August 22

It is but once a year that all BLS staff gather together to celebrate and remind ourselves of our collective mission to educate thriving students. It can be easy to get lost in our day-to-day tasks and our gathering on August 27th is an opportunity to join our colleagues from across all departments and schools and recommit ourselves to serving Bend – LaPine students.

This year, all COO Ops staff will be kicking off the start of the new school year at the Maintenance Facility (staff assigned to schools may choose to remain at their school site). We can’t wait to see you all here and show the energy and passion that you bring to your job each and every day. Below is the flyer (thanks Becky!).

Department Strategic Objectives

Department leaders are updating their strategic objectives for 2024/25. The objectives will be shared with our School Board and regular progress updates will be provided to them in the Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer.

The objectives will be unique initiatives for 2024/25 and include Thriving Staff themes:

• Increasing staff/stakeholder voice.
• Soliciting feedback from staff/stakeholders.
• Enhancing staff PD this year

Quarterly Op Leadership Meetings

Doug, Scott B, Scott M, Kim and Walt will discuss with you the best day/time for all Ops Leaders to meet at least once a quarter (for ~90 minutes) for our collective PD like we did for Leadership Launch.

District Leadership Org Chart

Taking It Up – Tentative Dates of October 10th/11th

Feedback was given that August was a very difficult time for Ops Leaders to participate in the Taking It Up training. Please clear your calendars for Thursday, October 10th and Friday, October 11th as likely dates for a Fall TIU training.

Recognitions

Custodial

A shout out to our custodians Marcus Dale, Dulce Garcia and Joe Sweet from Bear Creek and their colleagues Derek McIntosh from Pilot Butte and Jim Matthews from Mountain View for teaming together to resurface the BC cafeteria floor. This is but one example of custodians supporting one another in order to get our schools ready for September 4th.

Professional Development – Maintenance

An early morning professional development session delivered to members of our maintenance staff.  An ABB VFD product team from Johnson Barrow Oregon led a hands on, in-person training for our HVAC and irrigation teams.

Please forward me recognition pictures for future blog posts

Important Calendar Events

Upcoming Events

• August 27: Back To School! An interactive event. 8:30-10:00

• September 4: First Day of School

• October 10 & 11: Taking It Up for Ops Leadership