Have a great 3 day weekend!
Focus on Excellence and Equity…
As we begin hiring please remember the anti-bias training we recently received. Here is a cheat sheet on anti-bias practices in your hiring process. Also, here is the video link to the implicit bias video that was shown during that training. Finally, here are a few of helpful articles to read as you move through the hiring process:
- 9 Hiring Biases That Are Hurting Your Recruiting Efforts
- How to Reduce Personal Bias When Hiring
- Why Your “Objective” Screening Rubric Produced Biased Results
Hiring bilingual staff? In order to ensure quality communication services for our families and appropriate compensation for bilingual staff, we are beginning a new employee language assessment and compensation process. This will not begin until next year, so this is just a preview of the process, as it will impact any bilingual staff you have or are hiring now, who may support family communication. If you have questions, please contact Kinsey.
New state legislation – Check out this change to state policy! Oregon is removing the word “English” from the Language Arts graduation requirements. This officially allows credits earned via Language Arts courses taught in other languages to count toward graduation.
What does this mean for you? Likely, not much impact on you right now–this is designed to support Dual Immersion programs around the state in offering bi-literacy coursework throughout the K-12 program sequence. Non-English LA courses still must be designed around grade-specific LA standards, and must use appropriate LA curriculum (World Language, heritage, and bilingual/ELL courses have their own standards, distinct from LA). We will continue alignment efforts to ensure our LA courses are teaching LA standards, using high-quality diverse curriculum, and meeting graduation and college requirements for these credits.
In the meantime, you can work with your team on shifting your language from “English” courses/departments to “Language Arts.” If you have questions/ideas about courses to support our multilingual learners, reach out to Kinsey!
Department News…
From Instructional Tech – If helpful, here are three end of the year resources:
- Remember this is optional. There is no requirement to back up and save work on student iPads.
- Please encourage all students to update their iPad software
- Explore creative activities using built-in features of the iPad. Designed for children ages 4-8+ and 8-12+, available in multiple languages.
- These activities can be used in the classroom, or they can be shared with families for summer ideas.
From IT – Here is the link to a Spanish translation of the information sent last week re: returning Hot Spots and keeping iPads over the summer. Please share in your next parent communication.
From Human Resources – Please pass along (to your staff) this reminder regarding the Employee Assistance Program service that is available to your staff.
Another from Human Resources – I know everyone is in the process of completing their evaluations. As a reminder here is the link to requirements for this year.
Updates, Reminders, Info and Rants…
For your 5th graders from Jim Boen – This folder contains the videos created after receiving the questions from current 5th graders. Feel free to share this folder with 5th grade teachers so they can show them to their kids.
Transfer candidates – Just a reminder to always refer back to the transfer list before scheduling interviews. There were some great teachers on the list who would be a wonderful addition to your staff.
SeeSaw Next year – This year we bought the premium version of SeeSaw so we could ensure teachers could effectively use the tool and could have access to the library of lesson resources. In a survey conducted by instructional tech it was found that teachers are not really using the premium services so renewing our contract doesn’t seem necessary. However, some schools still may want to continue with the premium version. If your k-2 team wants the premium version TLC will pick up half the cost. This has to be a full k-2 team. We cannot support just individual teachers or one team at a school. Please let me know if this is something you want more information on.
Sub Plans – We have been hearing from our roving subs that sometimes sub plans are not always complete or very detailed . As you can imagine this can cause some issues especially for any dysregulated students who need structure and consistency. In your next communication to staff can you give a friendly reminder about sub plans. Even though these are experienced district subs have detailed plans are needed and are helpful.
Calendar
- 5/26 – Horizontal @ 3:30 (I know, it’s a Wednesday. Do you best to attend)
- 6/4 – Jump Start Enrollment confirmation
- 6/16 – normal day length – not an SIW dismissal
- 6/17 – last day of school. SIW dismissal
- 6/21 – @ 4pm In person leadership meeting @ Ed Center (bring a lawn chair) w/a followup meeting @ McMennamins.
- 8/12 – from 8-4 pm – leadership academy for administrators and supervisors, Riverhouse
- 8/17 – Safe and Secure Schools Day – time and location TBD
And Finally…
We’ve all discussed some of the practices that we may want to keep from this crazy year. This might be one of them…
This is a picture of Tammy leading a Georgia O’Keeffe art lesson via WebEx to 11 classrooms at the same time!…
Here is some of what was created….
