Thermo Riders,
Remember, pivot, shift and be ready to be nimble as things are constantly moving and will move suddenly. As Dewitt Jones would say, “if you can see it, you will believe it.” With that in mind please be ready to continue our work with our School Design Plans on Monday at Pilot Butte MS. Please review the following document to get ready for our conversation: BLS Excellence/Equity Strategic Priorities Here are some questions to consider for Monday:
- How do you map out the BLS EESP in your building?
- How do you unpack this in what you do with your staff?
- What are the adult actions? What are some concrete examples that EESP is in concert with your School Design Plan? See you then, Juan
To Do
From Human Resources (Ensure you take this message seriously)
BLS Administrative Staff –
This is a reminder of District masking and illness reporting requirements, and of your responsibility as supervisors to enforce the requirements. Unfortunately, we’ve received several reports of both inconsistent compliance and inconsistent enforcement of the standards.
FACE COVERINGS
Staff remain obligated to wear a well-fitting, appropriate mask or face covering when at district sites, unless they are actively eating (and distanced from others) or in a private, fully enclosed workspace. Some staff may be required to wear 3-play medical grade masks as a mitigation measure to a vaccine exception, or a KN95 mask when indoors supervising unmasked students under 12 years of age.
“Appropriate mask or face covering” means a cloth, polypropylene, paper, or other face covering that covers the nose and the mouth and that rests snugly above the nose, below the mouth, and on the sides of the face. The following are not face coverings because they allow droplets to be released: a covering that incorporates a valve that is designed to facilitate easy exhalation, mesh masks, lace masks, or other coverings with openings, holes, visible gaps in the design or material, or vents.
Masks that allow light through, such as sports masks, and vented masks are not appropriate, and are not allowed for use while working at Bend-La Pine Schools. See here for the limited exceptions to the forms of appropriate masks.
ILLNESS REPORTING
Also, all district staff are required to report illness to their supervisor, particularly COVID-19 primary symptoms, exposure, a positive test result, or a directive to quarantine or isolate. Supervisors must pass on reports of primary COVID-19 symptoms, exposures, and positive cases to the Health Services Team for follow-up investigation.
In addition to reporting to their supervisor, staff can also report their status via this new tool:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScLC1rRILWcqZSTu3RyJOA68L9AVR7vKudyhJi75Q07utINow/viewform
FAILURE TO COMPLY
Failure by staff to comply with the face covering and illness reporting protocols, or by administrators or supervisors to enforce protocols, may result in progressive discipline. Please document and follow these progressive discipline measures:
- Verbal warning
- Written Directive
- Letter of Reprimand (contact Steve Herron or Paul Dean if you are escalating to this step)
Do not delay your responses in the face of continued defiance, as you may compromise the District’s ability to respond progressively.
Please let me know if you have any questions about these reminders.
Thanks – Steve
More from HR (to know)
Human Resources: Email Groups
Over the past 12 months, HR has welcomed several new confidential staff members, supervisors and directors. To provide better service, we’ve also shifted some roles/responsibilities within our department. To assist you and your staff in knowing how to best direct your HR questions, we’ve created HR email groups so that you no longer need to remember the individual(s) responsible for a specific task and can easily connect with the most appropriate HR department.
In your email “To” cell, if you begin to type “hr-” and select the search directory, then you’ll see the list of possible HR email groups. We’ve created a HR reference google doc to capture the new email groups, the tasks/responsibilities within each department, staff members’ names and their phone extensions. If you ‘Star’ it within google drive or bookmark the page, you’ll have it for easy reference. This is a live document, and we’ll update it regularly.
HR Holiday Services
With the upcoming holiday seasons on their way, we wanted to communicate that there will be limited HR services during Thanksgiving and Winter Break. For new hires, Thursday, November 18th & Thursday, December 16th will be the last day to offer positions before each respective break.
Steve H (503-539-1044) will the emergency HR contact over Thanksgiving and Paul (541-350-3168) will be the emergency contact over Winter Break.
From Stephen DuVal
Principals please find coverage for the last 15 minutes of class on Wednesday 11/17 for the equitable grading team members on your staff, so they can make it to Bend High by 2:45 pm.
This and That
From Dean Richards
Secondary Blog: More Lessons Learned from the Equitable Grading Think Tank: Retakes/Redos & Extra Credit
More about SLGGs
I have had some questions regarding the development of SLGGs by your Student Success Coaches and Student Success Instructors. With the uniqueness of their role, we have determined, for the purposes of writing SLGGs, that they will be considered TOSA’s. The guidance from ODE states:
Teachers on special assignment (e.g. TOSA, instructional coach, mentor teacher) who do not provide instruction to students are not required to set SLG goals. However, they must participate in the evaluation process and may include measures of their impact on school and district goals for student achievement.
Therefore, they NOT be required to develop SLGGs.
Also, we are currently developing a rubric for evaluation of Student Success Coordinators and Student Success Instructors. It will likely be selected areas from 2 domains. We will gather input from some SSCs/SSIs, admin, and BEA in the process. Stay tuned for more information.
Thanks and let me know if you have any questions.
Bend-La Pine Schools Healthy Schools Program
Bend-La Pine Schools is partnering with Deschutes County Health Services to launch a Healthy Schools program. This program is funded 50% by Bend-La Pine Schools and 50% by Deschutes County Health Services.
Healthy Schools will embed a Public Health Specialist into each high school by the 2023-24 school year.
Each Public Health Specialist will serve both their high school and the middle school/s that feed into that high school. Two high schools will join the program every school year. For the 2021-2022 school year, the following schools will be receiving direct public health services from their Public Health Specialist:
- La Pine High and La Pine Middle Schools
- Bend Senior High and Pilot Butte Middle Schools
Healthy Schools aims to:
- Improve supports for social, mental, emotional, and physical health needs available in or through schools
- Increase students reaching Oregon’s Positive Youth Development benchmark
- Reduce unmet physical and mental/emotional health needs amongst students
- Reduce disparities by race/ethnicity, gender identity and sexual orientation, and income levels
Each Public Health Specialist will serve their high and middle schools by:
- Serving as a designated School Health Coordinator
- Assessing and reporting school health needs and improvements using collaborative processes
- Creating and implementing a collaborative, data-driven school health improvements plan
- Facilitating coordination, collaboration, and integration across internal and external teams/programs
- Providing or coordinating trainings and coaching to improve school health practices
- Facilitating implementation of district and school initiatives, such as Social and Emotional Learning, Equity and Inclusion, and School Design Plans
Healthy Schools is using the CDC-recommended comprehensive Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child approach (see the model below).
These slides provide more information about the Healthy Schools program, if interested in reading more: https://tinyurl.com/HealthySchoolsPHAB2021
For questions about the Healthy Schools program, contact Aimee Snyder, DrPH, the Healthy Schools Supervisor: [email protected]; 541-408-3630
From Alandra Johnson
Reminders
BRYT Fidelity Indicators
I know you are all working hard to get BRYT up and running in each of your buildings, but do you often wonder where you are in the implementation process, or how you are doing? Here is an important one-page implementation document (I also placed the doc under the BRYT tab on the blog homepage) with 7 different fidelity markers of what you need to have in place during this school year. Please know that to have a BRYT program in full implementation and running smoothly, it will take several years, like 3-5. This is work is a marathon and not a sprint. This one page document has broken down what year one implementation will look like. This would be a good document to review with your Student Success Team and to do a quick check-in of how processes are going. Are you on track? Do you need to make plans to address any of the items? Do you need help? Don’t hesitate to reach out to your Behavior Coach, Jennifer Hauth, or Juan.
Evaluating Student Success Coaches/Instructors and EAs
This is just an FYI to let you know that school site Administrators are responsible for the evaluation/observations of these staff at your schools. Please make sure that these staff know who at your site is responsible for their evaluation. In addition, these positions are falling under the state guidelines of TOSAs and they will NOT have to develop SLGGs.
Also, we are currently developing a rubric for evaluation of Student Success Coordinators and Student Success Instructors. It will likely be selected areas from 2 domains. We will gather input from some SSCs/SSIs, admin, and BEA in the process. Stay tuned for more information.
Calendar
M.S. Horizontal Meeting Schedule
- November 15-Horizontal Meeting 7:30-9:00 @Pilot Butte Middle School Here is the Draft Agenda
- November 22-26 No School
- December 2 Middle School Principals (only) Breakfast 7:30-9:00 @The Original Pancake House 1025 SW Donovan Ave, Bend.
- December December 13-Horizontal Meeting 7:30-9:00 @Sky View Middle School
- January 1st-SLGGS Due