August 5th and 6th Leadership Launch Announcement From Dr. Cook
We are excited to see everyone for the Welcome Back Leadership Conference on Monday, August 5th, and Tuesday, August 6th, hosted at the Riverhouse Convention Center, 3075 N. Business 97 Bend, OR 97703. We will have a light continental breakfast available at 7:15 and our time together will begin at 8:00 each day.
Additionally, Monday evening, on August 5th, we hope you (or you and a plus one) can join us for a Welcome Back dinner beginning at 5:30 pm. Our welcome back dinner will be hosted at TBD. Please RSVP HERE (even if you can’t attend) by July 29 so we can plan accordingly.
Managing Performance – Investigations
All BLAST members that serve in a supervisory role are expected to attend a professional development training titled Managing Performance – Investigations put on by our legal department and our human resources team. This PD session will be delivered on three separate occasions, from 12:30pm – 4:30pm, on August 8th, 15th, and 19th. To help us manage group size and verify attendance, please choose the training you will attend HERE.
Taking It Up – August 20th and 21st
If you haven’t participated in the two-day Taking It Up training or its weeklong companion, CFEE (Coaching for Educational Equity), I’d like our team to make arrangements to participate in one of these opportunities. To sign up for the August Taking It Up sessions, sign into UKG and follow these instruction for August 20 and 21. I’ll be a table leader during these two days and look forward to seeing some of you there.
Taking It Up is a provocative 2-day seminar focused on helping us align language, knowledge, and build our collective understanding and skills to interrupt systems within our schools that are creating barriers for our students to access education, and by working together we are able to understand and interrupt the institutionalized barriers that hinder the elimination of the school district’s racial achievement disparities. The focus on working from the inside out will challenge us to step out of our comfort zone and create new entry points for becoming aware of, understanding, and interrupting inequitable policies and practices in ourselves and in our schools.
Departments
Custodial
A proposal has been floated about nesting the Sustainability role within the custodial department. Jackie Wilson has accepted a job with Deschutes County but will continue to serve BLS in a reduced capacity for the month of August to complete some of her work. HR is working on updating the Sustainability position description and performing a market wage analysis in preparation for posting this job requisition.
Safety
The safety team has attended some conferences and trainings recently. They are working on an enhanced training program for Campus Security Monitors and potentially nesting those staff members under their direct supervision.
Facilities/Maintenance
As you can imagine, a considerable amount of time has been devoted to the BSHS auditorium situation in the past few weeks. The demolition of the auditorium is underway and will not detract from the planned phase 1 construction work.
A facility use inquiry was made regarding the use of Sky View MS should the fire near Burns require the evacuation of medically fragile individuals. We entered into another facility use agreement for La Pine ES so that fire command center tasks could be run from their front offices.
Transportation
The transportation department will be taking delivery of new buses as part of their annual refresh of vehicles at the end of their useful life.
Jackie Wilson along with Sharon Smith and Kim Crabtree applied for and received a $150,000, 2-year grant from ODOT. This will fund an Active Transportation Specialist (ATS) within the transportation. This person will be responsible for communicating walking routes to families, reviewing routes for safety, supporting walking school buses, approving mini-grants for school incentives, and assisting in the development of a Safe Routes to School (SRTS) action plan focused on safety, equity, and well-being.
IT
IT staff have been engrossed in the launch of two new Synergy modules as well as their other comprehensive summer projects.