Welcome

Hello and welcome to the first joint Middle School/High School communication, The Secondary Blog! Katie and Stephen have teamed up to create one central place for all things related to secondary education. From now on, you can find all your middle and high school news here.

If you read multiple level leader blogs, you may have noticed that much of the information is similar. We’ve decided to capitalize on that and consolidate everything into one convenient source. When information pertains to only one level, it will be clearly marked with either a High School or Middle School header.

Thank you and have a great weekend!

Important Docs:

Here is the BEA CBA.

Here is the OSEA CBA. This is currently an internal document. Please do not distribute.

To Do:

1. Tracking attendance and enrollment: Your office staff has been asked to track student attendance during the first week of school.  Please support your staff to ensure these tasks get completed as this allows us to have a clearer picture of our enrollment. Please contact Rachel Mavis with questions.

• By Monday, 9/9/2024, if a student has not shown up to school, the student will be No Showed, unless a parent called in to excuse the student. 
• For excused absences, students will remain enrolled up to the 11^th day of absence, then they will be No Showed.
• For all students who miss the first days of school, then show up, office staff will be required to change enrollment and class start dates to reflect the date the student arrived. OAR 581-023-0006

2. Flex Time: If you are a school using Flex Time this year, please schedule a time with Rachel Mavis for your leads to get trained.

3. New Synergy Gradebook: (REPEAT) As you may remember, we have transitioned to the newest version of the Synergy Gradebook this year. Consider it like a software update for your phone. The functionality remains mostly the same but there are some new bells and whistles and they may have moved where you find something. Laura Clark has put together a slideshow for staff that shouldn’t take too long. Please find a way to go over this with teachers. Leaning on a staff member who gets tech may be a good approach. Laura has already shared the slideshow, “Synergy New Gradebook Highlights,” with last year’s Canvas Support Team.

4. Please share with your teachers (From Instructional Technology): Exciting news! This fall, BLS is providing full featured MagicSchool AI accounts to all staff and students. Generative AI platforms were the most requested items during the instructional tools request process last spring. Please spread the word!

MagicSchool is an AI platform designed for educators, with a large suite of tools that help with building lesson plans, writing IEPs, differentiation, ideating more engaging lessons, communicating with families, and more! MagicStudent, the student facing side of the platform, accompanies teacher accounts.

BLS is currently piloting MagicSchool but funds have been earmarked to purchase for any staff who would like to continue with their full featured ‘Enterprise’ account after October, which offers much more than the free version. Getting setup is simple using MagicSchool login instructions. Please contact Tracy Howk and Robbie Faith for AI support, staff training, and anything else related to instructional technology.

5. Bias Incident Student Lessons (From Kinsey): Early this fall, please reserve time at a staff meeting, PLC, or SIW for your staff to review the Bias Incident student lessons and prepare to teach them.  In response to ongoing feedback and engagement with staff and students, Equity Coaches are refining prior years’ lessons.  We’ll push out the 24-25 lessons to you within two weeks.  I’d sugget aiming to have those completed across your building by October 25 latest.  More to come—for now, just a note so you can plug this into your staff collaboration calendar.

FYI

8/28 Resources: Below are links to the two sets of presentation slides from the classroom teacher district professional development on 8/28.  Additionally, here is a video taken from the MS session in the morning. The content was the same for both MS and HS so it will work for any teacher who missed this training.

Backwards Design with Katie Lyons

Standards Based Grading with Chris Burghardt

Additionally, here are the two surveys we asked staff to complete.

PD Preferences

PD Evaluation (please only fill out if you attended)

Logistics of the new blog: If you still need to access information from the High School Rock Stars! blog, it will be available at the previous webpage. The previous two Middle School posts can be found on this site. Please bookmark this webpage moving forward.

Tabs at the top: Katie and Stephen will be working to get information important to you linked on the pages at the top of our blog. You will notice the tabs align with our strategic initiatives document. This is a work in progress and we will be adding links weekly. If there is something you’d like to see in these, let Stephen or Katie know.

FYI from the Departments

From Jenn and Jess: Here are the slides and documents from training this week.

Wayfinder:

Thank you to all the admin that came to our training on Monday. Here is a flyer that highlights all that is new since last year.

School Counselors:

Here are the agenda and slides from their full day training on August 28^th. Jess also created this awesome resource sheet for all things school counseling  to help them easily access program updates/reminders as they begin the school year. 

Student Success: 

Here are the agenda and slides from their full day training on August 28th. The coaches will be focusing their support on our 8 new Student Success Coordinator/Clinicians in the next week. 

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From Eric Powell, Ted Helton, and Jason Westmoreland, your Code of Conduct and Synergy Team!

The Office Discipline Referral (ODR) form has been redesigned to simplify the form and align with the new reporting system. Typically, this form is used by staff who do the discipline data entry for administrators (an administrator may fill out this form and then give it to a staff member to put into Synergy).

Here is a link to the Live Google Doc we’ll use moving forward for this document (BLS ODR: 24-25). Please get rid of all your old ones you may have laying around. It will also be linked via the Student Management Resource Guide under the Investigations document (within that tab): Investigations (Student Management Resource Guide).

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From Kinsey: Equity Lens and Stance

Many of you have reached out to get copies of our district Equity Stance (the brochure you received at our admin launch) and the Equity Lens sticker.  I’m having more printed so you can distribute, but in the meantime please remember: these materials are always available to you on the Portal under the Equity Tab (along with other resources like the current CAFE Program members list, etc).  You’ll see the electronic version of the Equity Stance there, and at the end of that document is a link to the triangle Equity Lens tool that you can print for staff.  Let me know if you can’t find something!

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From Lisa: Evaluations

Here are the expectations for certified evaluations that Lisa shared this week. Just a reminder that your Deans should be assigned mini observations and evaluations to complete. Please call if you have questions.

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From Paul in Operations: ODE Facility Site Visits

This is an important FYI that requires no action by building leaders. 

ODE has signed a contract with Bureau Veritas (BV) to assess all school facilities. For partnering with them we (Bend La Pine Schools) will receive a comprehensive report detailing photos of system and component level deferred maintenance, assessor recommendations, cost to repair/replace system or component, cost to replace entire buildings, facility condition index, total gross square footage, observed Remaining Useful Life (RUL), ADA assessment findings and life safety deficiencies.

Please click on this Schedule of Visits beginning September 9th and continuing through November 1st to see when people will be visiting your school.  Please note that BLS was assigned this schedule and was not offered input as to its timing.  BV contractors will work with the BLS Maintenance and Custodial Departments to be on site visually inspecting facilities.  School administrators are not required to attend the walk-through. 

The information gathered by BV/ODE will be integral to Bend-LaPine Schools next Site/Facilities process in determining your schools’ facility’s needs.

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From Scott and Kayla in Safety:

Based on feedback our team has received, we are excited to provide opportunities for safety related professional development in the new school year. We are working on a survey that we will send out in a couple of weeks that we would like your feedback on the things you as administrators need to support the safety programs in your schools. 

We will be asking you to identify one administrator on your team that will be the “go to” person for safety in your school. We will then be selecting 4 days that work for those identified individuals to meet with us, your campus monitors, and the SROs to work together on those identified training areas.

More to follow in a couple of weeks, but we wanted to get this on your radar so that when we send the survey out, it doesn’t blindside you to the request to select that individual. Please take time to think about areas of training you’re interested in receiving (i.e. reunification process, incident command for emergencies, standardizing campus monitor roles and responsibilities, etc.)- the more information we get from you, the better we can serve your needs! 

Thank you for all you continue to do to keep our schools safe, and we look forward to working with you as the school year begins.

High School Only

From Jackie: Please share this with your Activities Directors, the advisors who oversee your environmental clubs, green team leaders and your CTE and science teachers. HS students are interested in increasing renewables and learning more.

Power Your Future: Inspire your students to lead clean energy solutions

The U.S. Department of Education has launched the Power Your Future Challenge — the second challenge in its annual CTE Momentum series to prepare high school students for rewarding careers and increase access to career and technical education. The Department invites teams to submit action plans that will advance the use of clean energy in local schools and communities.

To get started on the challenge, teachers and community partners can explore the available resources to learn more about clean energy and how teams can develop action plans to impact their communities. Potential entrants can also preview the submission form. Submissions are due by November 19, 2024. Up to 10 winning teams will receive an equal share of the $50,000 prize pool.

To learn more about the Power Your Future Challenge, register to attend the September 10 virtual information session, and sign up to receive the latest challenge information via email.

Middle School Only

Sign up for visits in September: Stephen would like to have each school sign up for TWO one-hour time slots for visits in September. It would be great to have them spaced into the first half of the month and the back half. Here is my Calendly link or you can use Outlook directly.

TAG ICCL at MS: The ICCL (TAG) role will be integral in enhancing our support for TAG students and ensuring that our practices are in line with our district’s high standards.

Please request to post this job in UKG. 

The responsibilities of this new position will mirror the existing ICCL efforts, but with a targeted emphasis on TAG professional development and systems. This means that the individual in this role will be dedicated to fostering growth and improvement in our approach to identifying and servicing TAG students.

Key responsibilities include:

• Attending monthly meetings with district TAG leadership to strengthen existing systems and stay informed on best practices.
• Gaining deeper insights into identifying and servicing TAG students.
• Developing strategies for differentiation in the classroom to better cater to the needs of gifted learners.

Additionally, the person in this role will serve as a crucial conduit for TAG processes and services, ensuring that all staff within our building are well-informed and equipped to support TAG students effectively.

We believe this new position will significantly enhance our ability to provide exceptional educational experiences for all students by adding enrichment to our classrooms.  

Reach out to Stephen DuVal for more information about the specifics of the role.

Calendar

September 3: First day for 6th and 9th graders

September 4: First day for all students!

September 9: Students who have not yet showed up to school should be no-showed

September 10: MS and HS Principal meeting @ MVHS 8:00-9:30

Where in the World

Stephen started this with the MS blog a couple weeks back and we’d love to keep it going. Each week, we’d like to highlight a place that is important to one of you. Past highlights included La Quinta, CA for Stephen and Phil’s Trail for Sean Keating. Please send Stephen or Katie a picture of a place important to you and why it’s important. We’ll have a spotlight each week!

This week we are highlighting Julie Stroinski, Principal at Sky View Middle School, who selected Green Bay, Wisconsin as her happy place. (Editor’s note: Go Pack Go!) Julie said,”My place that brings me (mostly) joy is Green Bay, Wisconsin. Despite never living there, it feels like home and reminds me of family. I have fond memories of my extended family summers there. Football is a big part of my family culture, and there is always something magical for me about this spot. ‘How can you not be romantic about football!?'”    

WELCOME

It was so great to get into your sites these past couple of weeks. I am very excited to see all the planning you are doing come to fruition in the coming weeks and months. There is a clear vibe (as the kids say) out there regarding the coming year. I hope you can continue to lean into that positive energy as we welcome staff and students back in the next two weeks.

As a reminder, I will be out of the office Friday and Monday. Please reach out via cell for any emergencies.

To Dos

1. Sign up for visits in September: I would like to have each school sign up for TWO one-hour time slots for visits in September. It would be great to have them spaced into the first half of the month and the back half. Here is my Calendly link or you can use Outlook directly.

2. Flex Time: If you are a school using Flex Time this year, please schedule a time with Rachel Mavis for your leads to get trained.

3. YouTube and Curriculum: Please forward this to staff from Scott in IT.

We are beginning to hear from staff who are concerned about students’ losing access to certain resources previously available on YouTube.

Please be aware that this change impacts only K-8 students. High School students’ access to YouTube content remains unaffected, and staff access across all grade levels is also unchanged.

Our goal with this email is to collect a list of YouTube resources that are linked to approved curriculum in grades K-8.  In other words, a resource that is embedded in curriculum that no longer opens when a student clicks on the link.  Supplemental videos linked from Canvas or teacher-maintained sources should not be included on this list as they may be shared by the teacher.

Please use the form linked here to alert us of broken links in your curriculum.  We will use this information to influence our decisions as we research alternatives.

We realize that this change impacts some teachers more than others, specifically those who teach subjects where resources are limited. We have included an opportunity for anyone to share thoughts, opinions, and possible solutions.   Impacted staff are also welcome to respond to Scott directly.

4. Safety Info: The District Safety Team has put together a “need to know” safety refresher presentation for you to share with your staff. It includes all key expectations for staff accessing the building, in their classrooms, etc. We hopes this helps support communication with safety expectations for all!

5. TAG at MS: Please look at the message below in the FYI from Ryan in HR and prioritize adding this new TAG ICCL position to your building. It will be essential to have a person in this role for this school year.

6. Upshift Roles: (REPEAT) Please take time to fill out this document listing your building’s Upshift roles. This needs to be complete by 8/31. Let Heather Tang or myself know if you have any questions.

7. Part Time Schedules: (REPEAT) Ensure you have written schedules down to the minute for your part time staff and share them with me. You can reference the document from Paul Dean if you need some formatting ideas. The key is you need to use YOUR actual schedule, not the example when it comes to what we share. In Pauls example, for instance, he uses 32 minute periods on Wednesdays and I know many of you have 37 minute classes. Here is an example of this communication from Julie at Sky View. If you have any questions about what this should look like, please let me know.

8. New Synergy Gradebook: (REPEAT) As you may remember, we have transitioned to the newest version of the Synergy Gradebook this year. Consider it like a software update for your phone. The functionality remains mostly the same but there are some new bells and whistles and they may have moved where you find something. Laura Clark has put together a slideshow for staff that shouldn’t take too long. Please find a way to go over this with teachers. Leaning on a staff member who gets tech may be a good approach. Laura has already shared the slideshow, “Synergy New Gradebook Highlights,” with last year’s Canvas Support Team.

FYI

Questions about the new CBA?: Please direct all questions about the new CBA including scheduling and supervision questions directly to me or to HR. We want to ensure uniform messaging and practice.

Lunch Coverage: (UPDATE) HR is currently reviewing options for lunch supervision relating to our extra duty positions. This includes shifting lunch to a nearby prep so a certified employee could use their extra duty time at lunch. This is still an unknown and there could be a situation where these extra duty positions will not meet that State statute. I will update you as soon as we hear. In the meantime, know that classified folks can take on these positions if there is interest.

Lunch Coverage (part II): I received word on how we compensate counselors for supervision if we assign them over the 50 minutes a week. As a reminder, this is allowed for up to one hour a day this year. In talking with Dan Emerson (our new CFO), we can allow for each MS counselor to supervise up to TWO additional hours a WEEK. Anything over this would need to be covered by your budget. There is an existing drop down in UKG for this. Please let me know if you have any questions.

District Org Chart: The team down here has updated the district organization chart you received at the launch.

Resources on The Balcony: Adding new links daily, still a few pages to go. Please let me know if there is anything specific you would like to see posted on the blog.

FYI From Other Departments

From Scott/Communications

Here is a link to a folder with visuals for our cell phone policy

From Ryan/Human Resources

We are excited to announce the creation of two new extra duty positions, a new ICCL position within our elementary and middle school buildings, specifically focused on Talent and Gifted (TAG) efforts and a Green Team Advisor for all sites. 

Please request to post both jobs in UKG. 

The ICCL (TAG) role will be integral in enhancing our support for TAG students and ensuring that our practices are in line with our district’s high standards.

The responsibilities of this new position will mirror the existing ICCL efforts, but with a targeted emphasis on TAG professional development and systems. This means that the individual in this role will be dedicated to fostering growth and improvement in our approach to identifying and servicing TAG students.

Key responsibilities include:

• Attending monthly meetings with district TAG leadership to strengthen existing systems and stay informed on best practices.
• Gaining deeper insights into identifying and servicing TAG students.
• Developing strategies for differentiation in the classroom to better cater to the needs of gifted learners.

Additionally, the person in this role will serve as a crucial conduit for TAG processes and services, ensuring that all staff within our building are well-informed and equipped to support TAG students effectively.

We believe this new position will significantly enhance our ability to provide exceptional educational experiences for all students by adding enrichment to our classrooms.  

Reach out to Stephen DuVal for more information about the specifics of the role.

24/25 Green Team Advisor – New position

The Green Team Advisor has been added to the extra duty schedule.  Each high school and middle school will find this added to their list of year round extra duty positions on the Extra Duty Google Doc.  Each elementary school will be added to the Extra Duty Google Doc as they complete their hire.

The Green Team Advisor will serve at each school to educate and engage the school community with the knowledge and influence to be leaders in a sustainable society, use resources wisely and support the district’s efforts to make the school’s operations and activities more environmentally sustainable. Additionally, this position will support compost efforts at schools where programs are in place.

• This new position will be paid on level F of the extra duty salary schedule.
• There will be 1 FTE at each school site.
• This new position should be posted and hired through UKG.
• This position will be for one year only and if funds allow can be hired again the following year.

If you currently have someone who has filled this role in the past, they will need to apply for the position for this year. 

From Nutrition Services

Did you hear the good news? ALL Bend-La Pine Schools qualify for the federal Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) program. That means every student is eligible to receive one free breakfast and one free lunch each school day. No application needed!

From Sean/Student Services

Here is the agenda for our student services folks on 8/28.

From Anne/Facilities

The Maintenance Department is transitioning the work order software to HeroHQ. This will go live tomorrow (August 22^nd). Please see the letter from Dan Dummitt in regard to this change along with a Power Point presentation that shows how to create a work order in the new system. The link to the new software is included in Dan’s letter.

This new software gives all staff the opportunity to submit a work order, however, all work orders will first be routed to the site’s head custodian for review. If it is something that can be resolved at the site level it will be completed by the custodial staff if appropriate. If not, the custodian will approve the work order to be routed to Maintenance. We feel this is a very user-friendly software and if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to reach out to me (x4700) or Becky Taylor-Negus (x4701). 

We are working closely with the Custodial department on this change to make it as smooth as possible.

Upcoming Schedule

Inservice Week Certified work calendar for the week of August 26.

August 26: New Teacher training–all admin attend! Time/place TBD (it will be first thing in the morning)

August 27: District Welcome Back! An interactive whole school event. 8:30-10:00

August 28: District Training Day – Pacific Crest from 8:00 to 11:30. There will be an opening from Lisa and then PD from Katie Lyons and Chris Burghardt from Synergy. The topics will center around backwards design with priority standards and equitable grading. Afternoon can be used for Tier 1 climate and culture or that PD time can be shifted to another time in the week.

September 4th: First day with 6th grades

September 5th: First day with 7th/8th graders

September 10th: MS/HS Principal horizontal – Mountain View 8:00 – 9:30

Where in the World

This week’s “Where in the World” photo comes from Sean Keating over at PCMS. Sean states, “My special place is being outside with people I care about. Here’s a mountain bike ride I took with some teachers.”

Trivia for you Bendites. What’s the name of that landmark behind Sean?

Please send me a photo of some place important to you with a short description of why and I’ll highlight it in an upcoming blog.  

WELCOME

Hello all. I am very excited to step in this space and get to work along side all of you this year. I mentioned to some of you that Katie and I were talking about combining our blogs into one secondary blog, but it may take a few weeks to get there. In the mean time, the middle school blog will be titled “The Balcony” in reference to Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Change by Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky. In the book, Heifetz and Linsky talk about a leaders need to regularly step away from the workplace day to day and head up to “the balcony” to observe the greater system. Only then can we implement lasting change. This reminder to take a birds-eye view of our buildings/systems has stuck with me throughout my leadership experience. I hope you can find a moment each day to get off “the dance floor” and take in the view from the balcony. If this idea resonates with you, Forbes has a brief synopsis of the chapter you can read here.

To Dos

1. Strategic Initiatives: Please use our strategic initiatives visual during your inservice week and throughout the year to ground our work with staff.

2. PD Structure and Feedback: Also, please remember to use the theme of thriving throughout the year. A big piece of this is how we conduct our professional development. An ask of you is to make sure you use the three signature practices for adults when leading our staff. Additionally, we are asking you to collect feedback from staff after you conduct professional development. Here is the beta form we will use until there is a better collection tool.

3. Admin PD: We are looking to provide small bites of PD opportunities for our leaders in Bend-La Pine in an ongoing way throughout the year. We would like your feedback on topics and format. Here is a short survey we would like administrators to complete. Lisa will close feedback on Tuesday evening (act quickly!) so she can begin to build a calendar and connect with presenters.

4. Upshift Roles: Please take time to fill out this document listing your building’s Upshift roles. This needs to be complete by 8/31. Let Heather Tang or myself know if you have any questions.

5. Part Time Schedules: Ensure you have written schedules down to the minute for your part time staff and share them with me. You can reference the document from Paul Dean if you need some formatting ideas. The key is you need to use YOUR actual schedule, not the example when it comes to what we share. In Pauls example, for instance, he uses 32 minute periods on Wednesdays and I know many of you have 37 minute classes. Here is an example of this communication from Julie at Sky View. If you have any questions about what this should look like, please let me know.

6. New Synergy Gradebook: As you may remember, we have transitioned to the newest version of the Synergy Gradebook this year. Consider it like a software update for your phone. The functionality remains mostly the same but there are some new bells and whistles and they may have moved where you find something. Laura Clark has put together a slideshow for staff that shouldn’t take too long. Please find a way to go over this with teachers. Leaning on a staff member who gets tech may be a good approach.

7. BEA Meetings: Please consider scheduling monthly meetings with your BEA reps this year if you do not already do so. With a new contract, there will likely be more questions and issues that come up on a regular basis. Having a scheduled time to talk with building reps can go a long way to finding collaborative solutions.

8. Phone Coverage: As you know we are entering the really busy time where families are reaching out for the school year. Please make sure that you have your phones covered during work hours and that you are getting back to families that leave messages.

FYI

Change to Horizontal Schedule: As you know, we just rolled over the existing calendar Juan created before he left. However, in talking with Katie and in the spirit of collaboration with our high school partners, we are going to make some tweaks. I am going to remove a few of our existing meetings and replace them with four joint MS/HS meetings. Removed: 9/12, 1/16, 4/6. New joint secondary meetings (all will be from 8-9:30 on Tuesdays): 9/10 (Principals only), 11/5, 1/14, 4/8. I understand this is an adjustment in times and you may have existing meetings scheduled these mornings. We will be flexible with who attends these joint sessions, but we would like at least one rep from each site.

School Facilities: As you heard from Scott Maben, we are looking to open our grounds to the public again. Here is some language around this that was shared back in the spring.

Important Docs:

Here is the BEA CBA. 

Here is the OSEA CBA. This is currently an internal document. Please do not distribute.

Lunch Coverage: Circling back on this ask from you. I’ve double checked and certified staff CANNOT be paid to give up their duty-free 30 minute lunch (even if they want to). You must say no to this. It is not in the CBA because it actually comes from the State. However, we can compensate classified employees if we come to an agreement with them around this time. Also note, that for THIS YEAR, counselors CAN be assigned up to one hour of duty a day. However, we must compensate them for anything over the 50 minutes a week that is already in the CBA. Other specialists can also agree to this same time, but it cannot be assigned. It has also been brought up that there was a fund to support this last spring. However, I have not been able to confirm this fund exists again this year so stay tuned.

Conferences: Conferences this year occur on Halloween, which could lead to some tricky scheduling. I’ve met with Sarah and there is agreement that conferencing on the night of 10/31 isn’t a preferred option. Therefore, we are going to match the elementary plan for this year. Wednesday 10/23 – Teacher work SIW, Tuesday 10/29 – Conferences after school (4 hours). Wednesday 10/30 – teacher work day followed by evening conferences, Thursday 10/31 – conferences all day (no evening conferences), Friday 11/1 – Non work day.

Resources on The Balcony (or in our joint blog): We plan to build out a number of tabs in the coming days/weeks to ensure you have a spot to find all the relevant information you need.

FYI From Other Departments

From Kinsey/Policy, Advocacy, and Equity

Upcoming dates to note:

Rosh Hashanah is coming up (evening of Wed Oct 2 to evening of Fri Oct 4—learn more here​).  Please check your school calendar and do not schedule Curriculum Night or other special student/family events during those evenings.  

More dates to come, just wanted to get you this one now since it’s coming up fast.  Thank you for your commitment to the dignity and belonging of all our families!

2024 Elections: 

I would encourage you to plug this topic into an SIW or staff meeting early in the fall:

Here is our policy around staff engaging in political activities.  Teachers should know they may not “promote or oppose the nomination or election of a candidate,” and if they engage in discussion on an election topic they must “consider all candidates for a particular office or any side of a particular political or civil issue.”   

Conversations about the election will come up this fall, whether through planned lessons or unplanned student dialogue.  Teachers should prepare for either situation.  Here are 10 steps for teachers to prepare, navigate, and respond to sensitive discourse.  

Additionally, here and here are two great resources for teaching about the election and online news sources.  Our district Equity Coaches can support teachers with these conversations—just reach out.​

From Dean/Secondary Curriculum, Instructions, and Systems

Teaching and Learning has been hard at work all summer purchasing and deploying curriculum. This spring we received over 2300 individual requests for instructional tools from staff. Our explicit goal is to have all of the tools deployed by the first day that teachers have returned.  I also want to have a plan for any instructional tools that do not meet that timeline. 

One of the difficulties of some many digital curricular tools is that TLC does not know when an instructional tool is not fully deployed. There are also instances when a tool is deployed, but the teacher is unaware of how to access it. I want to share a few ways to help us understand when a staff member does not have what they need to complete their work. 

One way to check to see if a tool has been deployed is the Instructional Tools Website. This site displays which tools have been explicitly deployed for the section. This site may not show all of instructional tools available to a teacher. Many of our digital instructional tools are deployed by section, rather than by teacher. 

Instructional Tools

The other tool I want to share is new this year. This spreadsheet (which may be shared with other staff including office managers or other people appropriate at your building) is a place that TLC an monitor tools that teachers do not yet have access to for their class.  We created this system so that we will not miss individual emails that come in from Teacher/Librarians, Administrators, teachers, or other staff members. We will be closely monitoring this spreadsheet beginning August 27^th. 

Unfulfilled Curriculum Requests

Please contact Dean with any questions

Upcoming Schedule

Inservice Week Certified work calendar for the week of August 26.

August 19:  Training: Managing Performance–Investigations, 12:30-4:30

August 19: BLS SIRC & STAS Administrator Refresher Training 8:30-12:30 @ Ed Center: Board Room – this is for administrators who have already had the full training. Administrators who have not yet been trained should register for a training with Misty Groom

August 26: New Teacher training–all admin attend! Time/place TBD (it will be first thing in the morning)

August 27: District Welcome Back! An interactive whole school event. 8:30-10:00

August 28: District Training Day – Building led in am; District led in pm. Your Counselors, Student Success Coordinators and Instructors and Special Education Teachers will be in trainings at Caldera HS. You will mostly have classroom teachers in your building.

Where in the World

I plan to add a photo at the end of each blog. I would love for you all to send me a scenic photo of a place important to you with a short description on why you love that spot. I’ll start us off. This photo was taken in La Quinta, CA (Palm Springs area) and it’s where we go most spring breaks to recharge and get out of the cold Central Oregon winters. For me, the sun, the desert and palm trees allow me to fully relax.