Miller Fire & PBMS Water Damage
We want to extend our sincere appreciation to our maintenance and custodial teams for their exceptional response to the Miller fire and the water restoration work at PBMS. Faced with middle-of-the-night demands, tight timelines, staff unrest, unforeseen complications, insurance constraints, and holiday pauses, they rose the moment and:
- Demonstrated remarkable teamwork and dedication
- Adapted quickly and calmly under pressure
- Communicated clearly to coordinate efforts
- Maintained safety and quality in every step
In February, we will have a facilitator-led After Action Review (AAR) on the initial fire and then a separate AAR in March on the restoration and return-to-school process. I will be looking to all our Ops departments to initiate AARs as a proactive way of reflecting on emergent situations so we can learn and grow as an organization. In a future blog, I will share the findings from both AAR reports.
Key Performance Indicators
On August 7, Jeannie Bloome led our teams through a KPI (Key Performance Indicators) exercise. Teams were asked to identify:
- Who are our customers?
- What is our department’s primary purpose?
- What metrics can we use to measure our department’s effectiveness?
- How do we collect and analyze our metric data?
- What data targets are we hoping to reach over time?
In October/November, Jeannie met with Ops department leadership to further define the items above. On Wednesday, February 18th during our monthly all-admin meeting, our COO Ops Leadership Team will meet separately from all other admin in Room 314 of the Ed Center.
Jeannie will be on hand to support IT, Safety and Transportation with their KPI work. Maintenance/Custodial will continue their cross-department coordination work. Doug/Paul will touch base with FDO on the effective use of their department time on the 18th.
Brinson Campus
Planning and preparation for our exit from the Brinson campus is underway. Dan is serving as the lead in coordinating the transition of:
- Realms Middle School to Buckingham
- Realms High School to the BTA campus
- Safety Department to the Ed Center
- In parallel, Rodger and Dan are coordinating the Custodial Department’s move to the Quonset Hut at Bend Senior High School.
The recent decision to relocate the Safety Department to the Education Center prompted a broader review of available space within the building. Rather than treating this as a single department move, we used the opportunity to evaluate overall space use and alignment across teams. Here is a google doc summarizing those plans
Operational Hiring and Retention Research of Best Practices
Hanover Research is a consulting and research firm that partners with organizations—including school districts and K-12 schools—to provide data-driven insights, custom research, and strategic guidance to improve decision-making and outcomes. Hanover’s work helps districts go beyond intuition and anecdote by providing actionable research, benchmarking, and strategic recommendations that support student achievement, improve operational effectiveness, and foster community engagement.
Please click on this link for research on best practices for hiring and retaining for operational staff. I particularly liked the ‘grow your own’ section.
Shout Out From The Fire Marshall
Jim – I wanted to send you a year end report of the Bend City School inspections. We have made it through all the schools and have performed 1 additional re-inspection, when needed, of all schools.
Thank you to your team for working with Bend Fire & Rescue to improve fire and life safety at our public schools!
Jason Kamperman, City of Bend Fire & Rescue
Excellence in Education Celebrations
Please hold Wednesday, May 13th, 4:30–6:30, for our annual Excellence in Education celebration at Mountain View High School, immediately following our Admin PD (also at Mountain View).
For those of you newer to BLS, this is one of the most meaningful events on our calendar and is a chance for us, as a community, to celebrate employees who have gone above and beyond this year through leadership, innovation, outstanding practice, and true service above self.
Each school and department is expected to have at least one Administrator or Supervisor in attendance to help celebrate your honoree(s). Your presence really matters. For many of our employees, this is a rare and powerful moment of recognition, and it means even more when it’s shared with the leaders who know their work best.
More details and the nomination forms are coming soon. For now, please make sure this time May 13th is protected on your calendar.
Thanks for the culture of appreciation you help create across our district, let Ryan Kelling know if you have any questions.
Dr. Steven Cook
❄️ Cold Weather Reminders from Human Resources ❄️
While our winter has been relatively mild thus far, we wanted to share a few helpful reminders – just in case Old Man Winter decides to show up!
Please be sure to review our Inclement Weather Guidelines
If winter weather does roll in, remember to:
- Give yourself extra travel time (driving and walking),
- Bundle up and wear weather-appropriate footwear
- Don’t forget to walk like a penguin – short steps, slow and steady wins the race
From IT Regarding Smartsheets
Greetings BLS Smartsheet users,
Recently, Smartsheet has changed their end user licensing model, creating some challenges in the way we have been using the platform and utilizing user accounts. Previously, we have been setting up many of our departments with user accounts that basically allowed them to use much of the product and features for free. Smartsheet now charges for any user that makes edits and comments as well as removal of many of the previously ‘free’ features.
What this means for BLS?
This is a significant change, and we will need to be more intentional about our deployments of the platform, considering potential costs involved. There are still provisions for users without a paid license, and we will need to adhere to specific design features in the platform (dynamic view, workapps, forms), to take full advantage of those in limiting costs. Many of our projects already use some of these features, we will want to continue those practices.
Smartsheet is a viable platform for our organization and provides many advantages over other platforms in helping us accomplish goals and fulfilling department needs. IT has been working to procure as many licenses as possible through a bulk purchase program that can help us in reducing overall costs.
What do you need to do?
If you are currently using Smartsheet and have active projects that IT has helped with our you have deployed in your departments, please connect with Rachel Mavis to schedule a mini-review of your project. This meeting will be used to verify user account needs and address potential design issues. We are here to help, please reach out if you have questions.
Thank you,
Scott McDonald
From Kinsey – Office of Policy & Advocacy:
Immigration/ICE:
In light of ongoing national events, many of you have recently received questions from families and/or staff about the district’s preparedness should ICE activity occur on or near our campuses. Please copy and paste this message into your next staff communication–thanks for making sure both classified and certified receive this from you.
Additionally, this half-way point in the year is a good time to review the guidance (for admin and front office) for what you are expected to do should ICE activity occur on or near your campus. Note: Some edits were made this week–please be sure you and your office team are familiar with these expectations and that this updated version is printed and accessible where your front-entry greeter sits. One important note: Depending on your building’s layout, you may receive from me via interdistrict mail some signage: “Public Area” and “Not a Public Area.” I’ll send details with the signs for where to post them—just know these are related to our procedures here.
Complaints and Bias Incidents: -Action needed-
As the semester wraps up, please go into your Complaint Dashboard and ensure that all submissions there have been fully addressed (investigation, circling back with reporter and all parties, written findings when applicable, all copies and documents uploaded or linked, etc). When complete, you should select “Resolved By School: Yes” to close it out. If a complaint gets appealed, we’ll grab the documentation and records from there, so you don’t need to worry about that step.
BTA Golf Tourament
To Do’s
Breakfasts : Please remember that all admin are expected to sign up for seven breakfasts. If you have to miss one that you had signed up for, you can go into the spreadsheet and update it by removing your name from one breakfast and adding yourself to another one.
Monthly All Admin Trainings: While a last minute situation may prevent you from attending one of our all-admin trainings, irregular attendance will be noted on end-of-year evaluations. Please notify your direct supervisor if something unexpected comes up.
Goal Setting & Evaluations: Be sure to complete all evaluations steps for your direct reports who were not evaluated last year or are new to BLS.
UKG: Check regularly to clear out To-Do items