High School Rock Stars!

To Do:

Safety minutes: Julianne and Clint Burleigh will join us at our next HS Admin team on Oct 21. We are putting together talking points together for their minutes, but if you have input about a specific topic you would like to discuss, please send those ideas to me.

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Here is an important message from Jay and Lora related to the Excellence and Equity Reviews: Thanks to all of you for your willingness to facilitate SIW activities with your staffs related to the Excellence and Equity Review. We have received notes from a few schools that did the activity this week, and we have a request for those of you who have not done it yet.

As we reviewed the notes for “areas for growth,” they are PRIMARILY addressing what resources will support your work: more SEL behavioral support, smaller class sizes, etc. These are important factors and will certainly improve learning in your schools. However, we all know that even with all these additional resources, if the adults and the systems of the schools don’t grow and learn how to address all students’ needs more effectively, we will have limited success in changing the outcomes we already see.

That is why the second question in the reflection section is so important. It addresses OUR ACTIONS AS ADULTS IN THE SCHOOL. Please help to emphasize this question in both the reflection and discussion portions of your activity. Thanks again, and don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions. Thank you for leading an Excellence and Equity Review process with your staff during an SIW between now and Nov 13.

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Please share this professional development opportunity with your Language Arts Teachers. The Writing Conversations series began with the regional Cascades Commitment grant several years ago and is co-facilitated by teachers from BLPS and COCC. It is open to all LA high school teachers and those who choose to participate will earn curriculum rate pay. Teachers sign up on the link provided on this Writing Conversations information sheet.

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NEW Classified Evaluation Docs: Here is an important message from HR that also has some follow-up communication expected on your part:

We have worked with our OSEA leadership to establish a new classified evaluation rubric (Word and PDF).  While the contract language has not changed around timing or frequency (at least once every two years), this new form will allow for a more meaningful discussion with your classified staff members. 

Additionally, here is the (fillable!) goal setting form to use with staff.  We would like for you to delete all previous evaluation forms you have used in the past with classified from your system.  This new form will be the only one that will be approved for use going forward.  We ask that you plan to discuss this new form with your classified staff and let them know this will be the form used in the spring for evaluations.  We want to avoid any surprises for our staff when you pull out a new form to use for their evaluation. 

As always, we are available for any questions you may have either via phone or when we see you at the next horizontal meeting. 

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Here is an important note from Mike Tiller about the Sites and Facilities Survey: Once again it is time to begin preparing for the Sites and Facilities Committee that will convene in the Fall of 2020. The Sites and Facilities team is comprised of District staff and community members who review data and develop a recommendation for the Board which includes new schools, asset preservation projects, and additions and/or improvements to existing schools.

To assist the committee in their work, we are asking each of you to provide information about the facility in which you work each day.  Please use this Sites and Facilities Review document, answering all of the questions thoroughly. 

Please follow the process as outlined and note that the surveys are due to the Facilities Office by December 11, 2019. Please email those to Cathy Barkee. Once we have your survey we will schedule a meeting with you to help us clearly understand those needs. If you have any questions please reach out to myself (x4702) or Angus Eastwood (503.807.4125). 

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Information:

Monday is our first training for your 1st and 2nd-year teachers around Disciplinary Literacy. This article provides a great definition and understanding of Disciplinary Literacy and outlines some content-specific examples. Thank you to Dean, Jackie, and Alex for making this happen!

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Please display this on your community board and share this with your staff about OHP coverage: Flyer from OHP (English & Spanish versions) regarding family health coverage. You may also be receiving additional copies of this flyer to have available at various parent events. (This will be made available by OHP – you do not need to make copies or hand these out.)

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Shay briefly reviewed the RESULTS from the September 16 Leadership Survey and Listening session this week at our Leadership Team Meeting. I am sharing them here in case you want to review them in more detail.

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In keeping with the positive and inclusive spirit days theme: Kinsey shared some positive ideas for Spirit Days from the California Association of Activities Directors. I especially like the “Nobody Eats Alone Day!” How about the “Positive Social Media Post” day? The student posting the most positive posts during lunch wins a prize. Points deducted for posting during class…

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As was mentioned a few weeks ago, our district policy around Mother Friendly Workplace (GBDA-AP) has received some updates. Of particular note are these two pieces:

• Designate a room, other than a restroom, where an employee can express milk or breast-feed in private, concealed from view and without intrusion by other employees or the public. Office staff should be aware of the room(s) that are available. 
• The room should be within ‘close proximity’ or walking distance from the employee’s work area

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Shay shared an ARTICLE that I find relevant to our work around the power of poverty as a predictor of outcomes for our students. Our mission is to reverse that historic trend!

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Based on our discussion with principals at our recent meeting, we will continue with ASPIRE testing this year. The biggest driving force related to the use of this exam to meet essential skills. We can continue to revisit this decision and make adjustments and our team sees fit.

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CTE NEWS: The 4th Annual Central Oregon Skilled Trades Fair will be on Friday, November 15th at the Deschutes County Fairgrounds in Redmond. Sign-up for the event. Here is the FLIER on the event and more details are included in this Skilled Trades Fair Info Sheet.

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Calendar:

10/21-HS Admin Meeting 7:00am @ MHS* – The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle. We are going to spend time discussing the first three chapters of the book at this meeting.

10/31-HS Principal Meeting 7:00 Jackson’s Corner eastside

TO DO:

We are moving ahead to offer the Master Scheduling Workshop in our Wall Street Lab and will run this two-day workshop on Oct 31 and Nov 1. I will pay for 8 slots total including one slot for each building. The others will be filled based on availability. After we have filled the 8 slots buildings will need to pay $200 per participant. Please sign up interested participants through Performance Matters – search 10610 to access this training. We took the liberty of canceling your sign-ups at the Beaverton Training.

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Information:

At our Leadership meeting on Monday, October 7^th, we will be walking our team through an exercise for our district’s Excellence and Equity Review. We will model this activity for you then ask you to complete this same activity with your staff at an upcoming School Improvement Wednesday. The activity will take approx 90 min. Please bring your laptop to the meeting!

To provide you some time to work with your staff, the activities scheduled for the Oct 9th district SIW have been canceled or rescheduled. This allows you to use the Oct 9 SIW for this listening session OR choose any SIW between October 9^th and November 13^th. At our leadership meeting on Monday, we will provide you with data that you be asked to share with your staff during this activity. Take time to review this data with your ICCL team prior to your staff E and E activity.

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This week, you received an email from Carrie Hulbert (HR) with your current certified assignments and FTE. If you notice a disconnect between this document and what your teacher is actually teaching, please complete an updated PA and get that to Carrie right away. Also included in this email will be a list of the endorsement areas each of your teachers currently has. If you have a teacher teaching outside of her/his endorsement area, please contact Candy Gelatt (HR) right away.

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As we approach the season of spirit days, please work with your school teams and students to carefully consider how certain identity-based spirit days may be regarded by different groups in your school community. It may be helpful to work through these questions, some of which are from this ARTICLE in Teaching Tolerance:

• What is the message we’re sending or endorsing?
• Are we reinforcing the stereotypes we know exist about the reality of life as a _____?
• Is this day in accord with our school mission statement and core values?
• What’s the worst that could happen and how will our team respond?
• Will these days foster a positive sense of community and inclusiveness in my school or result in some students feeling left out or marginalized?

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Early October seems early to be referring to our Guidelines to Inclement Weather. Who could have guessed snow in September?

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Scott developed a quick powerpoint to explain the FIRST STEP App which all students have on their iPads. Please take a few moments to share this with your staff so they are aware of this amazing resource. Thanks, Scott!

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The Attendance Area change process will occur this fall/winter – and go into effect in the fall of 2021 (when the new HS opens). This results of this process will impact both MS and HS. If you are interested in learning about the timeline, parameters and who is involved, this OVERVIEW provides a plethora of information.

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It stinks to have to communicate this, but (as you know) sometimes dog owners in our communities treat our school grounds as a local dog park – and don’t always clean up after their pet. This is more of an issue at some of your schools more than it is at others. Here are a couple of guidelines to consider/know around this topic: It is your discretion to lock your gates in an effort to limit dog owner access to your fields. If you would like signage at your field entrances, maintenance will help with ordering and installing these signs, while the cost of purchase is the responsibility of the building. We do not recommend providing “doggie bags” on school grounds as this might give the wrong impression that your fields are open for this dog activity.

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Calendar:

10/7-Leadership Team Meeting 3:15 in Board Room

10/9-Future Ready Work Team – all Principals 8:00-9:00 @MHS

10/21-HS Admin Meeting 7:00am @ MHS*

*Discussion about: The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle. We are going to spend some time discussing the first three chapters of the book at this meeting.

10/31-HS Principal Meeting 7:00 Jackson’s Corner eastside

To Do:

At our HS Administrators meeting September 16, each of you got a copy of the book The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle. We are going to spend some time discussing the first three chapters of the book at our meeting on Oct 21, so please spend some time reading and reflecting on those pages as they relate to your work, prior to our meeting in October.

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Please share this opportunity with your staff: Educator Effectiveness Committee Info.

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We have scheduled some training for our classified staff for Oct 25. Please share this flyer with your classified team members. Our “Annual Literacy Strategies Conference” is voluntary and staff who choose to participate will be paid. ______________________________________________________________

This “to do” is connected to our upcoming Parent Conferences and our usual need for additional interpreters. If you have bilingual staff who are not classroom teachers and who might be available to support with interpreting during fall conferences (for the time slots we are unable to fill with our regular interpreters), we need to ensure they receive some training on this role.  Please invite them to this meeting: Thursday, October 10th, 4:00-5:00pm in Room 312 of the Education Center.  Please have them RSVP to Kinsey Martin.  They will be time-sheeted for this training and paid for any interpretation time they work.  If they attended this training last year, they don’t have to attend again, but are welcome/encouraged to get a refresher.

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Here is an update on our Culture of Care Project, as well as action you need to take if you are interested in being involved at a deeper level:

Our three regional Culture of Care coaches developed a plan of action to structure how they can support our district and your buildings.  Overall, they have 67 schools in the region to support over three years and have designed a three-tiered support model with priority schools, consultative schools and facilitative schools.   Bend-La Pine Schools has the capacity for 11 priority schools this year.  Our goal is to have a representative from all levels (K-12).  All other schools will fall into the consultative category for year 1. 

Currently, we are looking for buildings that are interested in being a priority school this year.  Your school is a good candidate if:

1. Your building was not a priority school/pilot school last year with Dr. Rick Robinson. (All year one schools will receive consultative services from our regional care coaches)
2. Your building has a core team ready to lead the work at the building level.
3. School leadership has articulated a commitment to building a Culture of Care.
4. Resources (staff/time/budget) have been allocated to support the adoption of a Culture of Care.
5. School leadership has begun eliciting input from staff to adopt a Culture of Care
6. School has begun to gather data to guide Culture of Care work.

If you are interested and excited about your building being a priority school this year, please send Sean Reinhart an email no later than Wednesday, Oct. 2^nd.  You will be notified by Monday Oct. 7^th. ___________________________________________________________

Information:

Our October 7 Leadership meeting will focus on modeling an Equity and Excellence building listening session. At this meeting, you’ll be provided some district and school-specific data. The idea behind this modeling is that you would then use one of the SIW’s between Oct 9 and Nov. 13 to conduct your building Equity and Excellence listening session (including using the same district and school data). I understand that you have already planned your SIW’s for the year, so we are “giving” you the first District SIW on Oct 9 to meet with your staff so you can complete this activity. We will NOT schedule any district SIW activities on Oct 9 so please communicate this to your staff. As I explained to the principals today, I will work with the HS LA PLC members arrange for another time for their meeting.

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Here is an observation/evaluation update from HR: Expectations this year look exactly like last year.  Here is the summary from Jon Lindsay.

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This year’s Job Fair (yes, you read that correctly!) is scheduled for April 13. For all of you planners out there, you’re welcome. For those non-seven-months-ahead planning types, don’t worry – there will be more communication/reminders on this in the months ahead.

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These Adolescent Suicide Matrix of resources were shared at the Suicide Prevention Training led by Whitney Schumacher this week.

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Dual Credit Data: Jenni Newby, Instructional Dean and the new College Now administrator at COCC, recently sent out the data for college-level courses taken at your schools and the corresponding savings to families.

Calendar:

10/7-Leadership Team Meeting 3:15 in Board Room

10/9-Future Ready Work Team – all Principals 8:00-9:00 @MHS

10/21-HS Admin Meeting 7:00am @ MHS

10/31-HS Principal Meeting 7:00 Jackson’s Corner eastside

To Do:

Our High School PLC work continues to expand. I appreciate YOUR support in emphasizing the importance of these collaborations. This fall, Skip, Marsha Baro and I are working with a small team of high school science teachers to develop a comprehensive plan that supports the work of our HS Science teachers. The focus of our work is on developing a Chemical Hygiene Plan to ensure safe management, storage, and disposal of chemicals, facility review and repair (to include the management of equipment) and teacher training. This representative work team will communicate this work to ALL of the high school science teachers at the Nov 13 District SIW. Please make it a priority for your science teachers to attend that meeting. Location is TBD.

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Aspire vs PreAct: We are considering discontinuing Aspire at the 9th and 10th grade and replacing it with PreACT. Please discuss our options with your school teams and bring your recommendation to the HS Principal meeting on Sept 27. Here are some important points to consider in your discussion:

1. Do you want to switch from ACT Aspire Summative in 9^th grade to 9^th grade PreACT? Pre ACT brochure is attached.
   1. Considerations
      1. 9^th grade PreACT is paper/pencil just like 10^th grade, is a bit shorter than Aspire, and doesn’t include writing
      2. Aspire Summative can be used to meet Essential Skills, PreACT cannot.
2. How are staff at high schools using Aspire Periodic assessment data? Should we consider discontinuing Aspire Periodic at 9^th and 10^th grade?
   1. Considerations
      1. We can’t use Aspire Periodic for meeting Essential Skills
      2. If we discontinue Aspire Periodic at HS, the district may repurpose the savings into other efforts to support and improve teaching across a broader range of academic content areas.

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Master Schedule Training: Several of you have expressed interest in attending a Master Schedule Building Workshop. There is currently one offered in Eugene, but we are planning to schedule a session for our district in Central Oregon. We will have eight slots for our high school team members. I would encourage you to send your curriculum secretaries and one or two admin, depending on levels of experience building a master schedule. Also, we can request certain dates. Let me know by Sept 27 the staff members you would like to send to this training AND preferred dates to request for the two-day training.

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Discussion and Input Needed by Sept 27: In August we discussed scheduling high school conferences on the same days and times: Oct 16 and 23, 4-8pm. I want to confirm that after discussion with your school teams, we all agree to these dates. Also, at our principal meeting next Friday, be ready to share your format for conferences (ie: scheduled? drop-ins? all teachers in one location (gym)? other?). Be sure you have someone at your school schedule in your interpreters. You may want to get input from your ELL teachers regarding families who may need an interpreter. Also, if we agree to hold conferences on Oct 23, we may run into trouble getting interpreters. In this case, we would want to have them available on Oct 16 and schedule families who can not make that night.

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Information:

Please review this good news about the change in AP and IB scores accepted by Oregon Universities and Colleges for college credit AND funding for Historically Underserved Students taking IB and AP exams.

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Here is an important note from our HR Team: The District has secured a new pre-employment drug testing provider who offers expanded drug testing hours (Monday through Saturday).  This will allow our administrators to offer positions on Friday because testing can be performed all day on Saturday.  However, with those extended options comes the additional challenge of making sure an applicant is available on Saturday to go to the testing facility.  As before, please make sure you know the applicant is available to meet the 24-hour time frame to complete the pre-employment drug test. It is extremely helpful to share the information below instead of directing the applicant to call HR.  Also, we are requesting that applicants come to our office by 3:00 on Friday afternoon in order to facilitate the paperwork.

Please inform the applicant they should report to the Human Resources office who will be expecting them and will have paperwork ready for their arrival.  Please make sure to restate that we are offering the position contingent upon completion of our pre-employment hiring steps and they have until (insert specific time/date) to make sure the process is completed.

We caution against having the applicant call our office in case we are occupied with new hires and phone calls and are not able to get back to the person right away. They could lose valuable time waiting for a return call, when in fact we have paperwork already prepared for their arrival.  We really appreciate your care and effort in helping communicate the steps when making the offer to our applicants. We love knowing they are informed on the next steps and will welcome them and guide them through the process.

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This was sent directly to your building 504 coordinator but wanted you to be aware of this upcoming training as well.

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This year’s Principal for the Day event sponsored by our Ed Foundation) will be held on Nov. 1. A catered lunch is planned for participating principals and her/his “guest principal” at 12:00 @ the Ed Center. I have found this event to be one of the most impactful ways to educate community members about the AMAZING things happening for our students in our schools. I encourage each of you to welcome a “guest principal” into your school for this event! If you have any questions or know of someone who might want to be a guest principal, please contact Michelle Johnson (x5660).

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Calendar:

9/27-HS Principals Meeting 7:00 Jackson’s Corner eastside

10/7-Leadership Team Meeting 3:15 in Board Room

10/9-Future Ready Work Team – all Principals 8:00-9:00 @Bend Chamber Conf Rm

10/21-HS Admin Meeting 7:00am @ MHS

10/31-HS Principal Meeting 7:00 Jackson’s Corner eastside

To Do:

Disciplinary Literacy Cohort: Dean and Jackie will begin connecting with your teachers in the Cohort a week from Monday, Sept 23. It’s possible these teachers may have no idea that they are in the Disciplinary Literacy cohort.  This could make for an awkward first conversation with the teachers.  Building administrations, I am asking that you please connect with your cohort teachers in person or via an email next week to let them know that Dean or Jackie will be calling them about their Cohort involvement. Feel free to use this information for the conversation or in an email.   

Here are the three disciplinary literacy training dates:  October 14^th, January 14^th, March 17^th from 12:30 to 4:00 in the board room.  Please use this subcode: ESSA Dis Lit.

Required Training for your Health Teachers and Counselors can come too: Deschutes County Health Services will be conducting required suicide prevention training for high school health teachers.  This training is directed specifically toward health teachers and the curriculum they use.  However, at some schools, counselors implement the prevention curriculum.  If this is the case they should attend the training.

The training will occur on September 24^th in the board room at the Education Center from 8-12.  Teachers and/or counselors can sign up on Performance Matters.

Use the sub code “crisis prevention training” when arranging subs and please remind teachers to bring their i.d. to enter the building. 

Our organizer, Whitney Schumacher from Deschutes County Health Services, asks that teachers bring their SOS curriculum to the training.  She also needs a list of the participants ahead of time so she can email them additional details, so please email Whitney the names of your health teachers and any counselors that might be attending. [email protected].

Safety Notes from Marsha Baro: Please complete the first fire drill within the first ten days of school, which is Friday, 9/20/19. Here is the Guidelines for Drills and Schedules.

Fire Drill Log:  To be in compliance with the Oregon Fire Code, please send Marsha Baro an e-mail upon completion of your monthly drill PDF fillable form and update the Google Document.  Follow Safety Protocol in the event of a real incident utilizing a 911 call and the district phone call procedure.

Information:

Here are some guidelines around green cleaning, our WE REDUCE program and cleaning products from our District Sustainability Coordinator, Jackie Wilson. Did you know that SHS is the only high school that currently has a Sustainability Advisor? Let interested staff members know that the first meeting for Sustainability Advisors is Wednesday, September 25th from 6:00-7:30.

Please ensure at least two of your staff members is ASSIST trained.

We have updated the SPED Discipline Flowchart, Discipline Hearing Waiver Form, Notice of Hearing Letter, Discipline Hearing Date Request Form and Referral Form. All of these forms are located on the Staff Portal under Discipline.

Here is an important update from HR related to new legislation.

Our Transportation Team continues to work hard to ensure students are getting to school in a safe and timely manner. Kim Crabtree, our Transportation Director wanted to share this with school teams:

1. Please make sure bus loops are clear of parent traffic, so buses can move thru efficiently.
2. Please do not mark students tardy for late buses. We have not been calling schools about late buses, because it is still the majority that is running late.
3. We are brainstorming for some fixes for transfer buses. Buses are scheduled to drop at schools at 8:30, then head to Option Schools. There are areas of town that make it nearly impossible to get to another school within 15 minutes, it is our goal- unfortunately, we are not meeting this. 

Reasons we are running late:
Many students are just getting onto buses this week and are not familiar with the process. We have a high volume of MS/HS students riding, buses are very full- which slows down loading and unloading Lots of construction- Brosterous, 15th causing large delays Lots of parent traffic at school delaying our ability to get into the bus load/unload zone. All drivers have new routes this year. Our transportation team has a huge responsibility! Take a moment to appreciate them, when you are out connecting with students as they exit or board their buses.

Evaluations and SLGGS for 2019-20: Remember that Contract teachers who are on an evaluation cycle will receive SIX mini observations and complete SLGGs, a self-reflection and a summative evaluation.  Contract teachers who are not being evaluated this year will receive THREE mini observations and complete the SLGGs.  ALL Temporary and Probationary teachers get TWO FORMAL observations prior to the end of Feb. For a mini observation to be considered “legit” you must submit written feedback OR have a debrief conversation with the teacher within 72 hours of the observation. Please call with questions!

Jody McBride in our office handles all of the translation requests through the HDESD. Please contact her at x1056 if you have questions. Here are some quick guidelines related to these requests:

• Documents for translation take approximately 5-7 school days for turn around. It can be longer during busy times. 
  
• Please send your documents as an attachment in an email, and in manipulative form (Word, Pages etc) if at all possible. PDF’s are difficult to translate and take longer. Please don’t convert a PDF to Word. It ends up corrupted for the translator. 
  
• Remember to request your interpreter(s) on the portal 5-7 school days in advance unless it is an emergency issue such as medical, discipline, etc. The HDESD will always try to fill every request, but sometimes there isn’t anyone available last minute.
  
• Don’t forget to notify our office in advance if the appointment is cancelled or changed. We are charged for cancellations with less than 24 hours notice. 

Calendar:

9/16-HS Admin Meeting 7:00-8:15 – LPHS

9/16 – Leadership Team Meeting – Board Room @3:15

9/27-HS Principals Meeting 7:00-8:30 Jackson’s Corner eastside

10/9-Future Ready Work Team – all Principals 8:00-9:00 @Bend Chamber Conf Rm

TO DO:

I appreciate that you have been extra vigilant about attendance this week. If students have not shown to school and your staff hasn’t heard from families that they will be coming, please remove your “no show’s” by the close of the day on Monday. This will help us to more accurately track students in our schools. Thank you for your help with this!

Please encourage your employees to enroll in insurance benefits! Open enrollment ends September 15^th and currently there are 1,130 employees who have not yet elected their benefits for the 2019-2020 school year. Please encourage your staff to complete enrollment at their earliest convenience so that any technical difficulties or questions can be addressed ahead of the enrollment deadline. To enroll, please visit:  https://myoebb.org/oebb/!pb.main     

Information:  

At our leadership team meeting September 16^th, our team will spend most of the meeting focused on our district’s 2019-20 Excellence and Equity Review. We will begin with some background information and logistics, then transition into small group listening sessions.

While I don’t want to waste your precious time now providing lots of information, I want to make sure you have a basic idea of the Excellence and Equity Review because it will be on the agenda of the September 9^th school board meeting.

Here’s the purpose statement:

The primary purpose of the Excellence and Equity Review is to gather and analyze information related to the academic, social and emotional experiences of our students, particularly those from underserved populations. Our information about students’ needs helps us to more effectively prioritize strategies, allocate resources, and develop staff’s knowledge and skills.

The district’s process for our first review is a comprehensive one, as you’ll see in our meeting. For almost a year, we have been planning implementation of a systemic review of our academic strengths and needs, similar to the Sites and Facilities Review process. Fortunately, our planned process and activities will also meet Oregon’s new requirements for districts’ outreach, etc. related to spending with Student Success Act funds…along with a host of other new requirements.

Gabe Pagano and I will be representing high schools in the District Safety Team this year. This of representatives from many departments/levels (custodial, classified, certified, admin, HR, SPED, etc.) meets once a month and is facilitated by Scott and Julianne. If you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions of anything related to school or district safety (e.g. current practices, safety improvement ideas, etc.) please pass those on to Gabe or me for sharing/asking of this group.

Here is another reminder about agreements related to morning practices and classes:

Early Bird Athletic Practices:

• Each sport has the option of offering no more than two practices each week prior to the school start time of 8:45.
• Practices will end by 8:00, so teacher-coaches are available to assist students in classrooms, participate in meetings by 8:15 and/or prepare for the day. This allows students to access teachers for help and get ready for their day.
• Swim practices can continue in the am due to impacted facilities usage at Juniper Swim and Fitness.

Sport specific PE classes and After School Practices:

After school practices can begin at 4:00 and not before. Students can be enrolled in PE or conditioning classes that meet during the last period of the day but should not be required to be enrolled in such classes as part of being on any team.  The lines should not be blurred between the last period of the school day and the 4:00 start of practices.

Welcoming Week Sept. 13-20: This year Bend-La Pine Schools is a supporting partner for the City of Bend’s Welcoming Week activities. Alandra is sending a poster about the events to every school — please hang this on your school’s community bulletin board. She is also sending signs that say “I’m a Welcomer” or “(insert school name) welcomes you”. Feel free photograph staff or students holding these signs. You can share on social media or email photos to Alandra.

What is Welcoming Week? Welcoming Week is a series of events that bring together immigrants and those born within their countries to build strong community connections. These events are guided by the principles of inclusion and creating communities that prosper because everyone feels welcome, including immigrants and refugees. Learn more: City of Bend site and National Welcoming Week site

With the thunder and lightning storm, we had this week, Sal sent out the district protocol. HERE it is for your convenience.

Here is an important note from Dave Van Loo: ACT Aspire is transitioning to a completely different website this year. There is a message on the old website that it is only to be used for viewing reports. We submitted our 2019-20 Aspire order, but ACT still has not sent any credentials for accessing the new website. IT was going to upload student and staff information on Monday, but that is going to get pushed back. For now Aspire tests can’t be administered. I’m guessing it is at least a week or two before testing is possible.

Please be sure that you and your staff are staying up to date on safety trainings. Here is list of Safety TRAINING from Julianne.

Sean has some good news about the upcoming CPS training on October 9-11: Through the Culture of Care grant, I have 33 scholarships available for subs (worth $500 each).  Each school that sends a staff member is guaranteed at least one scholarship.  If not all schools  use the scholarships, we will divide them up evenly among schools that are participating.  If you were already sending staff members, please consider sending some more.  Please indicate which staff members you would like to attend to Denise Sevigny no later than Friday, September 13^th.  After the 13^th, we will sell slots to other districts that are very interested in this training.  Please let me or Denise know if you have any questions.

A special Note From Hayley! School Teams: Our fabulous Behavior Coaches are doing their best to respond to emergencies but their attention is needed in other areas for the time being. It is our hope that they will be back and running by 9.16.19. Thank you for your patience!

Calendar:

9/16-HS Admin Meeting 7:00-8:15 – LPHS

9/16 – Leadership Team Meeting – Board Room @3:15

9/27-HS Principals Meeting 7:00-8:30 Jackson’s Corner eastside

10/9-Future Ready Work Team – all Principals 8:00-9:00 @Bend Chamber Conf Rm

TO DO:

Dean Richards (aka “Mr Other Duties as Assigned”) is taking the lead on getting our new, HS and MS Literacy Coaches “coached up” and ready to support your first and second-year teachers to the district! We hired Jackie Greenwood (teacher at SHS) for HS and Alex Child (teacher at SVMS) for MS. Dean, Jackie, and Alex will design three 1/2 day Disciplinary Literacy Training sessions this year (and three more next year) and provide side by side coaching in between sessions.

Dean has been working to develop the LIST OF NEW TEACHERS who will be involved in this opportunity. Please review the list for your school.  The criteria are year 1 and year 2 regardless of prior experience (we did not include music, ELD, world language, and SPED teachers).  Contact Dean with questions or concerns because we want to make sure that the disciplinary literacy content works for each of the teachers on this list. 

Information:

We will be offering StudySync training for all of your staff members that might be using this program and need a refresher.  The training will be from 12:30-3:00 on September 11th and buildings will need to pay for subs.

Here is an important message from Julianne: Please be sure your staff is training up on FIRST STEP AND SAFE OREGON protocols and be aware that THIS INFO will be on the back of student ID’s this year.

Here is an important message from Lora: Our safety team has created signs to provide information for visitors/volunteers. It is my understanding that these are being sent directly to your schools. There has been a delay in processing the Spanish-language versions, so I am asking all of you to WAIT to post signs until you have both English and Spanish-language posters. Thanks!

As you work through organizing your evaluation system for the year, here is the Building Administrator Roles in evaluating our Itinerant staff this year.

Collaborative Problem Solving training is being offered locally at no cost to staff. You will need to cover the cost of subs, however. Consider sending staff to the next CPS Tier One training in October. Submit the names of interested folks (3 per building) to Denise in Special Programs.

Here is the LINK to applying for the district GED program. Jim sent this info out to your counselors this week but I wanted you to have it as well. We will offer our district GED program at MHS and through Bend Online at LUNA (4-7). Michelle Oliver and Steph Bennett will do the intake counseling for Bend-La Pine Online’s GED Option kids. Jaime Gunter at MHS will continue to do the intake counseling for the MHS program.  COIC still offers a GED program which is also available to serve our students. We encourage you to have students access our district program but the most important factor in determining the best placement is helping students to successfully graduate and be ready for their futures! Student needs come first! If the GED program at COIC works best for the student, then send them to that program.

Calendar:

9/16-HS Admin Meeting 7:00-8:15 – LPHS

9/16 – Leadership Team Meeting – Board Room @3:15

9/27-HS Principals Meeting 7:00-8:30 Jackson’s Corner eastside

10/8-Future Ready Work Team – all Principals 8:00-9:00 @Bend Chamber Conf Rm

TO DO:

An important message from Shay related to questions about our role in ensuring ALL of our students are safe: He writes, “As Bend-La Pine Schools’ staff, we are committed to doing everything in our lawful power to protect our students’ confidential information and ensure that our students’ learning environments are not disrupted by immigration enforcement activity.” In his email this week, Shay attached this informational FAQ that clearly explains our role in serving all students. Please read it and share the information with your staff.

Informational:

Here is some language from Rachel Mavis regarding how we address the enrollment process for FULL TIME GED students:

For students who are going FULL-TIME GED, the registrars would like to see the student go through the complete withdrawal process. This includes turning in iPad and other school fees. Then the will be re-activated at the home school, concurrent to one of our GED programs.

If a student is planning on adding GED to their current school schedule, the home school enrollment (and schedule) remains intact, and a concurrent enrollment to the program is completed

Youth Mental Health First Aid training: Whitney Schumacher, MPH, Suicide Prevention Coordinator through our awesome Deschutes County Health Services partner, has organized a Youth Mental Health First Aid training for staff. Staff that usually find this 8-hour training useful are those that do not have a lot of experience with mental health, i.e. any teachers, coaches, administrators, school nurses, family advocates, etc. School Psychologists and School Counselors don’t find this training particularly useful as this is basic information they received in their training.

The training is scheduled for October 18^th and Feb. 21^st, 2020. There can be a maximum of 30 participants and you must register in order to attend. Staff can access the Youth Mental Health First Aid registration at https://blpsymhfa2019.eventbrite.com. Contact Whitney at Cell: (541) 668-0760 OR Office: (541) 322-7420 for more information.

I know you will appreciate hearing that we have decided to discontinue the administration of Brightbytes and Gallup surveys beginning this school year. Happy Dance!

Calendar:

Here is a reminder about the work hours for certified staff next week. See you at Sky view Middle School on Monday at 7:30 for our new teacher kick off!

8/26- New Teacher Orientation- 7:30-9:30- Sky View MS

8/27- All Staff Welcome Back- 1:00-4:00- Bend Senior High

9/16-HS Admin Meeting 7:00-8:15 – LPHS

9/16 – Leadership Team Meeting – Board Room @3:15

9/27-HS Principals Meeting 7:00-8:30 Jackson’s Corner eastside

To Do:

Yesterday, Dave Van Loo sent out an email about entering the juniors who opted out of SBAC. I appreciate your help getting that information entered by AUGUST 21. Here is is the note from Dave: most high schools have not yet entered 11^th grade Smarter Balanced opt-out students into the district’s Google tracking form. We are required to submit student-level opt-out information to ODE and this tracking form is our data source. Either let Dave know if you see an error in these data or enter all opted-out student information into the tracking form by August 21. Connect with Dave if you need help or have questions!

Mary Erenworth, our keynote for the Innovation Conference Tuesday, August 20 at Pacific Crest, has terrific topics planned for her work with us next week:

8:30-10:00 Keynote:  Democratizing Social and Academic Capital: Supporting Kids as Social Learners Through Partnerships, Clubs, and Study Groups

10:15-12:00 All Admin and ICCL’s: Making Sure Your School is a Place Where (all) Kids Thrive as Writers – the Leader’s Role

1:00-2:15-Secondary admin and ICCL’s work time – bring your School Design Plan – HERE are the SDP templates. You have this time to work with your school team on guided questions related to our Literacy work. 

2:30-3:45-Secondary admin and ICCLs: Ways to Collaborate Around the Teaching of Writing – Up the Grade Levels and Across the Disciplines  

Common Formative Assessments (CFA’s) for English: Representatives from our high school Language Arts teaching ranks worked over the summer to design CFA’s to be administered in 9th grade, 10th grade and 11th-grade classes this year. This effort supports our goals to foster collaboration across high schools, design quality high school assessments that allow our teachers to discuss students progress around skill development and integrate key literacy skills assessed in SBAC into LA classes. The format of the CFA’s aligns with the SBAC testing. The team of teachers, facilitated by Michele Clements, MV Instructor, composed a narrative explaining the design process and recommendations about how best to implement the assessments. Thank you to these teachers for their work on these CFA’s this summer: Grade 9 designers were Kristy Knoll and Lindsey Christen, grade 10 designers were Anita Thompson and Cassie Woelke, grade 11 designers were Ellen Pfeifer and Christen Seymour.  Your role is to support the work of our teachers in the roll-out and implementation of the assessments in LA classes this year. We will speak more about how this may look at your school in the coming weeks.

Please send Tami Pike or me your input regarding TB testing: St. Charles Health Care has notified us about new screening requirements for students participating in the Health Occupations Program. Students are now required to have 2 TB skin tests before they can participate. If we go the same testing route as last spring, the fee for each student would increase from $5 to $10 each (if that fee is still the same for the urgent care and/or school-based health center).  This fee would need to be paid by the school if the rotation is part of the grade in a class.

If the school-based health centers do the testing, they can complete a quick mental health screening on all of their patients, which would be beneficial for our students. However, Family Choice Urgent Care provided the tests on the school sites last year. If we went with the school-based health center, all of the students needing TB testing would have to physically go to a school-based health center (with the exception of Bend High because the SBHC is on their campus). 

Before Tami researches our options further, we want to get a sense of which scenario you prefer: 1. SBHC with the students having to travel off-site to have their tests, but which includes mental health screening or 2. Family Choice Urgent Care who may provide these tests at the school sites? Let Tami or me know your thoughts early next week.

Informational:

Here is a special note from Lora: While the Bend-area Jewish community is not large, we have a significant number of Jewish families in our school district. We were contacted last year by a local rabbi, asking us to avoid scheduling family events on their holiest of holidays. These are Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. For 2019, these are the dates these holidays fall:

• Rosh Hashanah-sunset Sunday, 9/29-sundown Tuesday, 10/1
• Yom Kippur-sunset Tuesday, 10/8-sundown Wednesday, 10/9

Please note that these dates do not mean school activities need to come to a standstill, but please avoid scheduling events such as open houses, curriculum nights, etc.

Agreements around school tours: You may be receiving requests for tours of your schools. In the past, High School principals at BSHS, LPHS, MVHS, and SHS agreed to give tours to people who live out of town and are considering moving but agreed not to give tours to people who live in town. I support principals in declining or scheduling tours to times in the year that worked better than others. We are looking to add students to MHS, REALMS (close to capacity here) and Skyline HS, so principals are encouraged to offer access to all interested families.

Calendar:

Mark your calendars for March 2, 2020. We have scheduled PURSUIT for this date. This event is for all sophomores!

8/20 and 8/21 – Leadership academy- 8:00-4:00-Summit/Pacific Crest

8/26- New Teacher Orientation- 7:30-9:30- Sky View MS

8/27- All Staff Welcome Back- 1:00-4:00- Bend Senior High

9/16-HS Admin Meeting 7:00-8:15 – LPHS

9/27-HS Principals Meeting 7:00-8:30 Jackson’s Corner eastside

To Do:

Our Innovation Conference is coming August 20 and 21! We look forward to kicking off our K-12 Literacy Focus on August 20 with inspiring words from Mary Erenworth! The first day is mandatory for all building administrators and ICCL leaders, so be sure your team is registered. See you at Summit High School at 8:00.

New Teacher Signing Day: Plan on your school admin team attending the New Hire Teacher Day on August 26 at Sky View Middle School 7:30-9:00. Here is the agenda for that morning.  Please plan to be there at 7:30 to greet your incoming staff and to set up a spot in the cafeteria with your “signing-day” material. Thank you for bringing ONE swag item (ie: hat, lanyard, shirt) for each of your new teachers. If you will be sharing a teacher with another school this year, please agree prior to that morning who will introduce the new staff member.

Curriculum Question from Skip: Skip needs to know which teachers at your schools are using Study Synch. Please provide this information to him by completing this google doc.

In the spring, we spoke about some of our high school counselor requests to add the status a students’ non-credit graduation requirements to student transcripts. Jim and I asked Patty Givens to show us what this would look like on a transcript to help us determine if this is the best course of action. Here is what adding this info would look like. I am interested in hearing your input on this and making a decision for this year. Principals, please discuss this with your counseling teams and bring your recommendation to our first meeting on Sept 27!

Information:

Community/Parent information nights: Julianne, Jim Boen and I have been working with our partners at Deschutes County Health to schedule a few parent information nights AND follow up CONNECT workshops (where 15-20 parents focus in on the topic discussed at the parent night) related to “hot topics” we are seeing in our community. The first one will be scheduled for this fall with a focus on vaping, marijuana, prescription drugs and alcohol. Additionally, our partners are designing some resources for us to use with staff, students and parents. More details to come, but wanted you to know this is in the works.

Lauren Wood, Drug-Free Communities Coordinator with Deschutes County Health, has extended an invitation to all interested high schools to learn more about the Alternatives-to-Out-of-School Suspension pilot. Here is her message to you: we have scheduled a curriculum training for the graduate counseling students who are supporting the pilot, and I wanted to open it up in case it would be of interest to you or your staff. Please note that the main focus of the training is the content and delivery of the curriculum itself, and less about the logistics for school staff involved with the pilot (which I am happy to meet and provide an overview of). Based on the content, a school counselor at a site that wants to get involved with this curriculum would probably be the best fit to attend.

Training Details:August 16^th from 8:45am – 4:30pm @Deschutes County Services Building, DeArmond Room, first floor, 1300 NW Wall Street, Bend 97702,Lunch will be provided

Please register at this link by August 12^nd. Registration is required, and also helps to plan for ordering our lunch food, based on any dietary preferences. You will receive a training booklet at the start of the training. Other than having read through the pilot outline (attached), staff do not need to do anything to prepare for the training. I’m happy to discuss further if you have any questions or want to talk through this training opportunity!

Here is some important information from Kinsey related to serving our ELL population: ELL Department Newsletter, Welcoming Linguistically-Diverse Families, and Language Poster.

Special Education Staffing: Two additional resources are now available to you through Special Programs! You have been allocated 70 hours of discretionary EA substitute time and there is a process you and your teachers can access to request additional sped staffing assistance. Click here for specifics related to these resources.

Here is a link directly to the survey to request additional special program staff: Request for Additional Special Programs Staff

One of our district areas of emphasis continues to be on developing trauma-informed schools. Part of that journey includes providing training for our staff as they continue to develop their skills and mindsets around providing social and emotional support for our students. The Collaborative Problem Solving training aligns with our goals around this work. Consider sending staff to the next CPS Tier One training in October. Submit the names of interested folks to Denise in Special Programs.

An important reminder about changes in HS conferences and comp time for 19-20: We have only scheduled fall conferences for next year. Teachers complete 8 hours over the weeks of Oct 14 and Oct 21 (the calendar says Oct 17 and Oct 24, but you don’t have to hold the conferences on those exact dates).  There is no school Oct 25 which serves as the comp day for the 8 hours. There are no spring conferences scheduled for the 2019-20 school year.

Here are the office classified work hours by level. Feel free to adjust these times by up to 15 minutes either way to best suit your school/community needs.

STRIVE: We have landed on a few changes related to tracking district programs that I want to share with you. Last year, we ran a HS behavior/expulsion program for 9th and 10th graders we named INSPIRE and housed at the Old Tamarack building off of Hwy 20. This program served several 9th and 10th graders who had either been expelled or were struggling behaviorally in their home school. That program ended with the school year. That population will now be served in the Heart of Oregon Module, located on the Marshall HS campus. Bob Metcalf is our teacher and Steph Bennett will assist in the afternoons. We are going to refer to the program as STRIVE, which means we will not have to recreate a system for enrollment and attendance tracking. Students enrolled in STRIVE will stay enrolled at their homeschool and be concurrently enrolled at STRIVE. I am the contact for placement at STRIVE, but Sal will be the administrator responsible on-site.

GED Program:  This year, we will continue to offer a GED program in our district, with three ways students can access the program: through MHS, BLPO and LUNA.  Similar to STRIVE, students enrolled in our district GED Progam will stay enrolled at their homeschool and be concurrently enrolled in the GED program.

Students can continue to access the GED program at COIC. In this case, students must be enrolled at COIC and will not be crossed enrolled. Please continue to default to placing students in our district GED program over the COIC program.

Here is the new mileage reimbursement form for 2019-20.

From Sean- Sean asked us to share some information on National Suicide Prevention Awareness Week. Please check out the following fliers: Candlelight Vigil, Mindfulness, True Stories.

Calendar:

The District SIW dates are Oct 9, Nov 13, Feb 12 and March 11. This is a terrific time to encourage your teachers to connect with teachers in other buildings! District level activities will be planned for these content areas: LA PLC teachers, SS CAT team members, ELL, SPED, CTE and Health.

Collective Bargaining Language Change: Article 15, Section C, has been struck from the CBA. This is the language about 50% small group time, etc. Schools are not required to consider this in their SIW planning.

A new section has been added to Article 15. While the CBA is not finalized, this is the language agreed upon:  One early-release day (SIW) per month will be allocated for member-directed individual work time, to be determined by level (elementary, middle school, high school).

After gathering input from a few HS Principals, we designated the first SIW each month (except for Jan {end of semester}, Feb {ACT training} and June {Graduation}) for the HS teachers member-directed individual work time. Here are the dates:  Sept 11, Oct 2, Nov 6, Dec 4, Jan 29, Feb 19, March 4, April 1, May 6 and June 11. Please treat this time like you would a teacher workday. In other words, administrators can not set meetings on those days.

Here is the 19-20 Administrator Work Calendar. Joanne in our office will be sharing a google doc with you that you can complete online. You enter your non-contract or sick leave days on your calendar then they will populate to your signed leave sheet! So nifty! If you have questions, call Joanne at x1022.

Here is our schedule for HS Admin/HS Principal meetings. I will send the Leadership Team meeting dates as soon as I have them.

Here are the 19-20 school calendars: Bend and SC Elementary Schools, LPHS, MHS, REALMS HS, Skyline HS, and BSHS, MVHS, SHS – ABC Calendar.

Here are the 19-20 daily school schedules: BSHS, LPHS, MHS, MVHS, REALMS, SkyHS, and SHS.

Here is a quick summary of upcoming events:

8/12- Safety/ investigations- 7:30-4:00- Riverhouse

8/14- Leadership Dinner- 5:00- Dana’s house- 62880 Dickey Road

8/20 and 8/21 – Leadership academy- 8:00-4:00-Summit/Pacific Crest

8/26- New Teacher Orientation- 7:30-9:30- Sky View MS

8/27- All Staff Welcome Back- 1:00-4:00- Bend Senior High

9/16-HS Admin Meeting 7:00-8:15 – LPHS