Updates, Reminders, Department Info…
Language Arts and Math Curriculum Review and Adoption Team Updates from Julie, Kerry and Lindsley
The Math Curriculum Review Team had their first meeting. The team has been reading chapters 1-3 of Catalyzing Change in preparation of our next meeting on November 8th. During the October 11th Principal meeting, you were also provided one book, if you want to purchase additional books for your school, they can be purchased here. Hopefully, you are finding opportunities to read the book and have conversations with team members. Some critical conversations to possibly have within your school are:
- What characteristics would you include on your list to describe mathematically powerful learning spaces (pg. 1) for children?
- Based on four Key Recommendations (pg. 9) what will be a challenging but important and needed conversation at your school?
- Examine the Structural Barriers on pg. 26. In what ways has your school taken action to disrupt these barriers? Which of the barriers will be the most challenging for your school to dismantle? Why?
The Language Arts Curriculum Review Team had their first meeting. The team is currently studying best practices from research around teaching reading, writing, listening and speaking with the goal of beginning to write core beliefs in early December. Our next meeting will be November 2nd from 1:30-4:30. Please plan to have your building representative or your instructional coach share core beliefs and gather feedback at a staff meeting some time between December 8th-January 18th.
SLGG form – We have finalized the BLS Elementary SLGGs for the 22-23 school year. Here is a link to the folder where the SLGG forms and sample goals are located. We have made it shareable and when opened you and your staff will be forced to make a copy that you can edit. This folder is a lot less complicated than the original ODE document you may have already received and read. Admin SLGGS are due to Skip and Tammy by Friday, Dec. 2. Teacher SLGGs are at your due date discretion but should be done by then as well.
A reminder from Stephen Duval – November 18th is College and Career Day in Bend-La Pine Schools. This year we are looking to draw attention to the multitude of pathways available to students after they graduate high school. Here are a few things you could do at your site to make the day a success.
- Dress as a professional
- Encourage students and staff to dress up as someone from a career they are interested in. Remember there are a lot of great careers out there!
- Wear college colors
- Encourage students to wear the colors of a favorite college. Remember, college can mean community college, trade school, 4-year university, etc. Be careful with wording here as college brand clothing can be expensive and prevent students from feeling like they can participate. Colors are more inclusionary. As much as we know about the Ducks and Beavers, let’s expand our students’ awareness to what’s out there.
- Consider incorporating videos or lessons bringing awareness to careers and colleges.
- Here is a great resource from the State of Oregon on Career Journeys. There are videos, lesson plans and other activities.
- Here is a great resource full of college videos. Students could scroll through and watch short videos on all kinds of colleges.
- Consider inviting parents from the community in to talk about their careers.
- This could be done in a variety of ways from assemblies, to advisory, to lunch. You could also ask parents to submit a short video of them talking about their jobs and stitch them together for students. Remember our visitor and volunteer requirements if you decide to invite parents in.
If you do decide to take it up a notch with college and career activities, please be sure to let Stephen and Alandra know.
From TLC – Here is the October 26th Elementary TLC Update
The update for this week includes lots of information, including:
- Lexia vs. Reading Playgrounds
- Math: Unit Screeners and Pre-Assessments – What’s the Difference?
- Active Listening Resources from Harmony
- PE Minutes Menu
- Instructional Technology Resources Available for Check-Out
- And more!
Please reach out to your elementary support staff for any needs or supports.
UKG Project Update – UKG Weekly Training: This week’s training How To Submit a Leave Request in UKG.mp4 (3 minutes) is ready for viewing with your staff at an upcoming meeting. Please remind them that:
- All current and past UKG materials may be found in the Staff Portal>Human Resources>UKG or via this link
- Leave accruals within UKG are NOT accurate as we are still in the UKG testing platform
- Employees should enter a BLS Help Desk Ticket if they encounters a problem logging in
Upcoming trainings will be:
- Timekeeper/Admin approval/deny/change of employee leave requests (November 4th)
- Staff member submission of extra time worked (November 11)
- Staff member submission of monthly leave/time sheets (November 11)
- Timekeeper/Admin approval/denial/change to monthly leave/time sheets (November 18)
The Red Zone – Things to definitely do or share
From Tami Pike – Please inform your staff of the importance of letting their school nurse know at least 2 weeks in advance of a scheduled field trip. This is for student safety. This time allows for the school nurse to assess and prepare for the medical needs of the students attending the trip, and train staff who may need to administer medication. If the nurse is given short notice they end up scrambling to gather the needed student medical information as well as train a staff person to safely administer medication. This practice is not safe for students or staff. To avoid unnecessary field trip delays or cancellations, please develop a practice that will help ensure that school nurses are notified (at least 2 weeks in advance) of a scheduled field trip.
From Tami Pike (again) – STOP THE BLEED TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES FOR BLS EMPLOYEES
Bend Fire and Rescue
| Wednesday, November 2 3-4pm Mountain View High School Auditorium | Wednesday, November 8 430-530pm Bend High School Black Box Theatre Room |
Maximum number 75. Staff must sign up on Performance Matters to reserve a spot. Can’t make any of these dates? We will send out future training information when the details are set.
Reminder re: CEL work: Tues, Nov 1 @ Bear Creek 8:15-2:00 and Wed, Nov 2 @ La Pine Elem 8:15-2:00. Please try to arrive by 8 am. Purpose: In this session, we’ll gather data about students’ own perceptions and experiences. Our guiding question for today is: How do students’ experience the school?
Calendar
- Monthly checklist
- 22-23 Dibels Schedule
- Friday, Oct 28 – Game 1 of the World Series
- Monday – Oct 31 Halloween (on a Monday!!!)
- Nov 1 & 2 – CEL cohort
- Nov 11 – no school
- Nov 14 – Principal PD session 3-4:30
- Nov 16 – 1st Educator Network SIW (look for more info soon)
- November 18 – College and Career Day
- Nov 21-25 – Thanksgiving break
And Finally…Something to read… We came across this page that talks about the power of student voice. Tammy and I thought this might be something to read before our CEL work next week. Enjoy!