To Do:
Yesterday you received an email inviting all staff to a virtual (Webex) meeting with Dr. Doug Reeves regarding a new district study on equitable grading practices. This will take place next Wednesday, March 10, from 2:30 – 4:00. Principals, please have your ICCL’s and admin team, minimally, attend this kickoff to our work on grading and feedback scheduled for this Wednesday. Every staff member is encouraged to attend.
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Reminder: This spring, all language arts teachers are guiding their students through the district CDA (Common District Assessment). Teachers were given permission to abbreviate the work this year, and suggestions were provided for how this abbreviation might look. Teachers were asked to focus on facilitating a meaningful student experience with the CDA that would allow students to progress forward in the skills of decoding non-fiction text and essay composition. Most teachers will be teaching the CDA in March or April. You may want to check in with your English departments about this work.
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Here is a reminder regarding the symptoms of COVID that would be good to again share with your staff and families.
Information:
As we discussed at Horizontal, there will be a summer school option for our highest-needs students in addition to the BLPO option we have offered for several summers. Our HS planning team will be meeting next week to plan specifics. As part of our planning, we need a sense of how many certified and classified staff may be interested in working this summer. Here is a copy of the survey link that I will be emailing to your staff members later today. Feel free to remind your staff I’d love survey feedback by Monday, March 29. Only staff who are interested in working at summer school (Aug. 2 – 19) need to complete this survey.
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Our Synergy team is in the process of pointing students to schools for the 2021-22 school year. As part of this process, all students currently enrolled in BLPO or D-CDL will be pointed back to their concurrent school for the start of next school year, not the virtual program, with exception of 5th and 8th graders. 5th and 8th grade students will be pointed to their attendance area school. This means that the 1900 students who currently have a home school of Bend-La Pine Online will be counted at your sites, not the virtual program they are currently attending. Please let us know if you have any questions.
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Indoor Band and Choir Rehearsal Option: For the past several weeks, several district team members have been engaged with BLS secondary music teachers, local health professionals, Deschutes County Public Health, reviewed ODE’s Visual and Performing Arts guidance, and read the latest research related to the aerosol spread of the COVID-19 virus when people sing and play wind instruments.
After careful consideration, we are prepared to allow indoor music rehearsals, under strict conditions, starting no earlier than Monday, March 15th, and only if a music/band teacher has completed a proposal and it has been reviewed by the school safety team. We recognize that due to space constraints in certain buildings and/or the reluctance of some staff to sing/play indoors, not all music classes will be afforded the same opportunity to be indoors. In those situations, outdoor rehearsals will be the primary method of instruction.
Here are our requirements for indoor rehearsals. On Monday at 8:30 am, Paul will open his Webex room for a Q&A related to this. He will be joined by music reps Cooper Ottum, Luke MacSween, and Keith Chaiet. It would be great to have an admin and music teacher from each school join so we are all on the same page as we move forward with this.
We are in the process of developing communication to music families in English/Spanish that your school can send out.
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Media: Reminder that reporters are considered visitors and, as such, are not allowed inside our buildings whether or not students are present. If you get a call from a reporter or have questions, please reach out to Alandra or Julianne for guidance. We are here to help support you!
Photo/Video Sharing: When sharing photos or videos of students – whether on social media, newsletter to families, video montage, etc. – be sure to follow our guidelines for Social Media Best Practices. We are continuing to see a few photos of students or staff without masks pop up. Even if the photo is taken during a time, such as lunch, when masks may not be required, please do not share those photos. If you have questions, reach out to Alandra – [email protected].
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Our Instructional Technology Team has some exciting news. They’re doing a bit of rebranding and will now be known as the BLS EdTech Team (to avoid confusion between IT for Instructional Tech and IT for Informational Tech.) They’re also excited to start sharing a bi-monthly newsletter, BLS EdTech Bytes. You can find the first edition linked here. Administrators who use the web version of Outlook will find it contains an easy & useful tip this week…so be sure to check it out for that and other exciting topics.
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An SRO update:
One of our SRO’s, Erik Ammon who was assigned to MVHS, has resigned from the Bend PD. We will probably be without the fourth SRO for the remainder of this school year.
Bend PD is going to move Officer Scott Schaier over to MVHS (from the middle schools and BTA) to replace Erik for the remainder of the school year. We will still have Office Jimmy Krauger at Summit HS and Office Amy Ward at Bend HS. They will each cover down on the feeder schools to their respective high schools as well.
Sergeant Tom Pine, the SRO supervisor, will be a floater for the team, helping to cover all our schools as needed.
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Last week I shared a document with you regarding HS athletics – that there will be no spectators, but events will be live-streamed. Here is the Spanish version of that same document. Please share with your families. (NOTE: MS track events will be virtual – there will be no physical meets and no live streaming.)
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Calendar:
As you know, we’ll be having a Leadership meeting this Monday, March 8 at 4:00 in Lora’s Webex room. The agenda will include a budget message (the same one that will be presented at the Board meeting the next evening), a timeline for staffing plans and hiring, summer school programming, Portland job fair info, and maybe a few other items.
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HS Administrator WebEx: Wednesday, March 10 at 10:30
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ACR Communication: Families will be notified regarding whether their ACR was accepted and students will be pointed to their schools Wednesday, March 10. Here are some talking points that can be used INTERNALLY with staff to assist with addressing questions from parents, students, and staff. They are not to be posted publically.
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8th-grade orientations are scheduled for Monday, March 15: BSHS, CHS, and LPHS: Tuesday, March 16: MVHS: Wednesday, March 17: SHS. They will record these events and put them on their websites (or send them to you to help with this).
8th-grade forecasting is also scheduled the week of March 15.
BTA@MHS, Realms, and Skyline information nights were this week. Our choice high schools will be scheduling an additional night in the coming weeks.
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HS conferences are scheduled for the evenings of April 12 or 13. Schools should plan to communicate specific information to families regarding their plans. Teachers have a comp day for fall and spring conferences on April 16.