Team,
If your school is on this list, please give me an update on your progress (First Aid)
For our next horizontal, please read the following article by Thursday, Feb 8th. Article There will be a quiz! Kidding. The topic in this article is timely as we begin the last half of the school year. I want to take some time at our next horizontal to unpack the ideas in the article. I hope you find it insightful. Have a wonderful weekend. ~Juan
To Do
Form Dave VanLoo
OSAS state testing season is quickly approaching. Here is a very detailed summary document I put together to help get you started. Please share this with your school test coordinators (STC). Let me know if you want to meet in person about OSAS logistics. I am happy to come out to your school and support you with this.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mOiq0TreI7wihCJL3c8XWl1DicngbXM4LuTQ46H4fyk/edit?usp=sharing
UKG & Red Rover Absences
Important! Please work together with your Office Manager to compare your Red Rover absences with each staff absence in UKG. It was recently discovered at a school site where a staff member had been gone a lot. With a deeper dive with the business office to see the report in UKG, they only had 2 days documented from back in October. Red Rover showed the person out a lot more than that. This is a big problem! This staff member is not getting any of their sick days deducted and even took unpaid days without permission. All staff must be using UKG to request all absences (personal days, sick days, school business, jury duty, unpaid, etc.). It is very important you follow up on this and make sure staff are registering all absences (whether or not they need a sub) in UKG. Lastly, it is not the responsibility of the office manager to intervene with the staff member, but they bring it to you when it raises a red flag. Let me know if you have any questions.
From Stephen Duval
Are you looking for an opportunity for your students to practice essential problem-solving skills while engaging in engineering and design? The Central Oregon STEM Hub is looking for teams of middle school students to participate in our first annual Central Oregon Middle School Rube-A-Thon! Bring up to 4 teams of 6 students to compete real-time in a fun and engaging challenge. Each team will design and build a contraption, inspired by Rube Goldberg, to complete a simple task like watering a plant or cracking an egg. The official challenge will be announced at the event. There are no costs to you or your school for attending this event and we will cover the cost of subs and buses. Give your students a chance to work on their employability skills (soft skills) in the context of a fun, interactive day of design! Please contact Lisa Meredith ([email protected]) with any questions.
From Scott McDonald
Enrollment for the Affordable Connectivity Program is ending February 7th at 11:59 p.m., and will NOT be accepting new enrollments after that time. This program is going through a “wind-down” process as the FCC expects funds for this program to run out by April if Congress does not approve more funding.
The ACP is a federal program that provides a discount of up to $30/month toward internet service for eligible households, and up to $75/month for households on qualifying Tribal lands. Many households in our region qualify but have not signed up/have never heard of the program. The more people participating in ACP the better.
More information on the Wind-Down and the ACP Program can be found here: https://www.fcc.gov/acp
Please spread the word and help get households signed up before the deadline. Households can sign up at getinternet.gov or accedeainternet.gov in Spanish.
From Sean Reinhart
Learning Specialist Transfer and Hiring process for 24-25 school year:
Hi all, we want to give you a preview of the process for hiring certified Learning Specialist for next year.
- Currently, we are identifying schools that will have opening for Learning Specialists for the 24-25 school year. These are folks that are resigning or are temporary. You will be contacted if you are on the list.
- If you are on the list of schools in need of a Learning Specialist, you will be invited to the transfer interviews, currently scheduled for Monday, March 4(2:30-5:00). We will have a pool of candidates available that have requested a transfer and indicated that one of their choices is your school.
- If you are at the transfer interviews and a candidate is not selected for your school, you will be invited to the pool interviews scheduled on Tuesday, March 11 (1-5 PM). Also, if you now have an opening because of the pool interviews, you will be invited to participate in this pool interview process.
- There will be three postings for Learning Specialist. A La Pine area pool posting, an elementary pool posting, and a secondary pool posting. During this interview process, we will be looking at new candidates that have applied for learning specialist positions in your perspective pool.
- Once we complete the initial round of posting, interviewing, and hiring for all schools, any additional hiring will be completed at the building level with Student Services admin support. This means the posting will be specific to your school and you will be the hiring manager with support from student services admin.
Please let Josh, Colleen, or myself know if you have any questions.
From Jennifer Hauth (Please read)
Link National School Counseling Week – February 5th
This and That
From Stephen Duval
Hello secondary administrators. We will be hosting our first annual life and career readiness night on Tuesday, March 5th from 6-7:30 pm at Caldera High School. This event is designed for students in grades 6-12 and will feature a kickoff from our new partner SchooLinks and then transition to a career fair. There will be community members representing a variety of industries, colleges, and our armed forces present to talk with students and families. We will be using February to start our advertising push so look for language soon to send out to families.
From Kinsey Martin
Policies (follow-up from Wednesday’s admin meeting):
Thank you for your attention and engagement with the policies that govern our work and decision-making. Reach out with questions, ideas, or if you’d like training/PD for your team:
Here is the policy revision cycle we discussed at the admin meeting. Here is a direct link to the input form if you have identified a particular policy issue that needs attention. Please share as applicable (particularly with staff members or student groups who have an interest in advocacy). Here is the link to the policies currently in the ‘consult’ stage of review/feedback (e-bikes, diploma types, religion, etc), so you can monitor upcoming changes and/or give feedback. Here is where you can search within any of our current policies.
Action Requested re: Bias Incidents:
As this semester closes, please look back through emails/calls from me to be sure you have closed out the investigation and response on each bias incident report. This includes replying to those messages (if we weren’t partnering on response) with the consequences and outcomes.
Reporting each alleged incident and documenting all response steps takes a bit of effort up front, but is well worth the investment (compared to the hassle when concerns arise from incomplete processes or records). If your team would like to discuss bias incident reporting, response, or prevention with Kinsey and/or the equity coaches, please reach out. Thank you!
Asian Family Night/Lunar New Year Event:
Flyer invitations English and Chinese versions—thanks for sharing with your staff and families!
Jamie Goldman BLP Ed Foundation
Friendly reminder we are launching our Spring cycle on Monday…can you please send out a reminder to educators on Friday and again Monday morning?
The Bend-La Pine Education Foundation is proud to announce a Spring 2024 classroom grant cycle! This will be on a smaller scale, but will hopefully provide a meaningful impact for educators across the district.
Spring 2024 Grant Application: https://forms.gle/sTQXdnx9sq1dt46GAThe breakdown for the Spring Cycle:
- Applications can be up to $850
- 3 Buckets:
- STEM
- PE
- ART/MUSIC
- If the number of grant requests exceeds the available funding, we will fund 1 grant per school based on date received and requirements met. Teachers who did not receive funding in Fall 2023 will receive first priority. A grant report will be due by Jun 1, 2024.
- Timeline:
- 2/5 – Grant Application opens
- 3/1 – Grant application closes
- 3/5 – Allocations meeting 12-2pm
- 3/6-3/15 – Grant announcements and distributions
Calendar
February 2: Grades are due and need to be posted in Synergy by 4:00pm
February 2: Groundhog Day (Early Spring-prognostication by Punxsutawney Phil)
February 5-9: National School Counseling Week
February 8: MS Horizontal @PBMS at 3:00-4:30
February 9: Appreciation Cards for SRO are due
February 19: President’s Day—This is not a paid holiday, so use non-contract if you don’t work
February 20th: 5th Grade Family Night Time TBD by each MS
March 3: Education Foundation: Grants are due 3/1: www.blpedfoundation.org
Fish On…
