High School Rock Stars!

Information:

From Paul: VERY IMPORTANT: Certified Temporary/Probationary 1 & 2 and Contract Staff of Concern

As you complete Summative Evaluations, it is imperative that you note any performance deficiencies in both the domain/standard rating AND in the summary section at the end.  

You may use language like, 

• “Teacher AB does not meet performance expectations in [insert any/all that apply]”
• “It is necessary that AB becomes effective in these domains”
• PROBATIONARY/TEMPORARY ONLY: “Failure to meet performance objectives will result in probationary non-renewal at the conclusion of the following school year or failure to move from probationary to contract status by March of year three”  
• “Teacher AB will be placed on Focused Performance Evaluation at the beginning of the upcoming school year” [or insert Support Strategies if you’ve already completed the Focus Perf. step] 

HR will be contacting administrators in August/September to identify probationary teachers of concern.

UKG and Hiring Season

Please reference UKG Job Requisition, Interview Prep, Applicant Screening and Hiring Tips as we enter into peak hiring season. We have important information about ICCL hiring in this document (cut/pasted below).  Within the document is also access to a Veteran’s Preference report where you can easily view which external candidates are veterans.  

ICCL Hiring

We have one posting for all ICCL openings where staff can choose the school/department that they want to serve as an ICCL.  The posting went up on May 5th and we began to receive complaints from administrators about the frequency of emails that they were receiving each time someone submitted an application (HELPFUL HINT: CREATE AN OUTLOOK EMAIL RULE TO ROUTE UKG EMAILS TO A SPECIFIC FOLDER AND/OR TURN OFF EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS FROM UKG).  
The notification feature is either a system turn on/off and cannot be designated to be disabled for one posting. Therefore, we temporarily removed all school-depart admin as hiring managers so you cannot view applications at this time.  We will turn it back on Monday the 22nd and you can then begin interviewing/hiring from the posting (you will also begin receiving applicant notifications again ~sorry).
Here are instructions on how to see who applied for your ICCL openings:In the upper right search bar, type “recruit” and select “Recruitment Questionnaire Answers”


Along the top of the table, click the down arrow next to Saved:[System] and select “ICCL Sorting View 22/23”.  You will see each school/department listed with the name of the applicant(s) who have applied.  

To view their brief ICCL application and statement as to why they would be a good candidate, select the “View Questionnaire” icon left of an applicant’s name 

REMINDER FROM APRIL 28TH BLOG – Here are some FAQs regarding the upcoming certified hiring season: 

Which internal candidates are we required to interview? The CBA guarantees interviews to internal candidates to anyone who has contract status, meaning they have been employed with us for three years or longer. Because of the fact that the contract letters have already been issued for next year, this includes those who are probationary three this year. If an employee has contract status and is currently in a temporary position, they are still owed an interview. 

If so, how do find out which employees are in which category? Please click on this link to see the contract status of all certified staff.  If someone does not appear on your list, please email [email protected] for assistance. 

For those that we are required to offer an interview to, does it need to be a full interview, or can it be a phone screen or a shortened version? Asking as it will be a struggle to arrange for teachers etc. to participate in a large number of full interviews. You can run a tiered interview for any position you like,  beginning with a screening round where ALL internal applicants are asked the same questions and you then decide which candidates to invite to subsequent rounds of interviews.

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From Lora to Principals and LLC Members – This is a follow up to my announcement yesterday about an additional principals’ meeting this spring on Monday, May 22, in the boardroom:

·3:00-3:30 is OPTIONAL. Dave is going to share a strategy for schools interested in focusing more directly on instructional practices in their school design work next year. The goal is to get feedback and learn what resources schools may need if they want to participate.

·3:30-4:00 (ish) is mandatory. Steve will share additional information about budget and possible impacts on schools. 

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From Lora: Principals, Remember that the Wednesday of the last week of school is a FULL school day! Schools will be on SIW schedules Friday, June 16^th,  the last day of school. A couple more end-of-year reminders:

• Monday, June 19^th is Juneteenth. We recognize that some staff may choose to work on the holiday because of the time of year, but please do not schedule interviews for that day and make sure school offices are closed with signage: “Our offices are closed today in honor of Juneteenth. We will re-open Tuesday morning, June 20^th.” Please communicate to families that offices are closed.
• We have an agreement with BEA that if certified staff have completed the check-out process, including administrative approval, they do not need to report June 20^th.

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From Lora: Here is the schedule for the week back with cert staff in August.

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From our Student Success Coaches: Here is a helpful article about how to support our students as we near summer vacation:

https://mcusercontent.com/87e58577cff22a32d5b580d65/files/b16a737c-6cb4-ff5a-22eb-7e75e34ce98a/NeuroLogic_News_2023.05.17.01.pdf

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From Scott in IT: Greetings Google Users. If you are someone who frequently uses Google Workspace products (forms, docs, sheets, slides) then you should be aware of pending security change.  Beginning next Wednesday, anonymous public users will no longer be able to access your Google documents without first signing in with a Google account.  Example:  If you share a google sign-up form to your families, they would be prompted to sign into Google before signing up for the activity. Both district and non-district accounts would work just the same.  A user who is already signed into a google product would see no change what-so-ever.   Why?  By simply signing into a document, a user has some accountability and responsibility for what they view or edit.   If you feel that this change will negatively impact your work, please feel free to reach out.   Our IT team will do our best to work with you to provide alternative solutions while also ensuring we keep our documents and data safe.

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From Nick Shein in the Business Office:  Navigating questions about money, especially related to fundraising, can be confusing.  The team in the Business Office is willing to help.  We are happy to be “thought partners” with you about scenarios and discuss events/ideas as well.  Also, we are always willing to provide info to help folks either make decisions or come up with an articulate way to frame them.  Our team would much rather be involved at the beginning and supportive in finding the right way to do something rather than finding out after the fact.  Reach out if we can help!

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Calendar:

May 22: Principal PD 3:00-4:30@ Education Center in the Board Room

May 22, 23, 24: Katie out of the office

May 26: Project and announce Val and Sal at every school.

May 29: Memorial Day – No School

May 30: HS Administrator Work Session 8:00-9:30 @ SHS

June is graduation month!! All graduation ceremonies are located at our high schools

June 8: Summit HS graduation @ 7:00 pm

June 9: La Pine HS graduation @ 7:00 pm

June 10: Mountain View HS graduation @ 10:00 am

June 10: Bend Senior HS graduation @ 3:00 pm

June 12: Bend Tech Academy @ Marshall High School graduation @ 7:00 pm

June 13: Realms HS graduation @ 7:00 pm

June 14: This Wednesday is a regular school day – no early release!

June 16: The LAST day of school! Schools on SIW schedule.

June 19: Juneteenth Holiday. School offices Closed – be sure to communicate this with families.

June 20: HS Administrator Work Session 1:00-4:00 TBD

June 21: BLAST end of the year lunch and celebration 11:30 @ Ed Center

To Do:

From Jennifer: Please complete this Wayfinder survey by next Friday, May 19: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfYEPQ-Pqg_gWvdrGV3IJRtdyZ6keIZKIMqGW73xJnsCcQRPg/viewform

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From Payroll: We wanted to send out a quick reminder to timekeepers and direct supervisors that this Sunday is timesheet cutoff.  You may have noticed by now that you are unable to approve your employee’s timesheets until all line item approvals for secondary jobs have been approved. (i.e. Bend Science Station, Collaborative Time, ED101, etc.).  We have requested that those approvals be done no later than 1:00pm on Monday, May 15^th so that you can complete your approval process.    You are a critical step in the process and to help move things along swiftly and smoothly we need all timekeeper approvals completed no later than Tuesday, May 16^th at noon. Once you have completed your approvals, it’s direct supervisors turn.  This is the final step in the approval process before we can start our payroll processes. Direct Supervisor approvals need completed no later than Wednesday May 17^th at noon.  We so appreciate all of you and your time and effort to make this process as smooth as possible.  Thank you!

Workflow:

Step 1 – Friday, May 12^th by 11:00 pm – Direct Supervisors all to do items approved

Step 2 – Sunday May 14^th by 11:00 pm – Employees submit their timesheet

Step 3 – Monday May 15^th by 1:00 pm – Line item approvers approve their items

Step 4 – Tuesday May 16^th by Noon – Timekeepers / Office managers complete their approvals

Step 5 – Wednesday May 17^th by Noon – Admin complete their approvals

From Dean Richards & Linda Adams

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From Ryan Kelling, Human Resources: Please share below information with your staff.

Professional Development Opportunities for Licensed Staff:

Lewis & Clark University is hosting information sessions for already-licensed staff interested in learning more about adding either a Special Education endorsement or a Principal License to their license.

• An online informational session for L&C’s Special Education Generalist added endorsement program will be Wednesday, May 17^th. Tuition is discounted from the typical Lewis & Clark rate, classes are held fully online, and the 18-credit program can be completed in 10 months. Here is a link to register for the information night. 
• An in-person information session for their Principal License cohort will be held at the High Desert ESD’s office in Redmond on Wednesday, May 31^st from 4:00 -6:00 pm. This is a 2-year program that consists of 27 units at a discounted rate. 

Both of these programs would be eligible for 50% tuition reimbursement for Certified staff. More information about the tuition reimbursement program, including an application, on the staff portal.

Information:

All BLAST Members: We sent a calendar invitation to everyone today for our end-of-year celebration and lunch. It is scheduled for Wednesday, June 21^st, from 11:30-1:00 in the board room (lunch may be outside, depending on weather 😊). Hope to see you all there!

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Celebrate our counselors: HS administrators have been invited to attend the end of the school year counselor celebration on June 2, 8:00-9:00 in the Board Room at the Ed Center:

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From Julianne Repman:

Safety page on the Portal has a fresh look and new content.
Check out the updated Safety page on the Portal for a one-stop-shop for the tools you use most often. In addition to quick links, policies and newsworthy items, you will also find a link to request camera, Raptor, technology and facilities support.  

Effective June 17 the COVID-19 vaccination requirement for public and private school teachers, staff and school volunteers (OAR 333-019-1030) will be lifted. 
This means that after June 16, teachers, school staff and volunteers in schools will no longer have to provide proof of vaccination or have a valid medical or religious exception on file to be in direct or indirect contact with students. Being up to date on COVID-19 vaccines continues to offer significant protection against serious illness and hospitalization.

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More from Julianne: Warm Weather Reminders:
Exterior Doors

·         Main entrance doors will remain unlocked during school/staff hours.

·         All other exterior doors should remain locked during the school day/teacher contract day. 

o    Exterior doors may not be propped open and left unsupervised.

o    Doors may be opened when supervised by a staff person who is within ‘arms reach’ of the door.

•         Staff should report concerns of unsupervised, open doors to their administrator and or safety committee for resolution. 

• Staff responsibilities policy

Safety page on the Portal has a fresh look and new content.
Check out the updated Safety page on the Portal for a one-stop-shop for the tools you use most often. In addition to quick links, policies and newsworthy items, you will also find a link to request camera, Raptor, technology and facilities support.

Effective June 17 the COVID-19 vaccination requirement for public and private school teachers, staff and school volunteers (OAR 333-019-1030) will be lifted. 
This means that after June 16, teachers, school staff and volunteers in schools will no longer have to provide proof of vaccination or have a valid medical or religious exception on file to be in direct or indirect contact with students. Being up to date on COVID-19 vaccines continues to offer significant protection against serious illness and hospitalization.

•         Violations may be subject to discipline. 

o    Schools that are not designed to facilitate the locking of all exterior doors, other than the main entrance, will develop a safety plan with the director of elementary, middle or high school programs and the district school safety director. This plan will be reviewed annually.

·         Schools with secure vestibules must not override security systems by propping doors or by any other means.

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From Scott McDonald: Let’s talk about WebEx. This past year, overall usage of WebEx has gone down significantly across the organization.  Although many of us still rely on a virtual platform for meetings and professional development, we are using it far less to interact with students.   Currently, we support two video conferencing platforms Microsoft Teams, and Cisco WebEx.  Our intention is to make a slow transition to exclusively use Microsoft Teams for the 2023-24 school year.  There are several compelling reasons for Bend-La Pine Schools to switch to MS Teams, including additional services, integration with email and calendar, and reduced cost.  Although many staff have been using Microsoft Teams for years, it is new for students.  Currently, we are beginning a trial with our Bend-La Pine Online students.  If you or someone at your site often work with students virtually, we would encourage you to be a part of our trial.   

Please note that any staff user can still participate virtually in any platform ( WebEx, Zoom, Google Meet, etc) the same way they can today.  However, those who host meetings with staff or students will be encouraged to use Microsoft Teams.  For some, I am certain this is an impactful change.  Please feel free to reach out to me directly by email with any specific questions or concerns.

Calendar:

May 17 and 18: Priority Standards Work with Anne McCarty-Perez

May 22: Principal PD @ Education Center in the Board Room

May 22, 23, 24: Katie out of the office

May 26: Project and announce Val and Sal at every school.

May 29: Memorial Day – No School

May 30: HS Administrator Work Session 8:00-9:30 @ SHS

June is graduation month!! All graduation ceremonies are located at our high schools

June 8: Summit HS graduation @ 7:00 pm

June 9: La Pine HS graduation @ 7:00 pm

June 10: Mountain View HS graduation @ 10:00 am

June 10: Bend Senior HS graduation @ 3:00 pm

June 12: Bend Tech Academy @ Marshall High School graduation @ 7:00 pm

June 13: Realms HS graduation @ 7:00 pm

June 20: HS Administrator Work Session 1:00-4:00 TBD

NATIONAL SCHOOL NURSE DAY – MAY 10!

To Do:

Just say no to the Office Group: The Office Group has been sending information to several high school staff (counselors, coaches and some teachers). Please know that we do not have an MOU with this organization so staff should not be allowing them access to our students. Ensure that your staff is not sending student information to this organization OR encouraging families to reach out to them. The Office Group has not been vetted by our district.

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Information:

Change in student start and end times for choice high schools: Thanks to Kim and her fabulous Transportation Team, we will align the student start and end times for BTA@MHS and Realms HS with all high schools (and middle schools) beginning next school year (23-24).  Kim’s team has reworked the bus routes to allow us to add instructional minutes to these schools and meet the state requirement! This is terrific news!

The staff work day will remain 8:00-4:00 with the drop of time between 8:15-8:30 pick up time at 3:53 (2:23 on Wednesdays) for BTA@MHS and Realms HS/MS. This adjustment may mean that students from our choice high schools will arrive later for after school activities at their home schools. This has been impacting our students at LPHS and may be new for students who participate at Bend area schools. Thank you for working with your coaches and advisors to minimize the impact on these students.

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From Jackie Mueller: May is the walk and bike challenge for staff. If your school has some active commuters via walking or biking, this is a great way to get involved and eventually get rewards. Please share with staff so we can the carbon offsets through the month of May. 

1. Go to Get There Oregon
2. Sign up – use your school email
3. Check email and confirm account
4. For the find and join a network, look for your school under Bend-La Pine – YOUR SCHOOL
5. Start to log trips commuting via carpool, walking or biking
6. The district will review the schools with the most trips logged in May in the hopes of getting you involved in a reward program similar to Caldera’s. 
7. Here are BLS current statistics for this school year to date.

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From Dave: Oregon SEED Survey Information: Here is a brief update on Oregon’s Student Educational Equity Development (SEED) survey. As in previous years, SEED remains optional for 3^rd-12^th grade students, it takes about 15 minutes, and is delivered through the OSAS secure testing browser with the same menu of accessibility supports. SEED contains four domains: (1) Access to Learning Resources, (2) Opportunity to Learn, (3) Self-Efficacy Beliefs, and (4) Sense of Belonging.  Two of these domains are content specific; that is, items measuring Opportunity to Learn and Self-Efficacy Beliefs are written to align with key academic expectations. Content areas are sampled by grade as follows: 

• Reading/Language Arts Grades 3, 6, and 9 

• Mathematics Grades 4, 7, and 10 

• Science Grades 5, 8, and 11 

• Native American Culture/History (OTL only) Grades 4-11

Additional information to help you determine whether your school (or even specific grade levels) might participate, including all survey questions, is available here https://www.oregon.gov/ode/educator-resources/assessment/Pages/Student_Educational_Equity_Development_Survey.aspx

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From Lora: This is a follow up to my announcement yesterday about an additional principals’ meeting this spring on Monday, May 22, in the board room:

• 3:00-3:30 is OPTIONAL. Dave is going to share a strategy for schools interested in focusing more directly on instructional practices in their school design work next year. The goal is to get feedback and learn what resources schools may need if they want to participate.
• 3:30-4:00 (ish) is mandatory. Steve will share additional information about budget and possible impacts on schools.

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Graduation reminders: Here is what each school recorded about past cord distribution. Plan to continue with what you have done historically for the class of 2023. Our team will revisit this practice and consider making adjustments next year.

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From Paul: Please reference UKG Job Requisition, Interview Prep, Applicant Screening and Hiring Tips as we enter into peak hiring season.  We’ll share the recording of the WebEx from Wednesday next week but it was primarily an overview of the linked document.

Calendar:

May 9: HS Embedded Session 8-2:30 @BSHS; Principals only

May 17 and 18: Priority Standards Work with Anne McCarty-Perez

May 22: Principal PD @ Education Center in the Board Room

May 22, 23, 24: Katie out of the office

May 26: Project and announce Val and Sal at every school.

May 29: Memorial Day – No School

May 30: HS Administrator Work Session 8:00-9:30 @ SHS

June is graduation month!! All graduation ceremonies are located at our high schools

June 8: Summit HS graduation @ 7:00 pm

June 9: La Pine HS graduation @ 7:00 pm

June 10: Mountain View HS graduation @ 10:00 am

June 10: Bend Senior HS graduation @ 3:00 pm

June 12: Bend Tech Academy @ Marshall High School graduation @ 7:00 pm

June 13: Realms HS graduation @ 7:00 pm

June 20: HS Administrator Work Session 1:00-4:00 TBD

Information:

Safety Cadre Update: In case you missed the safety cadre meeting on Monday, here are the slides and attendance form, here. Note slide #5 and the guidelines for students who may be interested in participating in a walk out. There is talk of a national protest on May 1, 2023. In the event you hear student interest in participating in this event (or future planned protests), this information will be helpful. Reach out if you want to talk more about this.

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From Lora: Principals, Our monthly PD session is this Monday, May 1^st, in the board room starting at 3:00. Our life and career readiness discussion will end at 4:00.

In our PD survey, a number of leaders expressed interest in digging more deeply into instructional practices next year. Dave VanLoo will be sharing a model with ANY INTERESTED PRINCIPALS AND LLC MEMBERS from 4:00-4:30. The purpose of the presentation is to gauge interest in this approach to instructional improvement and get feedback about what schools might need in terms of support if they want to “pilot” the model during the 23-24 school year.

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Reminders about distribution parameters: This is the time of year when parent groups are asking you to send out notifications related to Grad Parties and other events that are being organized by such groups. Just a reminder to follow the district policy related to distribution practices for “not for profit,” school affiliated groups (such as this parent group organizing your grad party.) Check out the School-Affiliated Organizations column on this document for more specific guidance.

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From Paul in HR: Spring/Summer Recruiting

Here are some FAQs regarding the upcoming certified hiring season:

Which internal candidates are we required to interview? The CBA guarantees interviews to internal candidates to anyone who has contract status, meaning they have been employed with us for three years or longer. Because of the fact that the contract letters have already been issued for next year, this includes those who are probationary three this year. If an employee has contract status and is currently in a temporary position, they are still owed an interview.

If so, how do find out which employees are in which category? Please click on this link to see the contract status of all certified staff.  If someone does not appear on your list, please email [email protected] for assistance.

For those that we are required to offer an interview to, does it need to be a full interview, or can it be a phone screen or a shortened version? Asking as it will be a struggle to arrange for teachers etc. to participate in a large number of full interviews. You can run a tiered interview for any position you like,  beginning with a screening round where ALL internal applicants are asked the same questions and you then decide which candidates to invite to subsequent rounds of interviews.

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From Scott in IT – Nearly all of our students will be turning in their iPads before the summer holiday.  It has been a few years since we last performed an end of year device “roll in”.  Those of you who have experienced this process know that it is not a small task.  Thank you to each of you who have already met with Roy Fuller to learn about the process and work up a plan.  Our hope is that each of you will now make the effort to provide as much support as you are able to assist your school media specialist/ librarians during the last week of school.  This is certainly one of those operations where many hands make light work.

Additionally, we will be asking for any student hotspots to be turned in at that time as well. (details to follow)

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From Lora – Principals and LLC Team – We have entered the season where every Friday and Monday are becoming days with MANY unfilled jobs! We all need to avoid scheduling interviews, team time, studios, etc. on these days. I am requesting that building leaders and LLC team members get approval from their level leader before scheduling any field trip/PD/”school business” subs on Fridays and Mondays through the end of the year.

Calendar:

May 1: Graduation Update Meeting 2:00-3:00 @ Ed Center in KT’s Office 2:00- Admin leading graduation operations attend; 2:30 – all principals join to discuss Graduation Regalia

May 1: Principal professional development 3:00 @Ed Center in the board room

May 5: HS Principal Breakfast 7:30@ Original Pancake House in Bend

May 9: HS Embedded Session 8-2:30 @BSHS; Principals only

May 17 and 18: Priority Standards Work with Anne McCarty-Perez

May 22, 23, 24: Katie out of the office

May 26: Project and announce Val and Sal at every school.

May 29: Memorial Day – No School

May 30: HS Administrator Work Session 8:00-9:30 @ SHS

June: Graduation extravaganza!!

June 20: HS Administrator Work Session 1:00-4:00 TBD

To Do:

HS WS prep: In preparation for our HS work session this Tuesday, one of our discussion topics is advisory. To be clear, no one, including me, is mandating that any school schedule advisory. However, in the event that you intend to do so, this time will be an opportunity for us to share our planning with one another. Please be prepared to share:

*Whether you intend to offer advisory during the 23-24 school year

*Your proposed daily schedule and how often will it be scheduled

*The “why” behind your decision to offer advisory

*Your proposed use of this time

Information:

A few of you have reached out about the job description for our ICCL leaders.

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End of Year Evaluations – just a reminder that we are back to evaluating on all domains.

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From Scott Maben, Director of Communications, ext. 1006

The May 16^th Special District Election is in four weeks, and included on the ballot are contested races for four of the seven seats on the School Board for Bend-La Pine Schools. In previous elections we have shared election guidance for employees, addressing expectations of conduct in the workplace as we strive to keep our schools neutral political zones. District policy and state statute guide and protect us in these efforts.

On a related note, candidates should not be actively campaigning, distributing campaign literature, or fundraising in our facilities during staff work hours. If a candidate for office contacts you or a member of your staff seeking to visit with district employees about their candidacy or campaign, please direct them to Scott Maben, [email protected], or 541-668-5523.

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From Paul Dean re: UKG HRIS & Recruitment Update April 20^th, 2023 – Implementing a new HRIS can be a daunting task, but when it comes to UKG, the benefits of making the switch are clear. Since its implementation nine weeks ago, our organization has seen a significant improvement in our HR processes. This has led to a substantial decline in overtime for our staff, reduced paper consumption across the entire district, and increased access to important information for our employees/schools/departments.

We have been able to automate HR manual tasks, freeing up valuable time and resources. For example, our employee onboarding process has been significantly streamlined, allowing new hires to complete their paperwork online and reducing the time it takes to get them up and running in our system. Another area in which UKG HRIS has improved our HR processes is in electronic forms. The system offers a user-friendly interface that allows employees to easily complete custom forms, checklists, and contracts.

As we look to the future, you will start to see process improvements system-wide and additional features being rolled out. Also, we are in the process of building the Learning and Performance modules in UKG to have a one-stop shop for all of our staff’s resources, training, professional development and evaluations. As our implementation of UKG modules progresses, we anticipate it being a game-changer for our organization.

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From Leah Bibeau and Jason Schneider in the Business Office:  UKG TLM Update: 4/20/23

UKG TLM has been live for 9 weeks now.  What a stellar accomplishment.  The implementation team appreciates all the participation and support from everyone in navigating this transition.  Without you all this would not have been possible. 

What have we accomplished?  

• We have eliminated our paper processes for recording time & leave. 
• Created an import process directly from our UKG timesheets into Business Plus that improves accuracy in our payroll processes. 
• Improve our Auditability, documentation and internal controls.  Yes, that boring regulation stuff. 
• Identified many areas of additional improvement we can look to in the future.  Yes, finding issues is a positive, it means we are on the right track to continual improvement.

What comes next?  

• As some are aware there were certain pieces of the implementation that still require some fine tuning before being fully implemented.  For example, our time off requests from Frontline Absence management are still being manually entered into UKG by our wonderful timekeepers.  The automation of this process is still underway and we are actively engaged in assessing what further steps need completed to turn this on.   Once we have a tentative go live of this further automation, we will share that.
• With continued partnership with our staff, timekeepers and managers, we are identifying additional areas of improvement, to improve efficiency of the flow of approvals as well as identifying areas where additional training or development of process documents will better assist everyone in navigating the use of this application.
• A number of meetings have been scheduled over the next 2 weeks to review everyone’s feedback, requests and suggestions so as to allow us to update our planned next steps and stages so that we can communicate to all.

Again, the implementation team appreciates everyone’s continued feedback and support.  Please continue to reach out to HR for any questions about your employee setups or any HR processes and reach out to payroll for any questions regarding time paid, or time off balance questions.  Also, continue to check back to the UKG staff portal page and/or the UKG application itself to find updates and any new process and training documents that are posted.

Take care and thank you!

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From Jennifer Hauth:  Please share the following information in your staff newsletter, along with this link to a one-pager of information about the program.

Master of School Counseling tuition-free and with a monthly stipend from OSU Cascades.

• Informational Open House May 8^th from 5:30 pm to 6:30 pm. Registration Link
• Candidates must apply for admission to the School Counseling program by May 25, 2023
• If accepted into the program, then candidates may apply (very short process) for entry into the PATH-SC cohort (grant funded tuition-free and monthly stipend)
• Classes for this new cohort (both those in the PATH-SC cohort and those who are not) will begin in late June 2023.
• Anyone with a Bachelor’s Degree can apply for the PATH-SC cohort, regardless if they are currently working in the district or not.
• The focus of this grant (PATH-SC cohort) is to engage individuals who represent your community, represent an underserved and diverse population, and must be placed and willing to work in a high-needs school.

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From Roy Fuller to your Tier 1 building staff: This was sent by Roy this week. It is important that building leaders support the iPad roll-in process:

Good Morning, As we move towards the end of the year, I wanted to pass along our updated Tier 1 page that has information regarding iPad roll-in for the end of this school year. It’s broken down between Elementary and Secondary since it will be different at each level. Please review the information and let me know if you have questions, or reach out to your site tech. I briefly spoke about iPad roll-in yesterday afternoon in the librarian meeting at PBM, but our Tier 1 page has more detailed information.

Some of you are new to iPads this year, which could make the idea of an iPad roll-in seem daunting. Please feel free to reach out to fellow Tier 1’s if you have questions about what processes and procedures they have done in the past when it comes to rolling in iPads. How they organize them by grade level, teacher, etc. The Tier 1 page has some good information, but each building is different and we have a great group of Tier 1/Librarians that have been through this process in the past.

Our goal for this end of year iPad roll-in is to make sure the support structure is in place by getting admin’s involved and informed by understand how big of process this is. That structure can include teachers (which they’ll run through a slideshow with students), EA’s, parent volunteers, etc. to help during this process. Thank you for all the work you’ve done so far this year, plus the work still needing to be done by year’s end. It doesn’t go unnoticed with our IT Client Services team as you all serve as the frontline support for our students.

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Calendar:

April 24: Safety Cadre meeting 314 @ Ed Center

April 25: HS Administrator Work Session 8:00-9:30 @ BSHS in Perseverance Hall (Agenda: Tier 3 process; HS vision for counseling; Advisory discussion).

April 25: MS/HS Staff Placement Meeting 9:30-10:30 @ BSHS; Principals only

April 26: Equitable Grading Think Tank session 8:00-12:00 @ Cascade MS

May 1: Principal professional development 3:00 @Ed Center in the board room

May 5: HS Principal Breakfast 7:30@ Original Pancake House in Bend

May 9: HS Embedded Session 8-2:30 @BSHS; Principals only

May 17 and 18: Priority Standards Work with Anne McCarty-Perez

May 22, 23, 24: Katie out of the office

May 26: Project and announce Val and Sal at every school.

May 29: Memorial Day – No School

May 30: HS Administrator Work Session 8:00-9:30 @ SHS

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To Do:

Educator Network Day April 19: HERE are the sessions planned for this time. Check out the sessions to see where you are asked to be that day. Thank you for supporting our teachers on this collaboration day.

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ACR’s for 23-24: Please remind your front office and counseling teams of our ACR process: If a student from another school reaches out to your school about transferring, remind them to complete an ACR.  These ACR’s will be reviewed at the end of this year and again in early August.

School staff can share with families that their request will be considered based on balancing the numbers by school and grade AND using priority considerations. 

Students currently on an ACR seeking to return to their boundary school are not automatically approved. These students must submit an ACR for consideration.  This is the case for students considering transferring to or from BTA@MHS and Realms HS, as well as the comprehensive high schools in Bend and La Pine. 

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From Kinsey: Respectful language message to families: Kinsey recently sent an email to all principals with a message that needs to go out to all your families re: respectful language.  Please be sure to read that email and send the message to your families as soon as you can.

Dear Principals, Recently two of our student/family advisory groups provided important recommendations related to our work with bias, inclusion, and belonging.  Given that guidance and partnership from our advisory teams, we will be sending this message to all families via the next district-wide Spotlight newsletter on April 17.  

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From our HS WS this week: One of our agenda items Tuesday was to share input on the Honors Diploma from our District Student Advisory Group. They have requested that we collect additional input from students. Principals agreed to meet with their student groups to review the proposal.

Here is a link to a very simple slide show to use when working with your student groups to provide feedback.  The last slide has a feedback form they can use.

Please check in with your superintendent’s advisory council rep(s) and create a space for one or more of your school teams to weigh in on the issue.

We would like this information by the end of May.

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Please share with your science teachers: Oregon Dairy and Nutrition Council is hosting an NGSS On the Farm STEM immersive experience for district curriculum directors, administrators, and high school science educators based in the states of Oregon and Washington to learn the science of dairy.

This immersive experience brings together teams of science educators with experts in science education and agricultural science to envision a model for science learning that will inspire today’s students, our next generation of scientists and citizens, to take action and feel empowered to use agriculture to improve society.

We are now accepting applications for this unique FREE opportunity. All applications are due May 15, 2023.

Information:

23-24 ACR review conversation: I have scheduled a meeting for us in May to review the ACR’s submitted for the 23-24 school year.  To ensure a comprehensive, equitable review of requests, we will review these requests together based on balancing numbers across grades and schools AND priority considerations.

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From IT: Performance Matters is going away June 30. All Certified staff that need to present documentation for PDU or certificates for classes taken (for TSPC) will need to retrieve that information from Performance Matters by June 30 because the system is going end of life. Performance Matters is Going Away

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May 10th is National School Nurse Day! Please be sure to recognize them for all of their hard work and dedication to our school community!

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Reminder about Classified Evals – As you complete your classified evaluations for the 22-23 school year, please upload them into UKG. The instructions on how to do that are below. 

Thank you for your patience with this process. Please let us know if you have any questions. 

Instructions to upload classified evaluations into UKG:

            Menu> Team Icon> HR Tab> HR Actions> Available

• Find classified evaluation upload
• Click start
• Type and find employee’s name
• Type the current date (this will fill “effective from” field)
• Click upload document 
• Choose correct evaluation to upload
• Select “evaluation” as the document type
• Click “upload”
• Click “submit”

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From Jennifer Hauth: A reminder to please add this to your weekly email to families or your next family newsletter:

Hope, Help & Heal is a virtual event to support and connect families and
caregivers with education, awareness, and discussion around youth mental
health in Deschutes County. Topics covered in this event include;
anxiety, social media, suicide prevention, substance misuse, and more. Please join us on Thursday May 11, at 6:00pm for a free event for families and caregivers. Topics covered in this event include; anxiety, social media, suicide prevention, substance misuse, and more. For more information or to register for this event, please visit: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/549796996617.

Esperanza, Ayuda & Sanación es un evento virtual para apoyar y conectar a familias y cuidadores con educación, concientización, y discusión en torno a la salud mental de los jóvenes en el Condado de Deschutes. Temas tratados en este evento incluyen; ansiedad, comunicación social, prevención de suicidios, abuso de sustancias, y mucho más. Por favor, únase a nosotros el jueves 11 de mayo, a las 6:00 pm para un evento gratuito para las familias y los cuidadores. Los temas tratados en este evento incluyen: ansiedad, medios de comunicación social, prevención del suicidio, abuso de sustancias, y mucho más. Para obtener más información o para inscribirse en este evento, por favor visite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/549796996617.

Calendar:

April 21: HS principal breakfast 7:30@ Original Pancake House

April 24: Safety Cadre meeting 314 @ Ed Center

April 25: HS Administrator Work Session 8:00-9:30 @ BSHS in Perseverance Hall

April 26: Equitable Grading Think Tank session 8:00-12:00 @ Cascade MS

May 1: Principal professional development 3:00 @Ed Center in the board room

To Do:

HS Staffing Meeting Prep: In preparation for our staffing meeting on Monday, please add the relevant information to this document for your school.

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Reminder about HSS compliance and good practice that supports our 9th grade on track work: As we move into the middle of the 2^nd semester, it is the time to hold a 9^th grade on track meeting. This is a requirement for the HSS dollars. Reach out to Dean with questions.

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From Ryan: Due today! Excellence in Education nominations are due today. There is a lot that goes into the recognition event and completing the forms in a timely fashion allows the various steps to be done in time.

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Do you plan to offer Sources of Strength as a class or club next year? Please email Jenn and Sean and they will send you the paperwork to complete to request the FTE. Also, here is the information needed for the required training for staff:

BLS Sources of Strength Adult training from 8am-4pm on Tues, May 23. Register through this link.

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Information:

School Board Candidates in schools: Several seats on the BLPS school board are available for the May election. We have heard of candidates requesting to access schools during the school day. Scott Maben conferred with our district legal counsel to seek clarity regarding what we can and can not allow candidates to do in our schools.

If a candidate would like to visit a school, take a tour, etc., to learn more about education issues, they can make that request. But they should not use the opportunity to promote their candidacy, including handing out campaign materials.

If a candidate wishes to make a facility use request for an after-hours event, that is another option available to them. The candidate would be responsible for promoting their event; we would not use district email or resources to inform staff or families.

If you have questions about this, please contact Scott Maben.

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From Kinsey: Here are a couple upcoming ‘nontraditional’ PD opportunities that relate directly to our conversations the past year or so around land acknowledgements and our local indigenous community.  These also tie into our professional learning around belonging, dignity, and listening to student and family voices.  

I am going to try and attend both of these events.  If any of you would like to attend either or both, I would love to buy your ticket, as I think these look like amazing opportunities for our leadership development and equity lens.  I will invite some other leaders as well, but thought of you all first given our conversations regarding graduation ceremonies—I think it would be powerful for our high school leaders to have a strong presence at these community events.  

If you’re in for either or both, can you indicate your interest here?  At the end of this week, I’ll get tickets purchased for whoever’s in. 

https://www.towertheatre.org/tickets-and-events/the-land-its-people-and-the-future

https://www.towertheatre.org/tickets-and-events/a-reflection-of-life

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From Jenn: Postings for School Counselors and Student Success Clinicians are live on UKG as pool postings. I will partner with principals when hiring with these positions. They close on April 14^th. School Counselors  Student Success Clinician

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From Lora: Principals, I hope that each and every one of you had a wonderful break! 

Our meeting scheduled for Monday, April 10, has been cancelled. We know it will be a busy week for all of you, and we look forward to seeing the whole admin team on Friday, April 14, for Day 4 of CEL work.

Next Friday, April 14^th, we will again be meeting as an Administrative team with Jonathan and Renee from the Center for Educational Leadership. We will convene at Bend Senior High School in Perseverance Hall at 8:00AM.

Here is a link to the agenda for the day.

Please bring your Student Experience Story Guide and 4D Framework that have been passed out previously.

We will have coffee, bagels, fruit for a light breakfast and Nutritional Services will be serving Mediterranean Bowls for lunch.

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From Kinsey Martin:

Dress Code: Here is information on the student lesson on Dress Codes.  Please consider how you will engage in reviewing the lesson together with your staff, to ensure your school is implementing the correct/updated district policy.  

(The following message is written to come from you, not me, as Steve mentioned at Cabinet that he would like you to communicate expectation that this presentation happens at each school) 🙂

Bias incident data with staff:

Recently Kinsey sent you resources and an outline for a staff meeting workshop on your school’s bias incident data.  It is important to me that you engage in this conversation with your staff, and that it guide your thinking and designing as you look into next year (staffing, schedules, priorities, etc).  Please be sure to complete this workshop with your staff—Kinsey is available to support or co-present with you if needed.  

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From Krista Baker: We will be holding a CPI INITIAL TRAINING as well as a CPI REFRESHER TRAINING during Conferences on April 13th. For Student Services staff we will time sheet you to attend the training as well as for the 2.5 hours of online training you are required to complete prior to attending the training. If you are not a Student Services employee, you will need to work with your building administrator to get approval to attend and they will be responsible for time sheeting you.   These trainings will be entered into Performance Matters shortly.  Please go in and sign up as soon as possible as both classes will close for registration on April 10^th to allow us time to get your books to you, and for you to complete the online portion of the training.  Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions. 

Calendar:

April 10: HS Principal Staffing meeting 1:30-3:00 @ KT’s Office in Ed Center; complete this document prior to the meeting.

April 10: Principal Professional Development @3:00-4:30 in the Boardroom  CANCELED

April 11: High School Admin Work Session 8:00-9:30 @ Caldera HS (Agenda: We will debrief the input on the PD proposal presented at the ICCL/Admin training this week and talk about next steps)

April 14: CEL – all administrators 8:00-2:30 @ BSHS Perseverance Hall

April 21: HS principal breakfast 7:30@ Original Pancake House

April 24: Safety Cadre meeting 314 @ Ed Center

April 25: HS Administrator Work Session 8:00-9:30 @ BSHS in Perseverance Hall

An announcement from Steve Cook:

Dear Team,

I have a couple of announcements before we head off into spring break that I wanted to share with our district and school leaders. Two moves of note are the following:

1. Tammy Doty has been promoted to executive director of elementary schools and is now a member of Cabinet. While it is atypical for me to appoint people into positions, after multiple conversations with our chief human resources officer and our deputy superintendent, it became abundantly clear that Tammy’s levels of responsibility mirror those of the current level leaders. Tammy will be among the leaders choosing the second executive director of elementary schools, who will begin in the summer of 2023. 
2. Back in November, we commissioned a departmental review of our DEI department, including our ELL services, to give us a better picture of the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of the two departments.  This review was conducted by the Coalition of Oregon School Administrators. (This report in its entirety is available upon request.)  It contains some very important points of feedback and recommendations, along with several commendations.  The weaknesses and opportunities were not surprising to us, but external recognition of those assessments was valuable. Most of the opportunities for growth, improvement, and system recommendations tie directly to increasing resource allocation. As a result of these recommendations, I am moving forward with the following staffing changes/additions:

• Kinsey Martin will become the executive director of policy, advocacy, and equity (job description here ), reporting directly to the superintendent.
• The district will post the position of director of multilingual services (job description here).
• The district will post four half-time positions for a team of LEAD/Equity TOSA’s (coaches) (job description here).  

I am excited that these steps will directly support our goals and also reflect our deep and growing commitment to promoting equitable experiences and outcomes for all our students, as well as better serving our multilingual students and families.  I would also add a very strong vote of confidence in the work of Kinsey Martin, for keeping up so much of this critical work over the past couple of years.  As you will read in this review, she has been integral throughout this process. And while Skip Offenhauser’s retirement is a loss, I believe that the elementary leadership remains in capable hands with Tammy Doty’s skills as a building and district leader, as well as her deep knowledge of elementary instructional practices. 

Best, Steve

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Information:

On April 4 we will have our last ICCL/Admin meeting of the year. As was communicated in January, the February ICCL/Admin meeting was reallocated to allow you time to work on sharing a high point of your Climate/Culture and Academic work for this year.

The April meeting will be spent sharing these “high lights” for the first part of our time.

The second part of the meeting, school teams will be asked to review and provide feedback on the proposed multi-year professional development plan focused on priority standards/grading and the BLS Life and Career Readiness plan.

The meeting will be at BSHS in Perseverance Hall, the same location as our first meeting from 4:30-6:30

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From Kinsey: Multilingual Staff Evaluations and Staffing:

Just a reminder: I am supporting a portion of mini’s and formals for each Language Specialist, Mutilingual and LEAD TOSAs, Dual Immersion Coaches, and probationary-status Dual Immersion teachers.  For itinerant Language Specialists, let me know if you want to coordinate end-of-year evaluations differently than in prior years.  

Family Liaisons are not on a formal evaluation cycle this year, but feedback conversations are ongoing–always feel free to send me feedback (concerns, appreciations) throughout the year on your site’s assigned liaison, as it is helpful for me in supporting their work across buildings.  

Multilingual staffing/school assignments for next year may shift slightly—there are several retirements, etc, on the team, as well as population shifts across schools.  I’ll be in touch with each principal to talk about any changes to your site, but in the meantime if you have ideas, questions, etc, on multilingual staffing or services please reach out!

Dress Code:

Right after spring break, the LEAD/Equity TOSAs will have a student mini-lesson ready for you regarding the dress code.  I would recommend reserving some time at a staff meeting in early/mid-April to conduct the actual lesson with your staff, as it provides a great opportunity to discuss bias and to calibrate your interpretation of the rules together.  That would also allow your teachers to become familiar with the lesson before teaching it to students.   

The lesson is geared for 6th-12^th grades, but easily accommodated for 5^th grade; a family letter will be included as well.  As the weather warms up, proactive conversations with staff, students, and families about clothing choices will help avoid misunderstandings, surprises, or unintended harm—thanks for your partnership.

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From Scott: During Spring Break week (March 27-31), IT will be making some changes to the “electronic” web help desk ticket system (https://bls.fyi/help). The most significant changes will be to the category layout used for creating new tickets. Our hope is that the enhanced ticket system will be clear and intuitive for everyone.  If you wish to provide any feedback or have questions about the changes, please reach out to our “human” Help Desk at extension 1200.

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End of the year planning:

June 14: the last Wednesday of the year (this is not and early release day)

June 16: the last day of school for kids (this is an early release day)

June 19: this is a holiday

June 20: this is the final work day of the year for teachers BUT if they complete all their end of the year work and responsibilities and have everything “checked off” by their administrator then they do not have to report to work on this day.

June 22: this is our all admin CEL day.  Mandatory attendance.

Calendar:

March 27-31: Spring Break

April 4: ICCL/Admin Collaboration Time 4:30-6:30 @ BSHS Perseverance Hall for Bend HS’s; Dean will host a session with the LPHS team at LPHS.

April 10: HS Principal Staffing meeting 1:30-3:00 @ KT’s Office in Ed Center

April 10: Principal Professional Development @3:00-4:30 in the Board room

April 11: High School Admin Work Session 8:00-9:30 @ Caldera HS

April 14: CEL – all administrators 8:00-2:30 @ BSHS Perseverance Hall

April 21: HS principal breakfast 7:30@ Original Pancake House

April 24: VP/Dean Training Room 314 @ Ed Center

April 24: Safety Cadre meeting 314 @ Ed Center

April 25: HS Administrator Work Session 8:00-9:30 @ BSHS in Perseverance Hall

To Do:

From Dean: It is the time for digital tools request. This year we are doing it in 2 phases.  The first phase is with digital engagement and productivity tools.  An email should have been sent out by Teacher-Librarians at the high school and vice principals at the middle schools earlier this week.  It is important for all teachers to complete the form. Thank you for sharing this link with all teachers. The second request for curricular tools (tied to courses) will be coming out after spring break.

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From Ryan: Nominations are now being accepted for our Excellence in Education awards!

This event is designed to honor district employees who have distinguished themselves during the 2022-23 school year with their leadership, innovation, outstanding professional practice, and positive contributions at work and in the community.

We are looking to honor one certified and one classified staff member from each school, and a staff member from as many departments as possible.

Nominations are due March 24.

Please use this link to nominate a certified staff member

Please use this link to nominate a support staff member

Like last year, we are asking for one collective nomination from each school or department. Please feel free to go about the nomination process however works best for your location – some ideas include gathering input from staff members, ICCL leaders, PTO/PTA members, students, volunteers, etc.

As you work to nominate employees, please keep in mind that staff members recognized as Excellence in Education award winners will be considered for our Employee of the Year, to be announced at a surprise event in Fall 2023. Following that, BLS will help to support each of our Employee of the Year award winners with applications for state-level recognition in their respective category.

More details about the celebration event will come at a later date.

Please let me know if you have any questions or would like the nomination history for your school or department.

Thank you in advance for your nominations as we look forward to recognizing and celebrating our tremendous employees at this special event.

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From Kinsey: I wanted to follow up on our recent conversation about cultural and linguistic considerations for graduation:

Land acknowledgement:

We agreed that a land acknowledgement will once again be part of the ceremony, and that we will include a blurb in programs to offer the ‘why’ behind this and provide some context for district values and next steps (so it’s not an empty proclamation).  Here is a draft for your programs–thoughts, feedback?

Also, our Youth Partnerships Liaison shared some sentiment that the acknowledgement might feel more powerful being read directly by the principal, rather than passed on to a student speaker.  I wonder about discussing with your student leadership who they feel should read the land acknowledgement (principal, student, principal and student share portions, etc)?

Translation/interpretation:

BSHS and MVHS will have Interactio services (live simultaneous Spanish interpretation provided by a professional linguist via an app)–Office of DEI will coordinate and pay for this.  

Other sites: your populations are low enough to have 2 live in-person interpreters to sit with the family/families, and/or to use the set of 8 headphones.  Your Language Specialist can coordinate that service via Linguist Link.

All: Your OM or counseling secretary should submit written graduation programs/invitations for Spanish translation via LL.  

Cultural regalia:

Currently ODE requires that tribal members and students of indigenous heritage be allowed to wear their cultural regalia at graduation ceremonies.  Other districts have extended this to students of diverse heritage and cultures beyond tribal members.  We are talking through that as it relates to our own district policy, but in the meantime be sure that any tribal members/indigenous students are aware of this right.  Here is some language that might be helpful for those conversations or guidelines if you get requests.

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From Rachel: It is time to talk scheduling!

It is imperative that each school has a knowledgeable team ready to attack the schedule beginning in early spring.   Schools that are successful with the master scheduling process typically have:

• a minimum 3 person scheduling team

• have at least one administrator on the scheduling team

• have the schedule at least 80% complete before summer

Please list the members of your MS or HS scheduling team here.

Please encourage your staff involved with Master Scheduling to attend our upcoming “Scheduling Boot Camp”.  Especially

If there are members of your scheduling team who are new to the process, or perhaps they need a refresher.

For any questions, please reach out to Rachel Mavis. 

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COREN needs your help

Principals and Assistant Principals Here is a flier with links to surveys for three educator groups (Teachers, Building Administrators, District Administrators) that will take 5-8 minutes to complete. The goal of these surveys is to identify why individuals are staying or leaving their roles within the district, and what you are noticing in regards to recruitment and retention efforts for your district.  Please send this flier to your teaching staff and please take the time to take survey yourself 

Information:

On April 4 we will have our last of the year ICCL/Admin meeting. As was communicated in January, the February ICCL/Admin meeting was reallocated to allow you time to work on sharing a high point of your Climate/Culture and Academic work for this year.

The April meeting will be spent sharing these “high lights” for the first part of our time.

The second part of the meeting, school teams are being asked to review and provide feedback on the proposed multi-year professional development plan focused on priority standards/grading and the BLS Life and Career Readiness plan.

The meeting will be at BSHS in Perseverance Hall, the same location as our first meeting from 4:30-6:30

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From Jess and the counseling ICCL team: The ICCL counseling team has worked on Diploma Change Consent Forms for students who are considering moving to an Honors, Standard and Modified Diploma.  Here is a folder with the forms that we will use from this point forward.  In this folder, there is a consent form for Oregon Standard Diploma, Honors Diploma and Modified Diploma.  When making a diploma change it is best practice that all shareholders are aware of the change (student, counselor, parent/caregiver). The administrator should be included in the process for switching from a BLS Academic Diploma to an Oregon Standard or Modified Diploma.  Additionally, for all these diploma type changes, the form should be filled out and uploaded into the “Documents” tab in Synergy as it is a part of the student’s educational record.  

(Modified Diplomas are not a common diploma type change and are most often seen with qualified students receiving special education services, however, there have been instances where general education students can qualify for a modified diploma based on data/evaluation.  For general education students, counselors generally consult with administrators and Kay Ann Wells to talk through the process for modified diploma/curriculum, before presenting this option to change a student from BLS Academic to an Oregon modified diploma).   

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From Dean: Here is the link to GED guidance.

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Parent Conferences: Here are the dates schools 4 hours of parent conferences are scheduled for our large comprehensive high schools:

April 6 MVHS

April 10 BSHS

April 11 SHS

April 12 LPHS

April 13 CHS

April 14 – No school/teacher comp day for 8 hours of parent conferences in the fall and spring

Thank you for arranging for interpreters to be present and available to support families at your school during this event. Providing interpreters for school events such as these is required and ensures that every family has access to rich opportunities! Reach out to Kinsey if your team is in need of support.

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From Paul and Derek:

Staff Assignment Report – UKG

As you start to build your staffing plans for the next school year, you will now have access to a new tab on your UKG dashboard labeled “Staffing” that will display employees at your building, their assignment(s), FTE, and employee status. This report is only reflective of an employee’s assignment as it currently stands and does not indicate those who have resigned for the next school year. HR will be continuously updating this report to reflect any movement/changes to your employees over the next few months.

This information should be crossed-referenced with your staffing spreadsheet for accuracy purposes. If you find a discrepancy or have any questions regarding an employee, please reach to Human Resources before taking any further action.

Workflow Delegation

When you take time off, your administrator tasks, such as employee request approvals, can be delegated to ensure a continuous workflow. The Workflow Delegation feature enables administrators to assign tasks to other employees during that time. Based on security permissions, administrators can delegate tasks to other employees and allow delegated employees to view and approve workflow actions.

Instructions to Add a Workflow Delegation (Menu > My Info > My HR > Delegations)

1. From the Delegations page, select Add New. The Workflow Delegation window appears.
2. At the Delegate To field, select the Browse icon.
3. Select the employee(s) to delegate, then select Apply.
4. From the Workflow Type drop-down list, select the applicable workflow or all workflows.
5. At the Date From and Date To fields, select the dates that the assigned user completes the delegated tasks.  
6. Select Save.

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From Jennifer Hauth

Classroom 180 Book Study

Join fellow educators in this virtual book study to learn the 5 domains and supporting indicators of the Classroom 180 Framework. Learn how you can create a more trauma-informed classroom to meet the needs of our students. Book Study in Collaboration with the Bend-LaPine Student Success and Culture of Care Coaches. Join Virtually:  4/18 4:30-6:30 & 5/23 4:30-6:30. Coursework completed on your own via Canvas with optional Office Hours. Optional: 1 OSU Credit.

Calendar:

March 20: Assistant Principals and Deans PD 7:30-8:30 @ Ed Center/Wall Street Lab

March 21: Principals staffing plan collaboration 2:30-4:00 @ Caldera HS

March 21 and 22: Priority Standards collaboration/PD with Anne McCarty Perez; teacher reps attend; virtual training

March 23: Central Oregon Educator Job Fair 12-6 @ Eaglecrest

March 27-31: Spring Break

April 4: ICCL/Admin Collaboration Time 4:30-6:30 @ BSHS Perseverance Hall

April 10: Principal Professional Development @3:00-4:30 in the Board room

April 11: High School Admin Work Session 8:00-9:30 @ Caldera HS

April 14: CEL – all administrators 8:00-2:30 @ BSHS Perseverance Hall

To Do:

From Tami Pike: Please share this with your staff. An updated Field Trip / Activity Request Form has been posted to the portal (form date 3/2023). Please have staff members begin using this form immediately. As a reminder, nursing staff must be provided notice about the trip, in writing, at least 2 weeks prior. There is an area on the updated form for the requestor to provide the nurse’s name and notification date and time. This section of the form must be completed in order for the trip to be approved. 

The field trip form can be found in the  Field Trips – Permission Forms folder

For any students requiring direct care nursing support, teachers must complete the Request for Direct Care Nursing Service Form. Thank you!

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From Jennifer Hauth for your next family communication.  Families – On May 11 you are invited to attend Hope, Help & Heal, a virtual event to support and connect families, parents and guardians with education, awareness and discussion around youth mental health in Deschutes County. Click here for a flier on this event.  This event will be provided virtually with closed captioning and simultaneously translated into Spanish. If you need accommodations to make participation possible, please call Bethany Kuschel (541)322-7534 or send email to [email protected]. Registration is recommended, but not required.

Information:

UKG roll out: As expected, we are encountering some bumps in the road as we transition to UKG.  The transition to an integrated system is long overdue and has been a huge undertaking by the business office and by human resources. The staff in these departments are going above and beyond to address issues as they arise and continue to approach the transition with a customer service attitude. 

There are several UKG updates in this week’s blog so please take the time to read them carefully and pass the information on as needed. We are relying on our building leaders to help out these departments as much as possible by approaching this transition to UKG with a positive attitude and a growth mindset. Thank you for continuing to model and expect kindness and professionalism.

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UKG Update from Paul

First Digital Submissions of Time/Leave  – Please remember that all BLS employees regardless of whether or not someone has had any time off or has had supplemental or secondary hours/jobs within the 2/13 – 3/12 pay period must digitally submit their timesheet though UKG.  Instructions on how to log and submit timesheets can be found (1) in UKG, under the Self-Service tab or (2) within the Staff Portal on the UKG Product Suite page.

Timesheet submission and approval timeline:

• All employees will have until 11:00pm Sunday night (March 12) to submit their timesheets.
• Office Managers/timekeepers will then have until 11:00 pm on Monday (March 13) to finish review & corrections then submit timesheets to supervisors.
• Supervisors will have until 11:00 pm Tuesday (March 14) to do final approval 
• Payroll will be extracting data on Wednesday for processing.

Frontline Absence Management/Aesop Users – We’ve encountered some difficulties in transferring absence data from Frontline to UKG.  For this reason, your UKG timesheet may not accurately reflect your time-off during this current pay period (2/13 – 3/12). We will not be attempting to transfer data from Frontline to UKG until further notice as we troubleshoot this problem. You can track our progress by viewing the UKG Implementation Page within the staff portal. 

As you review your UKG timesheet in preparation for submitting it (on 3/13), you’ll need to seek assistance from your timekeeper/office manager to correct your timesheet for missing or incorrect time-off entries.  You can do this by emailing your timekeeper/office manager with the list of time-off details (dates/times/absence reasons) that need to be corrected as only they have UKG permissions to make these changes (you do not). You still retain the ability to make UKG timesheet entries for additional hours worked for your secondary or supplemental jobs.     We appreciate your support and patience as we continue to transition from paper to digital processing of time/leave entries. Leah and Jason in the Business Department.

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From Dean: The TOSAs will be reaching out to your Math, Language Arts, Science, Social Studies and World Language teachers to communicate the plan for the March 15^th standards conversation. The TOSA’s will lead these meetings and they will all be remote. Some of the groups will be meeting together, other groups are meeting in individual Webex meetings so breakout rooms can be used.

Building leaders are responsible for coordinating the time with the other content area teachers.

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From Jenn: Sources of Strength Update: Do you have a dynamite teacher, counselor or web coordinator that would want to launch Sources of Strength next year? Or a classified staff that would make a great club advisor? There is now additional funding for schools that would like to offer more than a one semester class. Please reach out to Jennifer and Sean if you want to learn more. Sources of Strength is one element of the BLS Forward Project addressing youth mental health. It is an upstream suicide prevention program focusing on hope, help and strength, by using student voice and leadership to promote positive school culture.

One-Pager info session time and adult advisor training

·         Join the next virtual Q& A on April 18^th from 4 pm to 5 pm: https://bls.webex.com/meet/jennifer.hauth

·         Required Adult Advisor Training on May 23^rd from 8 am to 4 pm

o    Registration Link

Is your school ready to commit to starting Sources of Strength next year?

School Checklist 

 Online form to submit to Matchstick Consulting

Submitting this online form is how you get your $1,000 start-up funds and Sources of Strength materials from Matchstick. 

Calendar:

March 13: Principal Professional Development 3:00-4:30 @ Ed Center/Board Room

March 14: HS Administrators Work Session 8:00-9:30 @ BTA@MHS

March 15: Priority Standards SIW designated for LA, SS, Sci, Math, WL; virtual meeting

March 20: Assistant Principals and Deans PD 7:30-8:30 @ Ed Center/Wall Street Lab

March 21 and 22: Priority Standards collaboration/PD with Anne McCarty Perez; teacher reps attend; virtual training

March 23: Central Oregon Educator Job Fair 12-6 @ Eaglecrest

March 27-31: Spring Break