Wave riders,
Staffing season is a time for change and shifting. I have spoken with most of you about your staffing and some of your challenges that you might face, but think about the learning opportunities you are going to create for your students! We make difficult decisions in favor of our students and place them at the center of what we do!
To that end, we are going to meet on Monday, April 11th at 9:00-10:30 in the board room (principals only). You will not be getting your staffing plan template today. There were too many discrepancies on the document and rather than answer a bunch of questions, level leaders decided to wait and hand them out when they are accurate. We are targeting Tuesday, April 5th, to send out. As mentioned above, complete the attached form by April 11, so that we are ready to discuss where you might have openings to post. I appreciate your hard work and all that you do for students and staff. Let me know if you have any questions.
Have a restful weekend~Juan
To do
From Ryan in HR
Here is the link to the Central Oregon Job Fair sign-up sheet for administrators. The job fair will be April 11 from 12:00 – 6:00 pm, with lunch provided for administrators. We will be meeting with candidates from 1:00 – 6:00 and are continuing the past practice of asking all administrators to be present to interview candidates for a two-and-a-half hour shift. Buildings with two or more administrators need to have at least one admin present at all times during the event.
Principals’ PD Session Monday
All principals, please remember that we will have our second spring session on Leading Equitable Schools next Monday, April 4th, from 3:30-5:00 PM in the board room. Snacks will be served! Remember to read chapters 4-6 beforehand and be prepared to discuss these.
From Lora
When you were given your staffing allocations, your schools received a specific allocation for “HU,” or staffing to reduce class size so that we can better serve our historically underserved students and families. This staffing was determined according to the number of HU students attending your school.
It’s important to remember that funding for this HU staffing comes from our Student Investment Account (SIA). We were required by the state to engage in a lengthy process (our excellence and equity review 1.0) to prioritize our SIA spending, and class size reduction emerged as one of our two top priorities (the other being the social, mental, and emotional wellbeing of our student, where we’ve put our highest level of SIA $$). If you want to use your HU staffing for purposes other than class size reduction, please consult with your level leader for approval.
This and That
Check out Summer professional learning opportunities – Click here!
Visitor Update
Starting Monday, April 4th, you may have a visitor come to school that fits the “Guest Speaker and Outside Presenter” Administrative Regulation definition. They must sign into Raptor and wear the name tag. Guests and Visitors must be supervised by school staff at all times and may not work alone with students.
Student Teachers
FYI – if you have a university reaching out to you or to teachers directly for student teacher placement please refer them to Ryan Kelling in HR. He is going to be the point of contact for our universities on this topic. We are being very purposeful in our placements, as great teachers are grown by working with great teachers.
From Transportation
Transportation can now offer field trips on a limited basis between route times, 9:30 AM- 1:30 (buses must be back to your school by 1:30)Transportation for field trips is NOT available on Wednesdays. Trip requests must be submitted (by teacher or office manager) and approved (by office manager or principal) no later than 3-4 weeks prior to the trip date.Trip requests are then forwarded to Executive Directors for prioritization approval. From the prioritization and approval list, transportation will look for availability. This is the FINAL approval step. Transportation will then approve/decline 1-2 weeks prior to the trip.
LEAD Cohort Promotion
The LEAD Cohort is part of our district’s key strategies to support staff in promoting dialogue on equity and anti-racism, so that teachers can facilitate positive and safe critical conversations in all classrooms. We cannot wait for bias incidents to occur to communicate our values of inclusion and equity: we must be proactive and intentional in ongoing work, and in normalizing conversations about tough stuff before incidents occur-or better yet, to prevent them happening at all.
Please ensure that teachers in your building clearly see your explicit support for their implementation of LEAD Cohort strategies. They will know you expect them to engage in this work when you…
- are familiar with the LEAD website strategies and resources yourself,
- share those resources with them directly,
- encourage peer sharing and engagement with district LEAD Cohort representatives,
- look for the strategies in practice during mini-observations, and
- reflect alongside your teachers and ask questions about LEAD strategies during debrief conversations.
The resources on the LEAD website are constantly changing and being updated. (Coming soon: more video examples of the lessons, and specific Ethnic Studies, Language, Health, and other standards identified throughout the links and descriptions.) Check it out here, and consider bookmarking and/or sharing via your own staff blogs.
From Tracy Howk
March is coming to an end, but digital citizenship carries on all year long. Here’s what we’ve been working on…
Looking for purposeful options for iPad choice time? Prevent Passive iPad Time has ideas to get you started. We also explore why so many of us get lost in the land of scrolling. Check out Making Screen Time Work For You for maintaining focus.
Family communication: Parents Ultimate Guides for everything from TikTok to Fortnite. And of course, something fun (great for everyone but especially looking at you, awesome advisory teachers!) A Digital Citizenship Kahoot!
BLS district safety Team
As you may be aware, the BLS district safety team meets regularly (about once a month) to discuss questions, concerns, ideas, and strategies connected to student and staff safety. Our MS admin rep is Nole Kennedy. If you have any big-picture questions/ideas or simply are curious about why we do something the way we do related to safety, please let Nole know and
Volunteers
If you have a parent signed up to volunteer, they must abide by our volunteer rules, meaning that they need to go through the volunteer application system, upload vaccination card/exception paperwork and be approved. They also need to sign in and wear the Raptor sticker when they are there to volunteer. There have been some parent volunteers that work with the ESD and BLPS, that have come in using their work credentials/name badges and argued about needing to sign in the system. All volunteers need to follow the same protocols. he can bring that to this group
From Marsha Baro (PACE SAM Prevention Webinar)
Our claims team has handled claims in our program over the years and more recently it seems daily there is a report in the news of sexual harassment and sexual conduct related to students all over the country in our schools, which is why we are continuing to focus on this important topic.
Below is The PACE webinar presented by McKenzie R. Nix as well as memo that provides the framework for topic review.
I share these items with you today as a refresher course, feel free to share with your level teams, as this continues to be an important topic,
http://pace.osba.org/-/media/PACEFiles/2021-SAM-Prevention-Toolkit-Memo-final.pdf?la=en
Calendar
M.S. Horizontal Meeting Schedule
- April 8th-Staffing Plans Due
- April 4th-Preparing to Lead Equitable Schools-Principals only 3:30-5:00 location: Board Room
- April 11th-Middle School Staffing/Placements/Transfers Principals only 9:00-10:30 pm Location; Board Room
- April 15th, 18th &19th -Juan out of office (available by phone or text-limited email)
- Aril 26th-Middle School Horizontal Meeting @La Pine MS@7:30-9:00 am
- May 9th-Preparing to Lead Equitable Schools– Principals only 3:30-5:00 location TBD
June 20th & June 21 Leadership Training AcademyThese dates are no longer on the books. The training will happen in August. The dates will be decided soon! So, there is no Leadership Training happening in June!
Fish On…
