Reflections:
“We now have the opportunity not to just reimagine schooling or try to reform injustice but to start over. Starting over is hard but not impossible; we now have a skeleton of a playbook. It starts with creativity, teacher-student relationships, and teacher autonomy.”
This quote is from the article Mary Ehrenworth mentioned that was written by Bettina Love. Here’s the link to the full article.
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Here is a fascinating article from Education Week that Dave forwarded to several of us.
To Do:
HERE are the CANVAS expectations we worked on earlier this week. Laura has included the links for teachers to set up auto synch to Synergy AND set 50% as the floor if they use a 0-100% grading system. Be sure to share these with teachers next week.
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Music Masks are required indoors! Let me know if you need “music masks” for your band students and how many you need. Julianne will be ordering more next week. These masks have a little opening for kids to play their instruments while still wearing a mask and will help to mitigate spread.
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Safety Updates and Return to School Information
We are not hosting in-person family events until further notice. In terms of Open House events coming up in September, plan to hold them virtually.
9-12 lunch: Students in grades 9-12 are highly encouraged to eat lunch outdoors and to maintain appropriate social distancing by maintaining six feet apart when possible. When meals are eaten indoors, six feet of social distancing will be maintained between students in designated areas, to the greatest extent possible.
Info for parents (priority) – Some of you inquired about a district communication that describes for families our back-to-school practices and procedures. You should include in your newsletter a link to this website. It should provide the necessary information a parent will need.
Safety teams – Once again a reminder to start up your safety teams and use them to help create safety practices at your schools. As you make those decisions, make sure you are referencing the latest RSSL document and aligning decisions with practices and procedures specific to our district. Here is the 2020/21 Return To School Cheat Sheet For Administrators to help guide some of the areas to review and focus on (remember, this is from last year so things have changed). Here is the updated 1 PAGER based on current RSSL guidelines.
Targeted Remote Learning – Here is a DRAFT of a step-by-step Targeted Remote Learning Plan but it should be ready by Monday. Next week it is important that you share it with your teachers so they have time to plan for it and start following some of the recommendations.
Sign in and sign out – Please ensure approved district visitors, ESD staff (including all subs), and approved essential volunteers are using a paper sign-in/out form located in your office. These are critical for contact tracing purposes.
Proof of Vaccination and Vaccine Opt-Out – I know you have many questions about the opt-out of vaccines for medical and religious reasons. HR will be getting out a document soon with the steps to follow. For now, just hold tight and tell anyone who is inquiring about opting out that directions from HR are coming soon. Same goes with when and how we will be collecting proof of vaccination status.
Coming to work sick or symptomatic – pure and simple, DON’T! On day one with staff this needs to be communicated very, very clearly. There have been several cases already in which adults have come to work with “allergies” or a “cold” and eventually found out it was really Covid, unknowingly spreading it to others. This has to be a tight practice.
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Important info from Tami about how to address illnesses and what to do……
Staff/Student Illnesses
- Student and Staff Algorithms – Please follow these algorithms. (The COVID-19 Communication Booklet is currently being updated.)
STAFF
- Non-primary symptoms for staff will be handled by the office managers (or whomever is the designated person covering absences in their department.) They will follow the algorithm for when staff can return. This does not get reported to the school nurse. *Office managers are more than welcome to reach out to staff who do not leave a detailed message with illness symptoms. Unfortunately, school nurses do not have the capacity to do so.
- Primary symptoms for staff – The office manager (or whomever is the designated person covering absences in their department) will complete a Staff Primary Symptom Report Form specific to their school site. (They are currently being made.) School nurses will have access to their specific schools’ spreadsheet.
- School nurses will follow up with staff who are reporting Primary COVID-19 symptoms.
- Once information is collected, the nurse will send an email to all pertinent staff.
- For Nurses – If the staff person wishes to return prior to the 10-day isolation period, they must show the school nurse their negative COVID-19 test.
- PCR/NAAT – no health care provider note needed
- rapid antigen test – health care provider note needed to return to work.
STUDENTS
- Non-primary symptoms for students will be handled by the attendance/health office staff following the algorithm. These non-primary illnesses do not get reported to the school nurse. *Attendance/health staff are more than welcome to reach out to families who do not leave a detailed message with illness symptoms. Unfortunately, school nurses do not have the capacity to do so.
- Primary symptoms for students – Designated staff monitoring student absences will complete a Student Primary Symptom Report Form specific to their school site. (They are currently being made.) School nurses will have access to their specific schools’ spreadsheet.
- School nurses will follow up with parents/guardians who are reporting their student with Primary COVID-19 symptoms.
- School nurses will email or send a paper copy home to parents with information on when the student can return to school.
Quarantine
- School staff should refer quarantining/close contact and positive case questions to the school nurse. Please remind staff that fully vaccinated individuals identified as close contacts do not need to quarantine. If the fully vaccinated individual develops symptoms, they should follow the BLS “When to Keep My Child Home” guidance. (I am currently updating the guidance to reflect fully vaccinated individuals.) This guidance also applies to staff as well. https://www.bend.k12.or.us/district/parents/health-immunizations
- BLS will be following the quarantine guidance set forth from OHA and Deschutes County Health. The gold standard amount of time for quarantine of an unvaccinated individual who had close contact exposure to a COVID-19 positive case is 14 days from the last date of contact. Should a staff/student wish to return to work/school sooner than 14 days, they can follow the guidance below:
- Quarantine for the full 14 days – Earliest return to school date: Date
- Quarantine for 10 days – Earliest return to school date: Date
- Test for COVID-19 after day 6 from the date of last exposure. **The COVID-19 test must be a NAAT/PCR COVID-19 test. – Earliest return to school date (must quarantine through day 7): Date
I have also attached quarantine information for fully vaccinated and non-vaccinated individuals who have been identified as a close contact to a COVID-19 positive case.
Office Managers/Attendance/Health Room Secretaries – Look for access to the Staff Primary Symptom Report Form and Google Spreadsheet responses and to the Student Primary Symptom Report Form and Google Spreadsheet responses coming soon!!
Please let me know if you have any questions.
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Suicide Prevention and Intervention Trainings
QPR:
Due to COVID, we are a little behind in out 3 year rotation for the Question, Persuade, Refer (QPR) 3 year training rotation. Please check the link below to see if you school is due for a training this year. If, yes, you can then click the link to find a Wednesday that will work for you building. I have taken the liberty to combine a few schools that share the same SIW times which are in RED. Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks
| Question, Persuade, Refer1.5 hour training where participants learn how to recognize the warning signs of a suicide crisis and how to question, persuade, and refer someone to help. Offered on Wednesdays | All building/district staff | Every 3 YearsLook HERE to see if you need to sign up this year. | Sign up HERE |
ASIST:
Please save the date for Oct. 21-22 for this fall’s ASIST training. Each build needs at least two ASIST trained staff. Further, all new school psychologists and school counselor will need to attend this training, as they are the folks in your building that respond when a student present with suicide ideation and need a screening and safety plan. We are working on updating our list of trained building staff and will share with you shortly.
| Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training Suicide prevention protocol first responder training. Each building has a minimum of two ASIST trained staff to respond. Look HERE to see who is trained in your building. | School counselors/school psychs/student services | Offered 2 times per year | October 21-22Register HERE |
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A note from Michele Oakes, our Mentor Coordinator: The Mentor Program likes to double-check that we have all of our beginning teachers enrolled in the program and supported by our amazing mentors. If you have a beginning teacher in his/her first or second year of their career, please send the name to Michele Oakes. We are especially trying to catch those educators hired in the last few weeks.
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From Dave Van Loo: Please send Stephanie Bent the email addresses of any staff to include on our district’s assessment and accountability email listserv. These communications will contain information necessary to coordinate and support any essential district or state assessment activities and data collections. Give Dave a call if you have questions.
Information:
Masks are required for INDOOR PE – but NOT for outdoor.
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From Alandra: Friday, Aug. 27 we are sending a district newsletter home to families in ENG and SPAN with content about returning to school. It will include an FAQ addressing items like masks, vaccines, quarantines and more. If you would like to also share this info with families, please use this approved content rather than creating your own for these topics. (Alandra can email you a copy after Friday if you’d like it.)
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School Design Plans: HERE are the guidelines for the school design plans. There is a link in the doc where you can drop questions.
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Improved BLPO support: Amy and her team at BLPO have integrated many of the positive components of CDL into our BLPO program. These improvements will allow families to choose the level of support that best fits their needs. Alandra sent out a media release about these changes this week. HERE is a summary of the program changes.
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Substitutes: The HDESD let us know that they added some subs to their list but the sub situation is not what it was a couple years ago. We will be hiring 5 additional district subs which will help but it won’t nearly solve the shortage issue. Be prepared with contingency plans within your building.
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Tech Tips for New Teachers: Christie Boen prepared this doc of helpful tips to share with all staff, but especially your new teachers.
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From Paul Dean: OSEA mentioned that there is some collective angst among EAs who didn’t know about the added calendar days before making other plans on days that they normally have not worked. We agreed that I would craft some language to send out to administrators to address this.
EA Calendars: Our Educational Assistants have advocated for added workdays for more professional development and increased time to better prepare for their role in supporting teachers and students. Thanks to SIA dollars, we’ve added days to their calendar for the 2021-22 school year and hope to be able to continue this practice in the coming years.
It took extra time this summer to develop work calendars for all of the impacted EA positions and because of this, we were not able to provide them with proper notice before many of them had made plans based upon their historical workdays. We are asking leaders to be understanding when engaging with EAs about conflicts that are a result of these added days.
If you offer training and an EA cannot be part of it, please utilize technology or other means to provide them with an opportunity to access that training. Find trade time opportunities when an EA can’t work on a new calendar day. We intend for all EAs to work their full work year obligations, but it may require administrators and EAs to find collaborative solutions when there are conflicts.
Thanks for your patience and understanding and we will proactively plan next summer so that EAs receive calendar information in a more timely fashion.
Calendar:
August 30 – New Teacher day @Summit 7:30
August 31 – All Staff Welcome Back – Here is the link to the virtual event: Welcome Back Live: Login Tuesday, Aug. 31; the event starts at 8:15 a.m.
September 8 – Frosh Welcome Day
September 13 – Begin ABC rotation
September 21 – HS Admin meeting @ Summit HS 8:00-9:30
September 22 – Leadership training @Ed Center 3:30-5:00
“You’re not teaching kids for the test, you’re teaching them for the lives that they want to live.” Mary Ehrenworth