We want to apologize to everyone for the late cancellation yesterday. We didn’t realize how quickly things had deteriorated on our roads until later that afternoon so the decision to call things off had to be made very quickly. Ideally, we would have made the call sooner so sorry if that text message arrived after you had already left. We hope everyone has a safe, restful and joyful break. Be safe out there!
Updates, Reminders, Info and Rants…
The admin calendar for the month of January and February is going to be different, as we will be having our School design Critical Friends day on Monday, January 10, from 3:00-5:00 here in the Ed Center Board room. The other thing you will notice is that we will not have any formal meetings the rest of that month, as on the 10th, we will also be rolling out a school visitation plan around BRYT programs for the rest of the month. In February we will have a training with Paul and Courtney from BRYT, as well as a visit and training from Mary Ehrenworth. Mark your calendars!
From Paul – Human Resources is very excited to be expanding our use of Frontline products Recruit/Hire and Central. By increasing our digital automation of job postings, hiring and document management processes, we will be able to expedite approvals in a more timely manner and reduce redundancies in our practices.
Some of these changes will include more self-service options giving greater autonomy to BLS staff members when undertaking a variety of HR-related tasks. Here are some of the changes that we are instituting to the new hire process at the start of 2022:
- When a candidate accepts a job offer from an administrator, instead of asking them to physically show up in HR, please instruct them to call HR right away @541-355-1101 in order to coordinate drug testing and onboarding paperwork. Third party drug testing needs to occur within 24 hours of the offer.
- New hires will be provided digital paperwork instead of hard copies to complete during the onboarding process
- New hires will spend significantly less time in our office filling out paperwork
- Frontline Central will be the digital repository of applicant documents and their new hire paperwork.
****New Request-To-Hire Procedure For Administrators/Supervisors! – On January 3rd, we will be discontinuing the practice of asking administrators to upload interview packets into google drive. Instead, you will upload Interview Packets directly into Frontline Recruit & Hire.
To do that, you will print the packets (Certified Interview Packet; Classified/Extra Duty Interview Packet) like normal, fill them out during the interview process and then scan them to your email. We’ve created this short 1.5 minute video on how to upload the scanned packet into Frontline. Here is a step-by-step guide shown in the video.
- Open Frontline Recruit/Hire
- Locate the forms module on the left-hand side of your screen
- Click on “Fill Out a New Form”
- Under the category “Applicant Screening”, click the Interview Packet box
- On the bottom-right hand corner of your screen, click “Continue With Selected Forms”
- It will ask you to type in the specific job and applicant’s name. *Please make sure these match your hiring request*
- You will upload your Interview Packet to the form, answer the questions, and submit
Important: You will need to upload the interview packet BEFORE you make a Recommendation-to-Hire. New hires won’t be approved until the uploaded documents can be reviewed by HR.
From Jackie Wilson re: Sustainability Update – Thanks to everyone who reminded their staff about the Holiday SOP over Thanksgiving. Facilities checked in on 5 schools and they all looked great in terms of energy conservation, overall the buildings were shut down. Please remind staff of the importance of conservation strategies over the two-week break and specifically to make sure all mini-fridges are emptied and unplugged.
Composting has been successful this fall at Miller Elementary and the BSH commissary kitchen. Although a small impact, keeping food waste out of landfill has proven to be successful this fall. We hope to see growth in this program in the coming years. “It is much easier than I thought and the system is working great.” Custodian Glen Carey. Students are composting food and stacking boats in the attached container keeping their waste to 6-yards weekly. The district on average generates 445 yards of trash weekly, at a cost of $28,000 a month. Small changes can make a big impact. THANK YOU. Happy holidays.
From Quinn Daily – I am planning to offer a course for teachers on differentiated instruction starting in January and I am wondering if you would add a post on your blog to help me advertise the class? Teachers can register on performance matters. Here is the direct link. This course will support you in providing differentiated instruction both in a virtual and face-to-face classroom settings. Participants will come away with a better understanding of what differentiated instruction is and will have created a differentiated instruction lesson to be implemented in the classroom this year. This course is run completely through Canvas, with a group share on the last day of the course. The dates of the class are from January 18th – February 22nd.
Principal SLGGs – there have been some recent questions about principal SLGG’s but that’s not unexpected since we haven’t really discussed them. Principals may use the same SLGG’s that your school has chosen with any modifications needed to fit your position. If your school did not create school-wide SLGG’s you come up with your own or focus on SLGG’s from a particular grade level or grade band. Here is also a link with some ideas we created if you want more of a cut and paste option. Also, we know that date said SLGGS due by 12/31. Just make sure teacher SLGGs are turned in to you by the first Friday back in January and that you turn your SLGGs into Skip or Tammy by the second Friday we are back in January.
Lexia and Dreambox Update from Brenna – Although many students experienced technical difficulties while using DreamBox and Lexia Core5 in recent weeks, we’re happy to announce that both companies have identified the issues causing the error codes and glitches. Both DreamBox and Lexia hope to have their programs running smoothly again by month’s end. Thank you for your patience, flexibility, and understanding!
Winter air circulation – It was brought to our attention that some schools are still keeping windows open during the winter months. While we know this is good and by all means you can continue if you want, there are also downsides to it as well as it causes our heating systems to over work which increases energy costs and it can get uncomfortably cold! We have been assured that our updated filtration system is good for covid and that it is ok if you want to shut windows to take the burden off the heating system, reduce energy costs and create a comfortable learning environment for kids.
The Red List – things to definitely share or do…
Update Staffing Plans – We have been in staffing plans lately for a variety of reasons and notice that they are not up-to-date. Please take a moment to update those with your current class size numbers AND staffing. We anticipate people wanting to return at semester break and need to know where you are at currently.
From April re: SIF Budgets – April is in the process of transferring the funds for the schools’ SIF budgets and she has processed the ones where the budget in your staffing document is completed. Please complete your SIF budget by the first week back in January so April can check this off her list and get you your funds.
From Julie- MTSS/EBISS Meetings – Please let me know when your MTSS/EBISS meetings are scheduled. I would love to attend. Sign up here.
From Julie- DIBELS Training – If you have an educational assistant or interventionist that may need to refresh their DIBELS administration skills, a training course will be offered on January 5th from 8:30-12:30 at Trinity Church. Please let me know if you have employees that will be attending.
Calendar
- SIW schedule
- Horizontal Meeting Schedule – there have been changes!
- Tammy and Skip visitation schedule
- Monthly checklist
- January 7th teacher – SLGGs due
- January 7th – SIF budget’s due to April
- January 10, Design Plan work – boardroom
- January 14 Admin SLGGs due to Skip and Tammy
- January 11-31 School BRYT visits (info to come on the 10th)
- February 1-4 (one of these days will be a BRYT training–TBD)
- February 14 Elementary Admin Meeting 3:00-4:30–place TBD
- February 23 – Mary Ehrenworth
And Finally…
Julie, Tammy, Ted Lasso and I hope you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Believe!
