbooks home, or other school materials.) Here are the guidelines you need to follow in order to both send or receive materials between school and home. If you can meet these guidelines then you have the green light to begin distributing and collecting materials. _____________________________________________________

Earlier this week I communicated to you that today I’d be sending you the MS Teacher Standards of Practice, which you would then share with your staff. Here is a link to a Google doc that has the current/most up to date teacher standards. Lisa will continue to update this Google doc if/when any future updates occur. (THANK YOU Lisa!) This is a document for staff eyes only – not community. A community facing document (with less detail) will be created and shared as early as next week. It is my expectation that you not only share this document (electronically) with your staff, but that you also provide time for any/all of your teachers to discuss, ask questions, or otherwise learn more about and debrief these new standards in a staff meeting or with you directly. Our goal in developing these standards was to provide consistency of instructional expectations and service across our schools, address some areas of concern that were voiced by our students and parents last spring, as well as highlight some of the best practices related to remote teaching. Because each of your schools had one of your teachers involved in the creation of these standards, I would encourage you to have that person involved in any forthcoming discussion that takes place with your teachers – as they are not only invested in what was produced, but also would be able to provide background on questions or concerns. _______________________________________________________

Many of you have had parents ask about the math by-pass process. Here is how we are going to move forward this fall: 1) These assessments will be given and proctored via Webex. 2) Select who will give these assessments to interested students (likely you or a math teacher); 3) This proctor will monitor students as she/he takes both the easyCBM and paper and pencil portions of this challenge. [The paper and pencil portion will be created, by next Friday, in GoFormative – and made available to every middle school.] As soon as the pieces are ready in GoFormative you may begin this assessment process. Let me know if you have any questions. _______________________________________________________

As a follow-up to an item we discussed at our MS horizontal this week, I want to confirm that UPS and Fed Ex deliveries will continue to be delivered to our district warehouse. Any packages coming to your school will be delivered during your normal district mail routes. _________________________________________________________

The need for translation (and possibly interpretation) is going to kick into high gear here very soon. Translation requests should be requested at least 5 days before it is needed. Remember that communication with families at your school should be sent in both Spanish and English. Please spend a few moments reviewing this Language Access Plan – as well as sharing it again with your staff. (The contact for interpreter and translation requests this year is Kelly Marty.) Also, here is a copy of the latest ELL Dept. Newsletter. _________________________________________________________

WebEx has some fabulous changes coming our way that we are hoping will be in effect Sept 1^st.  The biggest is the addition of breakout rooms.  The instructional tech team will be putting together a list of the changes along with tutorials for them. Stay tuned! __________________________________________________________

I want to provide you with a bit of information about where we are headed in terms of “Limited In-Person Instruction” as a district. First, it will be important for you (and your team designing this opportunity) to read ODE’s guidance around Limited In-Person Instruction. After reading through what is allowed, think about who your target audience is that you want to better serve. We will be developing a form (a type of checklist) for you to complete regarding your plan for bringing students in under this umbrella. I will then ask you to “peer review” other MS plans (likely in a triad format so you won’t have to review more than two other plans). My hope is that this will serve both to gain ideas for your building plan, as well as sharpen your eye to what might be missing in your or another MS plan. We will not open up Limited In-Person as an option until Monday, Oct. 5. Plans would need to be submitted to me (after peer review) by Sept. 18 for final approval. __________________________________________________________

I wanted to provide a follow-up from our discussion on staff working from your school site and bringing their child(ren) with them. Nothing has changed in terms of what I said regarding teachers (who are assigned his/her own classroom). Here is an update regarding classified who may ask about bringing their child(ren) with them: they may bring their child if the employee has a private office where they are in direct supervision of the child and the child is not in contact with others. ___________________________________________________________

REMINDERS:

See you in my personal room on Tuesday at 2:00 for our Horizontal meeting! __________________________________________________________

Remember (I think this is a reminder), that we are NOT advertising any school supply lists this fall, whether it is in stores or on your school website. If you have any questions or concerns about this, please let me know. ___________________________________________________________

As you likely are already aware, new teachers report on Monday, Aug. 31. Different this year is that you will not be required to attend any part of the morning portion of this day. However, please do plan on providing any new staff with some building “swag” (e.g. hat, t-shirt, face mask (go Falcons!), lanyard, etc.).