Learning Opportunity regarding the importance of investigating suspected bullying: Just wanted to share this story with you about a law suit in Eugene that was just settled in the student’s favor. The part where it states that the court found that the principal “knew of the bullying but did not investigate or intervene” is a good reminder about the critical importance of our leaders and staff using the bias incident reporting and response process appropriately and consistently.
Action Items:
HSS and SIF budgets: These budgets need to be completed by Friday, October 20, 2023. If you need to change them over the year, that is fine, but the initial plan should be completed. Please reach out to April or me if you have questions.
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UKG Data Check
We 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 the link below.
Please don’t undertake this task until Monday, October 2 and complete this google form with your corrections by Friday, October 6th
Performance Evaluation Module
We are going to use the week of October 2nd to complete our testing (thank you Julie and Sky View MS staff for helping us with this) and then roll out communications regarding the launch of Certified goal-setting, observations and evaluations processes. Certified staff can expect an introductory notification through UKG regarding the launch of Performance by October 6th.
Administrative/supervisor are invited to view the google document Performance: Certified Evaluation to begin to acclimate yourself to this module. It includes short video tutorials. I am scheduled to conduct a Performance training with all administrators on Wednesday, October 25th at Bend Senior High School, but you’ll need to be interacting with this module for Certified goal-setting and Observations prior to the 25th. I will schedule a couple of weekly virtual drop in sessions and advertise those in next week’s blog to assist with any questions that you have.
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From Stephen: Please check with your AP and testing coordinators to see if they have been notified of any student receiving National Recognition awards from the College Board. If so, have them reach out to Stephen DuVal.
Reminder/Action items:
Tribal History/Ethnic Studies WorkShop: Plan on sending your building administrator who oversees social studies to This workshop from 8:00-12:00 next Thursday, October 5th in the board room. Given recent bias incidents at the high school level as well as the nature of this workshop content, advanced awareness and preparation will help you support your teachers as they soon move into this work.
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From Jennifer: Please read through this Memo and make sure your office staff and counselors understand the guidelines for outside service providers meeting with students on campus during school hours. Thank you.
Information:
From Dean: Professional development for high school Language Arts teachers:
There is a professional development day that is designed for middle school teachers, but may be of interest to hish school teachers who are teaching students well below current grade level expectations in Language Arts. This professional learning class would be appropriate for teachers teaching in co-taught or in credit recovery situations. Special Education teachers may also benefit from this professional development. A Mathematics course is planned for late October, details to come.
Substitute costs are covered by building budgets.
Language Arts:
October 16th from 8:00 to 4:00 in the Wall Street Lab (basement of the Education Center)
Topics to be discussed:
- Increase understanding of the role of foundational skills in reading
- Strategies for teaching multisyllabic words
- Strategies for improving word and world knowledge
- Comprehension strategies
To attend this professional development, please email Dean Richards with a request to attend
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AP Testing Costs: AP has released their 2024 pricing at $98 per exam. ODE will be covering $20 of this, meaning the cost to students will be $78 this year. As a reminder, free and reduced lunch students will be able to take their exams for free.
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Parent Conferences are coming up. Here are the dates we know at this point:
MVHS – Open House/Parent Conferences October 24
SHS – Open House/Parent Conferences – October 30
BSHS – Parent Conferences – October 30
LPHS – November 1
CHS – November 2
Realms – November 8-11
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From Jenn regarding Wayfinder summative survey: Thank you to all of the schools that started or completed the assessment this week. Shout out to Bend High (75%) and La Pine Middle (80%) for the highest student completion rates so far!
We know there were some bumps for student logins, but we are hopeful those have all been sorted. If you have not started/finished, please make sure you have time scheduled next week for all of your students to complete the assessment (about 30 minutes). All students will access Wayfinder through the Clever app on their ipads. Please do a test run with a few students/teachers to make sure everything is working. Here is the one-pager as you are helping students login.
Also, if student are not able to see their “To-do” list on their ipads, please make sure that students rotate their ipad screens to see if that helps, or try to use their fingers to pinch in/out to see if they can find the to-do list.
The assessment closes at the end of the day on Friday, October 6th. Your school will have access to the results of the assessment on your admin dashboard for all of your students in the six core skills. The results will show celebrations in what strengths your students already have and help guide your school team in areas of growth as a school community.
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Heart of Oregon YouthBuild is currently offering Information Sessions about our upcoming enrollment. This school year, enrolled YouthBuild students in our construction track will be building a home from the ground-up in Bend in partnership with First Story. Please reach out if you know a student who needs an alternative option to completing their education. We can also schedule in-person meetings with young people, families, and counselors.
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From Student Services: Need emergency EA Support Now? You have funds for that. All building discretionary budgets contain a line item titled “High Needs”. These dollars come directly from the Student Services discretionary account for buildings to use. The purpose of these funds is to support building administrators to quickly staff for students with high needs. The funds are available to use at your discretion for supplemental subs and equates to 70 hours of a substitute classified educational assistant. This is an annual allocation, and the typical carryover (10%) rules will apply as with all other discretionary monies. These funds are only to support high-need students that you believe require additional staffing. Some other considerations when utilizing the high needs students discretionary funds:
- The high needs student discretionary funds are not exclusively tied to students on an IEP or 504 and can be used with any student.
- Supplementary substitutes should never work directly with a high needs student. Rather, the substitute should fill-in for our trained staff that can work with high needs students.
Additional Student Services Staffing Requests: Any requests for additional Student Services staff (included unfilled positions) need to come directly from building administrators and not from learning specialists. Each request will be reviewed by a team of Student Services administrators and level leaders for consideration. Some considerations when requesting additional student services staff:
- All high needs student discretionary funds (see above) must be spent first.
- Prior to requesting additional staff, develop a plan for how the person will be utilized, duration of the request, plan to fade support, and the name of staff member facilitating the sub and plan implementation.
- Any additional student Services staff requested via this process would need to directly serve students under the umbrella of special education (unlike the 70 hours above)
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From Scott B: Safety Site Visits: Starting next week, Kayla and I will be visiting one school per week to partner with your administration team to conduct a safety site visit.
A few days prior to our visit, you will receive an email from us with the checklist of safety related areas we will be visiting.
We will typically be at your school for 2-3 hours per site visit. We always welcome you to walk with us during our visits to highlight safety strengths and concerns for your building, but we understand it’s not feasible for you to spend the entire time with us during our visits.
These visits are not a “gotcha” moment, but more of an opportunity for the district safety team to spend time in your schools partnering with you to ensure you have the safest learning environment possible.
Please reach out to us with any questions.
Calendar:
Here is LINK to the SIW Calendar and HS administrator work sessions and agendas for 23-24.
Wayfinder Assessment window: September 26-October 5 – ALL students; ALL high schools
October 3: ICCL and building administrator training 4:15 @ BSHS; Perseverance Hall
October 5: Tribal History/Ethnic Studies workshop -(admin who oversee social studies); 8:00-12:00; boardroom
October 10: HS Administrator Work Session 8:00-9:30 @ CHS
October 11: Educator Network Day more info coming soon!
October 19: MTSS Administrator Lead Professional Development @ 3:00-4:00 @ Ed Center Board Room
October 24: HS Administrator Principal Work Session 8:00-9:30 @ SHS
October 25: All Admin Professional Development 3:00-4:30 @ BSHS Perseverance Hall