5.19.2023 (Week of May 15)

Team,

I hope you had a good week. It seems like spring is here and summer weather is around the corner.

Next week, Thursday, May 25th, will not be our typical MS work session. Instead, I have invited Principals only to meet and discuss the State of Middle School Report. If you did not get an email invitation from Magadalyn Hasse, you are not required to attend. If you have any doubt or questions, let me know.

Hydrate and stay cool! Have a great weekend! ~Juan

To Do

From Lora Nordquist

Principals, Remember that the Wednesday of the last week of school is a FULL school day! Schools will be on SIW schedules Friday, June 16th,  the last day of school. A couple more end-of-year reminders:

  • Monday, June 19th is Juneteenth. We recognize that some staff may choose to work on the holiday because of the time of year, but please do not schedule interviews for that day and make sure school offices are closed with signage: “Our offices are closed today in honor of Juneteenth. We will re-open Tuesday morning, June 20th.” Please communicate to families that offices are closed.
  • We have an agreement with BEA that if certified staff have completed the check-out process, including administrative approval, they do not need to report June 20th.

From Lora to Principals and LLC Members

This is a follow up to my announcement yesterday about an additional principals’ meeting this spring on Monday, May 22, in the boardroom:

·3:00-3:30 is OPTIONAL. Dave is going to share a strategy for schools interested in focusing more directly on instructional practices in their school design work next year. The goal is to get feedback and learn what resources schools may need if they want to participate.

·3:30-4:00 (ish) is mandatory. Steve will share additional information about budget and possible impacts on schools.  

One more from Lora

Here is the schedule for the week back with cert staff in August.

From Paul Dean, Human Resources

VERY IMPORTANT: Certified Temporary/Probationary 1 & 2 and Contract Staff of Concern

As you complete Summative Evaluations, it is imperative that you note any performance deficiencies in both the domain/standard rating AND in the summary section at the end.  

You may use language like, 

  • “Teacher AB does not meet performance expectations in [insert any/all that apply]”
  • “It is necessary that AB becomes effective in these domains”
  • PROBATIONARY/TEMPORARY ONLY: “Failure to meet performance objectives will result in probationary non-renewal at the conclusion of the following school year or failure to move from probationary to contract status by March of year three”  
  • “Teacher AB will be placed on Focused Performance Evaluation at the beginning of the upcoming school year” [or insert Support Strategies if you’ve already completed the Focus Perf. step] 

HR will be contacting administrators in August/September to identify probationary teachers of concern.

UKG and Hiring Season

Please reference UKG Job Requisition, Interview Prep, Applicant Screening and Hiring Tips as we enter into peak hiring season. We have important information about ICCL hiring in this document (cut/pasted below).  Within the document is also access to a Veteran’s Preference report where you can easily view which external candidates are veterans.  

ICCL Hiring

We have one posting for all ICCL openings where staff can choose the school/department that they want to serve as an ICCL.  The posting went up on May 5th and we began to receive complaints from administrators about the frequency of emails that they were receiving each time someone submitted an application (HELPFUL HINT: CREATE AN OUTLOOK EMAIL RULE TO ROUTE UKG EMAILS TO A SPECIFIC FOLDER AND/OR TURN OFF EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS FROM UKG).  

The notification feature is either a system turn on/off and cannot be designated to be disabled for one posting. Therefore, we temporarily removed all school-depart admin as hiring managers so you cannot view applications at this time.  We will turn it back on Monday the 22nd and you can then begin interviewing/hiring from the posting (you will also begin receiving applicant notifications again ~sorry).

Here are instructions on how to see who applied for your ICCL openings:

  1. In the upper right search bar, type “recruit” and select “Recruitment Questionnaire Answers”
  1. Along the top of the table, click the down arrow next to Saved:[System] and select “ICCL Sorting View 22/23”.  You will see each school/department listed with the name of the applicant(s) who have applied.  
  1. To view their brief ICCL application and statement as to why they would be a good candidate, select the “View Questionnaire” icon left of an applicant’s name

REMINDER FROM APRIL 28TH BLOG – Here are some FAQs regarding the upcoming certified hiring season:

Which internal candidates are we required to interview? The CBA guarantees interviews to internal candidates to anyone who has contract status, meaning they have been employed with us for three years or longer. Because of the fact that the contract letters have already been issued for next year, this includes those who are probationary three this year. If an employee has contract status and is currently in a temporary position, they are still owed an interview.

If so, how do find out which employees are in which category? Please click on this link to see the contract status of all certified staff.  If someone does not appear on your list, please email [email protected] for assistance.

For those that we are required to offer an interview to, does it need to be a full interview, or can it be a phone screen or a shortened version? Asking as it will be a struggle to arrange for teachers etc. to participate in a large number of full interviews. You can run a tiered interview for any position you like,  beginning with a screening round where ALL internal applicants are asked the same questions and you then decide which candidates to invite to subsequent rounds of interviews.

This and That

From Scott McDonald

Greetings Google Users,

If you are someone who frequently uses Google Workspace products (forms, docs, sheets, slides) then you should be aware of pending security change.  Beginning next Wednesday, anonymous public users will no longer be able to access your Google documents without first signing in with a Google account.  Example:  If you share a google sign-up form to your families, they would be prompted to sign into Google before signing up for the activity. Both district and non-district accounts would work just the same.  A user who is already signed into a google product would see no change what-so-ever.   Why?  By simply signing into a document, a user has some accountability and responsibility for what they view or edit.   If you feel that this change will negatively impact your work, please feel free to reach out.   Our IT team will do our best to work with you to provide alternative solutions while also ensuring we keep our documents and data safe.

From our Student Success Coordinators

Check out this awesome resource. This is a quick read for ending the school year with students who might struggle with goodbyes. Some students find change difficult and school is their consistent and safe place. You might find this article helpful.

Neurologic News

From Nick Shein in the Business Office:  Navigating questions about money, especially related to fundraising, can be confusing.  The team in the Business Office is willing to help.  We are happy to be “thought partners” with you about scenarios and discuss events/ideas as well.  Also, we are always willing to provide info to help folks either make decisions or come up with an articulate way to frame them.  Our team would much rather be involved at the beginning and supportive in finding the right way to do something rather than finding out after the fact.  Reach out if we can help!

Calendar

May 22: Assistant Principal/Dean PD Session @7:30-8:30 at Ed Center Board Room

May 25: Review State of Middle School Report 3:00-4:00 pm @Ed Center Board Room

May 29: Memorial Day No School

June 1: Excellence in Education @5:00-6:30 at Summit High School

June 8: Middle School Admin Work Session 3:00-4:30 pm @HDMS

June 16: Last Day of School

June 19: Juneteenth Holiday. School offices Closed – be sure to communicate this with families.

Fish On…

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