Everyone – I hope you take advantage of the next few weeks to enjoy some much deserved time off. I will be taking a few days off myself but I will be in the office a few days too. If there is anything you need I am just a text message away so don’t hesitate to reach out.
Focus on Excellence and Equity…
A reminder from Katie Legace…
Thank you for your good will and good thinking during our second Equity and Excellence session on December 9. As you will remember, Courtney and Paul tasked us with some “homework” between now and our next session on January 20. Here is a reminder with the tools you need to complete your homework.
1. Each of us is tasked with generating three goals (two that we’re highly confident we can achieve, one that is more of a “stretch” goal) for how we will integrate our understanding of equity into our leadership over the remainder of the school year. It’s possible that you may have already articulated one or more of these goals and are working toward achieving them—if so, please feel free to include them (you don’t need to create three new ones if this is the case). Let’s each please take a few minutes to sit down and draft our three goals over the course of the next week.
2. HERE is a link to a spreadsheet where we can record our goals. When you go to the spreadsheet, find your group facilitators name on the tab on the bottom. Please go into the sheet and enter your individual goals by Friday, December 18.
3. For the facilitators and/or notetakers from December 9, please also enter the working definition/description of equity that you came up with at the top of your group’s sheet/tab.
4. After entering your own goals, put this aside until we return from the break!
5. After the break, and by January 15, please go to your group’s sheet/tab and provide feedback on your groupmates’ goals. You will see/remember that the feedback is organized in several categories. Please think in terms of bullets (not novels!) in providing feedback.
6. Feel free to get to work on achieving your goals, if you haven’t started already, whenever you are ready!
We recognize that it may feel unusual and/or uncomfortable to share our goals and get feedback in this manner. As we continue to work on transparency and accountability in our equity work that means we may be uncomfortable at times. Courtney and Paul have assured us that there will be opportunity for discussion of our goals, and our work to achieve them, during the January session and beyond.
Thank you for leading so well during this challenging time!
Department News…
From Human Resources – Jon Lindsay and Sarah Barclay tried to capture recommendations from the Evaluation Committee for this year’s observations and evaluations. Here is what they came up with. Please note – this is a rough draft that might still have a few changes. Jon or Paul will attend one of our Horizontal meetings in January to give a short training and answer questions. Teachers will be communicated with about these changes in January so there is nothing you need to communicate right now. Additionally, Jon and Paul will be working with OSEA to make similar adjustments to the classified evaluation.
Updates, Reminders, Info and Rants…
Inclement Weather Guideline for 2020-21 – The Bend-LaPine District will be able to respond differently to inclement weather events since we are in Comprehensive Distance Learning. If we need to close our buildings, we can still continue to teach and provide services. Click here to read the 2020-21 Guidelines. Families will get this same information but in a format that is tailored specifically to them.
20-21 Report Card Update! In a year of so many uncertainties and continuous changes, it is more important than ever to focus on the most important instructional priorities at each grade level. Achieve the Core Partners and Oregon Department of Education have provided us with instructional priorities for the 20-21 school year in English Language Arts, mathematics, writing and speaking, and listening. This year our report card will reflect instructional priorities and standards for each grade level. The most important goal of the report card is to communicate to families/guardians a child’s progress toward grade-level standards. This year we will only communicate progress toward the most important priority standards for each grade level. The additional standards/supplementary standards will be grayed out on the report card. In addition, a document has been created for each grade-level to assist teachers in identifying which priority standards we will report on, which standards we will still teach but will not report on and which data sources might be helpful for each priority standard.
Additional Information:
- The statement “Reporting each semester reflects a student’s knowledge of content taught to that point. This report card has been temporarily modified for the 2020-2021 school year to represent priority instruction areas,” has been added below the legend to inform families and caregivers of changes to the report card.
- NEI “not enough information” has been added to the legend. This code will be used to communicate not enough information could be collected to communicate progress. It is expected that if the “NEI” code is used, a follow-up explanation will be provided in the comments.
- Priority Standard Documents for each grade-level (will be complete January 8th)
- Sample 20-21 Report Cards
- There will still be some N/A or NEI for mathematics on the February report card. More information will be provided in January.
Student Success EAs – These are the positions that will be part of our future BRYT classrooms – supporting kids both academically and with mental health – and we had hoped to post positions prior to this break. We just recently got word that the job description has been approved and a salary schedule attached to it (column K in the OSEA contract). We are now ready to get these posted in early January. Sean R. is working on a generic posting that you can all use to create this posting for your school. The goal will (now) be to hire these positions prior to the end of semester 1. One role this person can take – until students are back in our buildings on a more regular basis – is that of LIPI support. We will talk more about this in January when Sean joins one of our Horizontal meetings.
LIPI Info – Here is a message that will be going out from Sarah Barclay to teachers about Expanded LIPI. The message also includes a link to a very general Expanded LIPI schedule. Our thought is that sending this information before break will help teachers understand Expanded LIPI a bit better and help them wrap their heads around the schedule changes it will bring. As I have said previously, we would start out with A/B cohorts first and see how this progresses before ramping things up with more kids and/or more days.
Desks – Thank you all for identifying and communicating to me your desk and table needs. This has been very helpful and I think we are close to getting this task off everyone’s plates. As you set up classrooms here’s some language from From ODE’s Ready Schools, Safe Learners Document to help you out:
1c. Physical Distancing – Establish a minimum of 35 square feet per person when determining room capacity. Calculate only with usable classroom space, understanding that desks and room set-up will require use of all space in the calculation.
2f. Classrooms/Repurposed Learning Spaces – Seating: Rearrange student desks and other seat spaces so that staff and students’ physical bodies are six feet apart to the maximum extent possible
Additionally, here are two documents, one on Physical Distancing and one on COVID Questioning, that you probably remember seeing but I just wanted to remind you of them. You may want to share them again with staff.
A few reminders –
- Please read the weekly TLC Updates to stay on top of messages and happenings from this department. Here is this week’s update.
- Please read the return to school communication that came out on Thursday. There’s some great info and resources linked there. It definitely settles the rumor of bringing kids back to school on January 4th.
- Please check your classrooms and other doorways to make sure all areas of your building comply with the fire code, including that no obstruction (like a student desk) is within a 3 ft x 3 ft area in front of each classroom door (interior or exterior facing).
Looking for a winter break read? Remember that our Sora digital library has many different titles to choose from. Christie Boen has done a great job compiling some great titles for administrators and teachers. If you ever have a title to suggest send it her way and she can try to add it to our collection.
Calendar
Dec 21 – Jan 1 – Winter Break – Power Down. Relax. Enjoy your family. Take in some fresh air. Be safe.
January 4 – back to living the dream! Horizontal @ 2:30.
Jan. 4 – Jan. 22 -YouthTruth survey window
And Finally…
What Shall We Do About the Children After the Pandemic – This is something that was shared with me by Kelle and Dana. Once we bring kids back to school we need to be really sensitive to what they have been through. We definitely will have some academic needs to address and we’ll need to prioritize our time wisely. However, we must be aware of what they’ve gone through over these many months and help them through this.