Team,
I hope you have a restful weekend and you get a chance to get out and enjoy this wonderful fall weather! ~Juan
To Do
DHS Training Video:
Please watch this 6 minute video as it is important learning for you regarding the state’s process in investigating child abuse in schools (that is when there is a question about something that has happened at school or on our buses). There were several of these investigations last year in our elementary schools. This will help you better understand the process should it happen at your school.
From Lora Nordquist
Questions about bargaining:
Some of you are being asked questions about bargaining from staff or families. Please know that any discussion/update on the bargaining process in this context could be considered an unfair labor practice. Instead of trying to respond with information, here’s an example of what you could say (to staff): “I am not involved in this process. Your building rep/association leaders would be good people to check with if you have questions”; (to parents) “I am not involved in this process. If the district has new information to share about the process, it will be part of our family newsletter.”
In the meantime, Steve Cook or Steve Herron will continue to provide updates for administrators only at our monthly meetings.
Recommendations for students for private schools:
We recently received a question from one of our local K-12 private schools about policies prohibiting teachers from writing recommendations for students to attend private schools. BLS does not have such a policy. On the other hand, staff should feel NO PRESSURE to complete these types of recommendations. My only suggestion is that in order to avoid bias, staff do not “pick and choose”…either they are willing to complete a recommendation whenever asked or as a matter of practice they politely decline.
Form Dan Dummit
Please share the following attached Doc with your staff. These are common safety violations in school classrooms that can be avoided.
From Dean Richards
Educator Network Admin Assignments
This year we are breaking up the administrative supervision for the Educator Network into 2 groups. Team 1 will be on for 10/11 and 2/28. Team 2 will be on for 1/10 and 4/24.
Here are the assignments for Team 1 for Wednesday October 11th. Your role at the END is to first and foremost to be present and available to support the facilitator. Your secondary duty is to take attendance. Taking attendance is important to be sure that teachers are receiving the professional learning provided. Putting a teacher facilitator in the position of taking attendance on peers places them in a very awkward position. Please print this page to have teachers scan or type the short url.
From Dean, Katie, Stephen, & Juan
Thank you all for your support and participation at the ICCL/Admin meeting the week. The conversations were great. As your ICCL team work to create the lesson you will be delivering, please put your lesson in the appropriate folder here. As you work with your team, you could find other school’s work to guide your thinking.
This and That
From Paul Dean, Human Resources
Performance Evaluation Module
After some internal discussion with administrative staff who oversee the UKG Suite of Products, we’ve decided to pause the launch of the Performance module for two reasons: (1) we have some people/supervisors mismatched and want to avoid workflows of goal setting and observations forms from landing in an incorrect To Do mailbox, and (2) we’ll be meeting with district leadership on Wednesday, October 25th and will be providing a more extensive overview of the module functionality and answer your questions at that time.
Please continue your mini/formal observations as you’ve been doing and we’ll provide you with information on the 25th about how to enter that data into the Performance module. For those administrators who are preparing to work with their staff on creating student learning growth goals (SLGGs) during the month of October, you may have staff use this google form. Staff can either make a digital copy to complete or they can print and fill out a hard copy. On the 25th, we’ll review the method that certified staff will use to upload the goal setting form into the Performance module.
For those creating school wide or team SLGGs for non academic areas, I came across SLG Goals for Social Emotional Learning & Engagement that I think is a great resource. Here are two more resources that I think will be particularly helpful:
- State SLGG Guidance
- Teacher and Administrator Evaluation & Support Systems: Frequently Asked Questions
UKG Data Check – ReminderWe are asking building leaders to confirm that their staff assignments in UKG are correct. You may navigate to your My Team tab, then go to My Saved Reports and Staff Assignments to view your people and positions. If you see something that isn’t accurate, please use this google form to identify the corrections needed at your site.
From IT
Teachers, questions pertaining to standards grading setup and maintenance in Synergy Gradebook, need to be addressed at the site level with Tier 1’s and veteran teachers. Additional resources are available through ‘TeacherHub’ website and the Canvas course ‘Teaching with Synergy’
From Colleen Funderburg
Professional Development for Inclusion Educational Assistants
We are very excited to share that we are partnering with The National Resource Center for Paraeducators, NRCP, to provide monthly professional development opportunities for all Inclusion Educational Assistants. These trainings are designed to help deepen the understanding of their roles and responsibilities. Please read more about these trainings HERE. Your learning specialists and inclusion EAs were provided this information earlier this week in our Special EDge. For additional questions please contact Krista Hought and Stephanie Smith.
CPI Trainings
We are offering additional CPI training. An initial CPI training is scheduled for Thursday, October 26. This is a non-workday for elementary and middle school inclusion EAs due to conferences. If your inclusion EA has not been trained and chooses to attend, the student services department will pay for the timesheet. This training should be in UKG soon! Upcoming CPI refresher and initial training will be scheduled on February 2, 2024.
Student Services Coaches – Roles and Responsibilities
Our team of eight is incredible and we are fortunate to have so much expertise and specialized skill sets. Because they are so amazing, they are often requested to support in ways that are not aligned with their roles and responsibilities. They have three domains of focus: Staff Development, Leadership/Contribution to Learning, and Working with Teams. Please familiarize yourself HERE to read more about expectations and how they can support you and your special education teams. If you have any additional questions about how your student services coach can support your school and teams, please contact Colleen or Josh. Additionally, if you need a quick reference for who is assigned to support your site, check out our ‘2023/2034-Who is Where Quick Guide’.
Wayfinder Summative Assessment:
The deadline to complete the Wayfinder Summative Assessment has been extended through next week. Our minimum participation goal is 75% . Congrats to MS for having a high return rate.
From Scott Bojanowski
From Scott B: Schools are off to a great start with their safety training to staff and students and completing their first fire drill and lockdown drill of the school year.
A reminder, please ensure that once your school has completed your drill(s) for the month, to update the drill tracker with the date you completed your drill, and the drill evaluation form and save the form in your schools google safety resources folder.
Please reach out to Kayla or I with any questions.
What data do you need?
Thank you to the school leadership teams who have completed this survey. The information we collect will help us to better understand how schools use and access student data. School leadership teams are encouraged to discuss these questions as a team and complete the survey as a group.
Calendar
October 11: Educator Network Day
October 19: MTSS Administrator Lead Professional Development @ 3:00-4:00 @ Ed Center Board Room
October 25: All Admin Professional Development 3:00-4:30 @ BSHS Perseverance Hall
October 26: MS Horizontal @High Desert MS at 3:00-4:30 (New date) (Cancelled)
October 26 & 27: Juan out of the office. At PBIS national conference.
November 1, 2, & 3: Juan out office: At Synergy conference.
November 2: MS Horizontal @Pacific Crest MS at 3:00-4:30 (Cancelled)
November 9: MS Horizontal @PBMS at 3:00-4:30
November 28: Principals & Assistant Principals Hold this date and time on your calendar: Secondary principal and assistant principal meeting with Human Resources 8:00-9:30 at BSHS in Perseverance Hall
Fish On…
