Thank you for participating in the Leadership training on Wednesday. I think I learned more about some of you in that 90 minutes than I have in the past several years. In our group we ran out of time and Frank Hansen didn’t get to share his I Am poem with everyone. However, we weren’t going to let Frank off that easy so we made him share his poem before we left for the night. It was well worth the wait. Someday have him share it with you. I guarantee you’ll learn something about him you didn’t know.
For what it’s worth here is mine (with a few edits and additions from its original version as inspired by others)
- I am Skip Offenhauser
- I am from the birth place of California, Americas Finest City, of surf, sun and perfect weather.
- I am the husband of Kelli (my champion) and the father of Christian and Caroline (my pride, my joy, my inspiration)
- I am the youngest of six and only one who still has the last name Offenhauser
- I am from waking up each morning to the smell of pancakes being cooked by my mom
- I am from an all-boys catholic school, dress code, class sweaters, ties and mass on Fridays
- I am a binge watcher, bigfoot believer, endurance sport wannabe who likes a good beer by the fire
- I am filled with admiration of my kids as they grow to become adults that any father would be proud of
And now for the note…
For your calendar…
- Monday Horizontal – 3-4pm. SOP groups will be sharing their work. We will also hear from Tammy and Stephanie about the virtual clubs they’ve started at Silver Rail.
- Tuesday Board Meeting – if you care to join it starts at 5:50 pm. Links are on the district website.
MyOn – I have been sending reminders to you about MyOn this past week. This would be a good item to include in your notes and/or to include at a staff meeting. We really appreciate your promotion of this new product and want to hear how teachers are using it and any questions they might have about it.
From Misty Groom – The Student Threat Assessment System (STAS) refresher training will be via Zoom this year in order to meet Best Practice and Fidelity standards of the Threat Assessment Model. A Google Doc is attached for sign up. Training sessions are grouped together by school level and a maximum of three schools will be able to sign up for the training time. The refresher training should be attended by the school’s Level 1 team which includes; school’s admin team, school counselor, school psychologist, and school resource officer. It is not necessary that school psychs and SROs attend multiple sessions if they serve more than one school. Following the school’s sign up a link for the training’s Zoom will link sent to the contact person listed on the sign up document.
Training times begin the week of October 26th, I am hoping that you will share the sign up link and details in your weekly blog as well as an email to assure that each school is able to find a time that Level 1 Teams can attend. Please email Misty with any questions or feel free to call me on my cell 541-521-8833.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DVPfeNJVi50qbGV7uEhfMPRho5MdmwunA4p0cQZoIkU/edit?usp=sharing
YouTube News from Amy Tarnow – As of October 26th, 2020, teachers of students in grades K-8 will have the ability to individually approve YouTube videos. This will allow these teachers and students to more predictably access educational content that might live outside of our strict filter setting. With this power comes a great responsibility. The approving teacher’s name will be associated with videos that they approve, and these videos will be visible for all students in Kindergarten through 8th Grade, not just that teacher’s students. For that reason, teachers need to be careful NOT to approve a video unless it directly supports instruction and learning goals for students. More information and directions on how to use this feature are contained in this blog post from our Instructional Technology Team:
School Photos – you can pass this information along to parents in your next regular communication:
We are excited to be working with a new photography company for school picture days this year, Dorian Studio. Founded in 1914, Dorian Studio is family owned and operated and headquartered in the northwest.
We will be reaching out to families with picture day information after we return to a balanced/hybrid or all-in teaching and learning model. Look for an update from us in January with more information.
From Jon Lindsay – The Bend Education Association and the Human Resources Department have been receiving questions from both staff and administrators around sick days and substitutes. We are sending this email to certified staff to help clarify our general procedure during Comprehensive Distance Learning.
From Becky in IT – The student support line, 541-355-8700 has been successful with helping students with their iPads, thanks to your staff, instructional coaches, site technicians and IT helpdesk folks.
The calls coming to the 8700 line have reduced to 15 or less per day and are now specific to school sites. Beginning November 2, 2020 we will return to the typical model where these calls will go directly to the schools for support. The helpdesk will no longer receive the calls or voicemails. The phone number, 355-8700 will still be used by families. If needed, your tier 1 support staff member can continue to reach out to your site technician or the helpdesk for support.
Here is a simple Tech Help Flow Chart that shows how a student can get help with their iPad.
Families should continue to work with their internet provider to help with equipment, network or internet issues. Calls are currently going to your tier 1 support staff member’s phone line. We will continue to use this phone line.
Translation and Interpretation news from Kinsey – Ready to begin using our new software for making translation and interpretation requests? 🙂 Any staff in your school/department who will make requests need to complete this training in order to have access.
For schools, it is recommended that the whole staff complete this training, but if you prefer to start small, you might consider: front office team, specialists, counselors, athletics, and a rep from each department/grade.
All sites/departments should be transitioned into this system before January 2021, when our old process will expire.
Here is a blurb you could use to email staff or include in your weekly memo, if helpful.
The training is available here (see document #5). The training materials are designed to be asynchronous (and less than 30 min!), but I’d recommend the following roll-out:
- Push out the training materials and give staff a deadline to complete.
- Post-deadline, provide 5-10 minutes at a staff meeting for the ELL/Language Specialist to answer any questions that came up as staff completed the training, or to share their screen and model inputting a request, or to share ideas they have for coordinating Family Connections phone calls between multiple teachers.
- Start using the new system as soon as these steps are complete.
(BSHS, HDMS, REJ, and BCE: this is the system you piloted all last year, but it might not hurt to offer the training materials–which have updated content–as a refresher and/or for new staff.)
And Finally….
As you may know, this week we had a WebEx outage. You would have thought the world had ended from the panic that ensued. In case this ever occurs again our friend Ned put together the protocols to follow. Please add this to your Safety Plan for adults to follow. WebEx Out Drill.mp4. Enjoy.