To Do

1. Lesson Design Cycle (LDC): (LDC sites only) As a reminder, we’ve flushed out the LDC calendar for first and second semester. Dates can also be found here. The sites that have opted into this practice need to work to identify staff for participation. Here is the interest form. We are limited to 8 folks per session so it will come down to one or two teachers from participating sites. Please reach out to Dean, Katie, or Stephen with questions.

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2. Admin/ICCL: Remind your ICCL team we are meeting from 4:15 to 6:15 at Caldera High School next Tuesday October 1st. Dean sent out a calendar invite for you to forward to your team. He also shared invites for our three other sessions. TAG ICCLs (MS only) do not need to attend this one.

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3. Plan 30 minutes for staff to complete Cybersecurity training (from Scott):

October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and we’re excited to announce Cyber October! Throughout the month, our IT department will be sharing valuable resources to help improve your cyber hygiene and protect our school district from cyber threats.

Here’s what you can expect:

• Weekly Tips and Tricks: Easy-to-follow advice to help safeguard your digital life.
• Scam of the Week Announcements: Stay informed about the latest online threats.
• Cybersecurity Best Practices: Strategies to keep your data and devices safe.

In addition, all staff will receive a link to our annual cybersecurity training. This mandatory training will take approximately 30 minutes to complete and is crucial in helping to protect both personal and district data from cyberattacks. The window to complete the training is October 1^st through November 30^th. 

Look for these updates in your inbox each week. Together, we can strengthen our defenses against cyberattacks!

Thank you for your continued vigilance and support.

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4. MTSS Schedule: As you begin to plan your regular MTTSS meetings, please send a recurring calendar invite to Dean Richards.

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5. From Kinsey: Bias Incident student lessons (repeat):

The Bias Incident student lessons are ready ahead of schedule, and a handful of schools want them to review with teachers this week, so I’m sending now instead of in Friday blogs:  

One hallmark of a thriving culture is that everyone knows how to identify, address, and repair harm when it happens in the community.  This lesson provides the chance to ​have that conversation openly as a school community.  Thank you for your active leadership in ensuring this is taught consistently across your building prior to Oct 25. 

Consider forwarding this email to your ICCL team to support implementation.  If you have questions or would like additional support, please reach out to me or any of the Equity Coaches (copied in this message).  Thanks!

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24-25 Bias Incident Lessons:

Family Letter.  Please hyperlink in the letter the lesson that corresponds to your grade level and send to families several days in advance of teaching the lesson.

Equity Coaches.  This team is available to help your staff prepare or rehearse (they can attend your SIW or provide drop-in support before/after school), or co-teach with particular teachers open to partnership.  

Required Lessons.  This folder has the grade-specific required lesson for 24-25, as well as printable teacher notes for each lesson.  This lesson takes about 60 minutes, or two 30-minute advisory periods.

Suggested Wayfinder Sequence.  This sheet suggests Wayfinder lessons to create context and dialogue skills on which to anchor the Bias Incident Lesson.  

Information from Departments

From Dave VanLoo:

2024-25 District Assessment, Testing, & Surveys

Here are two updated support documents summarizing common standardized tests and surveys for the current school year. One is a schedule showing when different assessment activities occur. The other is a general overview of the purpose and logistics of these assessments. Both documents will continue to be updated throughout the year as is beneficial. Please reach out with any questions.

BLP Testing Schedule 2024-25

Major Tests & Surveys 2024-25

2024 Student Health Survey

Starting in 2024, Oregon’s plan is for schools to administer the Student Health Survey (SHS) annually to all 6th, 8th, and 11th graders. Schools should pick a date between 11/4 and 11/22 to administer the survey, and plan to send parent notifications out a couple of weeks before that date. Here is a folder containing all the information and resources schools need to administer the SHS, including survey links, parent notification/opt-out forms, survey previews, and instructions for teachers proctoring the survey. Let me know what questions you have or what support you may need. Thanks.

2024 Student Health Survey Resources   

Synergy MTSS Module Update

New this year schools will have access to data within Synergy’s MTSS module. Over the past few months staff have been hard at work building the infrastructure to make these tools available. Within the next few weeks, we expect to make the Early Warning System (EWS) available to schools. EWS is a tool for identifying students who may need additional support in the areas of attendance, behavior/discipline, and academics. Later this year additional tools will become available. While this development is occurring, vast amounts of student data remain available in DART and in the OSAS portal (state testing data). Reach out to Dave if you have questions about accessing or interpreting these data. 

DART

OSAS Portal

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From Nurse Michelle: OHA / ODE has changed the Communicable Disease Guidance for Schools guidelines this year for students and staff returning after having vomiting or diarrhea. They may now return to school after 24hrs of no vomiting or no diarrhea (this replaces the previous 48hr guideline)

Attached is a copy of the When to Keep Your Student Home. This information has been sent out to office managers

Here is the link to the full Communicable Disease Guidance packet

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Wayfinder Blog Update:

Several admin are hoping to use data from the Waypoint student assessment to design an SEL goal for their schools or to use with SLGG goals. Therefore, the new assessment window is open until November 15^th. 

Waypoints, the initial summative assessment for students will be live in Wayfinder from September 15^th through Novermber15th.  Summative Waypoints allow educators to measure student growth of Wayfinder’s six Core Skills across the school year. By administering the summative Waypoints assessments, educators can understand areas of strength and growth for individual students and the class to make informed, data-driven decisions about instruction. Here is the info on Waypoints, including the new Waypoints Implementation Guides to help teachers set up the reason we are assessing students as well as instructions.  The final summative assessment for students will be open May 12^th through June 13^th for students.

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Message from Jason & Ted (IT) and Eric (Student Services) about Synergy & Discipline Entry

We have learned that all incidents being inputted into Synergy as “Admin-Managed” are being labeled as “Major” in Synergy. Not every incident administrators input are going to be Major, so we needed to create a solution to this problem.

IT has generated a solution to this issue that is now LIVE in Synergy. Moving forward, you will notice the following options for you to select when entering incidents:

Staff-Managed

Minor Admin-Managed

Major Admin-Managed

Using these three options we can now correctly input incidents in alignment with our Student Code of Conduct:

Staff-Managed = Code of Conduct Response Level 1 (by Staff) [NOTE: Not all schools are utilizing Staff-Managed this year]

Minor Admin-Managed = Code of Conduct Response Level 2 (by Administrators)

Major Admin-Managed = Code of Conduct Response Level 3 or 4 (by Administrators)

Thank you!

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From Liza in Multilingual Services:

Last call for SIOP+ Fall 2024! FLIER Sign-ups close on Friday, September 27th.  Applicants will be notified on Monday September 30th if they are a part of the 20 teacher spaces available.  Once notified, you will be instructed on how to set up your first sub request for this training.

See last week’s email blast (below) and the attached flyer. Thank you!!

SIOP+ Fall 2024 . . . 

Are you interested in spending quality time with colleagues, increasing your strategies for equity, inclusion and student engagement, and the option to earn 3 graduate credits from OSU Cascades? 

If so . . . then you will love SIOP+!

SIOP is a research-based instructional model that has been shown to boost content area learning for students who are acquiring English. 

Did you know…that sheltered instruction is effective with ALL students, not just English language learners, and especially for students coming from high poverty backgrounds.

If interested . .  download the attached flyer for dates and times. Teachers, TOSAS and Administrators are encouraged and welcome!

Click here to register.

Reach out to Liza DiGiglio Huet, Director of Multilingual Services, if you have any questions. 

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From Sean in Student Services:

Many of you have been asking about dates for the “Full” CPI trainings and refresher options for this fall.  A few things to note:

• These trainings are for those that need to be trained to implement holds in a restraint/seclusion scenario.  You should have a team of folks at you building with this level of training.
• These trainings are different than the “De-escalation only” trainings that are being offered for secondary staff and in-house for elementary staff.  All CPI trainings will count toward you buildings 1:50 ratio required by SB 283
• You can still use this CPI trained spreadsheet to see who has the “full” training in your building.  Note: at this time, any person listed on the spreadsheet has the full training w/holds
• Folks can sign up for the “full” courses in UKG.  They are titled “CPI initial” and “CPI refresher”

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From Rochelle at the ESD:

Dear Colleagues,

We are excited to bring together K-12 educators from Central Oregon to continue our learning, planning, and sharing on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its emerging role in our schools and districts.

Please save the date and plan to join us at:

Event: AI for Teaching and Leading

Date: Friday, October 11, 2024

Time: 8:30 a.m – 3:30 p.m.

Location: Ridgeview High School

This summit will feature sessions, keynote addresses, and team collaboration time on topics such as understanding the AI landscape, tools, and language; AI for teaching and learning; AI in STEM, CTE, and math; and more.

This free event is open to Central Oregon educators at all stages of their AI learning journey, with particular interest for district curriculum leaders, principals, teachers, and instructional coaches.

Registration information

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New Course Descriptions (repeat): These for 25-26 are DUE by November 7. Use this LINK to make your request.

High School Only

Cell Phones FAQ: Scott put together an FAQ for cell phones in our high schools. Please share.

English

Spanish

Middle School Only

October Meetings: Time to sign up for October visits. Please choose two dates over the course of the month. Here is my Calendly link or you can use Outlook directly.

Staff Service Awards: If you have not already done so, please schedule a time with Stephen to have staff service awards presented.

Shout Out from Safety Team: The Safety Team has spent the first few weeks of school observing lockdown drills across the district. Shoutout to High Desert Middle School for doing an excellent job in their first lockdown drill of the school year! All staff participated in the drill and understood the importance of talking to students about making decisions in an emergency. Staff explained to students why they needed to remain quiet and found creative ways to get their class out of sight. The HDMS admin team invited the District Safety team, members of their school safety team, SROs, and other members of the Bend Police Department to participate and provide feedback.

Calendar

October 1: Admin/ICCL Session – 4:15 – 6:15 – Caldera HS

October 8: HS admin and counseling work session- 8:00-10:00 @ Ed Center in boardroom

October 9: Educator Network SIW

October 10: MS Horizontal – 3:00 – 4:30 – High Desert MS

October 14: TAG Admin/ICCL Meeting – 3:45 – 5:45 – Board Room

Where in the World

This week we are highlighting Leslie Reif and her Happy Place! Leslie shared: “Our happy place is the Oregon Coast and visit there frequently. We have been watching our favorite 80’s & 90’s movies as a family. Goonies is one of our favs and we went on a Goonies Adventure last Spring Break. My kids were 7 & 9 and loved every minute of it! This is Cannon Beach from Ecola State Park.”

Share YOUR happy place next week! Email a picture and brief description to Katie or Stephen!

To Do

From Kinsey – Policy, Advocacy, Equity:

Advertising Practices: *Action Needed*

We are offering two options for dates to attend a workshop related to approving and accepting funds for advertisements.  (This includes ‘donations’ that come in exchange for any form of publicity for the donor.)  This training will help you feel clear and supported in determining whether and how to accept money from local companies or individuals, and is a chance to align across schools in accordance with the updated advertising policy and a few other related policies.

Principals/Office Teams: Please invite relevant staff (sample message here)–note the sign-up sheet there, for each of your team members to confirm attendance.  

Each school should ensure the following roles in your building are trained: Administrator, athletic director, activities director, yearbook advisor, music/drama teachers, any additional or support staff who are involved in receiving or approving advertisement requests and funds.  

Holidays and dates:

You received a reminder again this year about protecting some significant religious observance fall dates from any special events.  Please check your school calendar now and ensure there are no special/one-time student/family meetings or events scheduled on these days:  

Rosh Hashanah: Evening of Wed Oct 2 to evening of Fri Oct 4

Yom Kippur: Sat Oct 12

Within the next few weeks, you will receive a calendar with key dates like these over the next few years, so you can plan further ahead—stay tuned.  

If your school is allowing any costumes for around Halloween, here are some lessons to discuss with students: K-5, 6-12, Poster.  Equity Coaches can support these conversations if needed. 

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Please share this with your teachers, and students: Judy Campbell with Discovery West has arranged for Dr. Ellen Ochoa, first Hispanic Female Astronaut to go into space, to speak.  Please contact Judy to include your students and staff in this presentation. Judy’s contact information is 541-410-9113.

​Dr. Ellen Ochoa, is a former director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, an American engineer, astronaut, and the first Hispanic woman to go to space and has logged close to 1000 hours in space after four space flights.

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From Scott in IT:

Please review Managed Apple ID with your staff:

Do you know about Managed Apple ID’s?

Every student and staff member in Bend-La Pine Schools has a Managed Apple ID.   

Your Apple ID sign in is your Bend-La Pine Schools email address.

To enhance the security of our digital environment and protect sensitive information, we strongly encourage all staff to use their Managed Apple IDs on their school-issued devices instead of personal Apple IDs.

Why Use Your Managed Apple ID?

• Enhanced Security: Managed Apple IDs are specifically designed for educational environments, providing an extra layer of security and management capabilities.
• Data Protection: Using your Managed Apple ID helps prevent sensitive school data from being inadvertently stored in personal accounts, reducing the risk of data breaches or leaks.
• Seamless Access: Managed Apple IDs provide streamlined access to school resources, apps, and services, ensuring you have everything you need for your role.
• 200Gb of storage! All users can take advantage of 200GB of iCloud storage and access it from any of their school issued devices.
•  

If you need assistance in making this change, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our IT Client Services team or our help desk.

Note: Nearly 300 Bend-La Pine Schools computers are currently using personal Apple ID’s. Beginning October, users on these devices will periodically receive a message discouraging this practice.

Thank you for your cooperation and for helping us keep our school’s information safe and secure.

Action Areas/Reminders

From Dave in TLC:

The Oregon Student Heath Survey (SHS) will take place again this fall. SHS is given to all 6^th, 8^th, and 11^th grade students. While we have yet to settle on an exact window for administration, we likely will aim for a roughly 2-week period sometime between late October and November. The survey should take students about 30 minutes to complete, and parents and students can opt-out. For those who have done this before, the process is basically the same as previous years. Schools and districts will receive reports in the spring. 

Going forward, SHS will become an annual requirement as is specified in House Bill 2656. 

Be on the lookout for more detailed information in the coming weeks and let us know if there are weeks that may be problematic for scheduling the SHS.

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From Kinsey: Bias Incident student lessons:

The Bias Incident student lessons are ready ahead of schedule, and a handful of schools want them to review with teachers this week, so I’m sending now instead of in Friday blogs:  

One hallmark of a thriving culture is that everyone knows how to identify, address, and repair harm when it happens in the community.  This lesson provides the chance to ​have that conversation openly as a school community.  Thank you for your active leadership in ensuring this is taught consistently across your building prior to Oct 25. 

Consider forwarding this email to your ICCL team to support implementation.  If you have questions or would like additional support, please reach out to me or any of the Equity Coaches (copied in this message).  Thanks!

—————————————————————–

24-25 Bias Incident Lessons:

Family Letter.  Please hyperlink in the letter the lesson that corresponds to your grade level and send to families several days in advance of teaching the lesson.

Equity Coaches.  This team is available to help your staff prepare or rehearse (they can attend your SIW or provide drop-in support before/after school), or co-teach with particular teachers open to partnership.  

Required Lessons.  This folder has the grade-specific required lesson for 24-25, as well as printable teacher notes for each lesson.  This lesson takes about 60 minutes, or two 30-minute advisory periods.

Suggested Wayfinder Sequence.  This sheet suggests Wayfinder lessons to create context and dialogue skills on which to anchor the Bias Incident Lesson.  

Information from Departments

New Course Descriptions for 25-26 are DUE by November 7. Use this LINK to make your request.

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From Paul in Operations: Here is the latest COO Ops blog

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Here is an updated version of the certified evaluation plan for 24-25. This includes Teacher Librarians. 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 Sean:

Required: CPI de-escalation training:

We have cancelled the CPI de-escalation training for Sept. 24^th due to very low enrollment.  I am sorry for any inconvenience this may cause you.  Further, in addition to the other 4 available dates, we have added an additional training date for December 3^rd, which is now viewable in UKG. 

For admin, please review the CPI spreadsheet to see how many folks need to be trained at your site to meet the SB 283 standard.  Currently, we have 29 people (out of 129 total needed) enrolled for all available trainings.  Thanks

Below is the updated schedule:

5 half day sessions.

• Thursday, October 10 from 12-4
  • Pacific Crest Cornice
  • Coaches:Sara, Jessica
• Tuesday, October 15 from 12-4
  • Pacific Crest Cornice
  • Coaches: Sara, Amanda
• Thursday, October 24 from 8-12
  • Ed. Center Room 314
  • Coaches: Darlene, Jen
• Thursday, November 14 from 8-12
  • Ed. Center Room 314
  • Coaches: Krista, Stephanie
• Tuesday, December 3 from 8-12
  • PCMS – Cornice Room
  • Coaches: Darlene, Jessica

Hungerford Online:

In the next few days, you will be receiving a personalized notice (see below) inviting you to Hungerford Online.  The Hungerford law firm has been a state leader in supporting districts with SPED/504 legal issues.  When you receive the email, set you password and take a peek!   These are IEP/504 training videos that you can use for your own learning or with your staff.  Your SPED team members will be receiving this access as well, and we will discuss the use at their upcoming general supervision training.  Further, we will be offering some facilitated training opportunities for you this year and will be utilizing this resource.

High School Only

From Jess: We are thrilled to be hosting our district-wide School Counseling Family Night, taking place next week! This event, hosted by BLS School Counseling, will focus on college application support and resources.

High Schools: Please ensure that communication regarding this important event has been shared with your families. Example communication is listed here. Your support in promoting this initiative is greatly appreciated! Thank you!

Middle School Only

TAG ICCL: Just a reminder that we are hoping to move forward quickly with the hiring of our TAG ICCL members.  These folks will attend four district trainings and then integrate with your ICCL team to meet their time obligations.  The four meeting dates are 10/14, 1/13, 3/10, and 5/19 from 3:45 to 5:45 in the board room.  We would also like to have your administrator in charge of TAG attend these meetings.  If you have any questions, please contact Stephen DuVal.

October Meetings: Time to sign up for October visits. Please choose two dates over the course of the month. Here is my Calendly link or you can use Outlook directly.

Calendar

September 18: Teacher Work SIW – NO ADMIN MEETING

September 24: High School Principal Horizontal – 8:00-10:00 @ Realms

September 26: Middle School Horizontal – 3:00 @ Cascade

October 1: Admin/ICCL Session – 4:15 – 6:15 – Location TBD

October 8: HS admin and counseling work session- 8:00-10:00 @ Ed Center in boardroom

Where in the World

This week we are highlighting Scott Olszewski and his Happy Place! Scott shared: “ANYWHERE with my boys, but especially at the Coast.” 

Share YOUR happy place next week! Email a picture and brief description to Katie or Stephen!

Welcome Back!

Nice job working through your first five day week. You have done such a wonderful job creating a safe predictable routine for students. We have really enjoyed getting into the schools to start the year.

Remember to prioritize thriving as a theme this year. Take time to think about what this means for students, staff, families, and your leadership team.

To Do:

1. Begin planning for Bias Incident student lessons: (From Kinsey)

The Bias Incident student lessons are ready ahead of schedule, and a handful of schools want them to review with teachers this week, so I’m sending now instead of in Friday blogs:  

One hallmark of a thriving culture is that everyone knows how to identify, address, and repair harm when it happens in the community.  This lesson provides the chance to ​have that conversation openly as a school community.  Thank you for your active leadership in ensuring this is taught consistently across your building prior to Oct 25. 

Consider forwarding this email to your ICCL team to support implementation.  If you have questions or would like additional support, please reach out to me or any of the Equity Coaches (copied in this message).  Thanks!

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24-25 Bias Incident Lessons:

Family Letter.  Please hyperlink in the letter the lesson that corresponds to your grade level and send to families several days in advance of teaching the lesson.

Equity Coaches.  This team is available to help your staff prepare or rehearse (they can attend your SIW or provide drop-in support before/after school), or co-teach with particular teachers open to partnership.  

Required Lessons.  This folder has the grade-specific required lesson for 24-25, as well as printable teacher notes for each lesson.  This lesson takes about 60 minutes, or two 30-minute advisory periods.

Suggested Wayfinder Sequence.  This sheet suggests Wayfinder lessons to create context and dialogue skills on which to anchor the Bias Incident Lesson.  

2. Check your staffing when it comes to lunch extra duty: (From Ryan)

State law prohibits Certified employees from relinquishing their duty-free lunch period to take on directed duties in exchange for pay. In other words, employees cannot take on a duty that can only be performed during their lunch period even where voluntary and paid.

As a result, any Certified staff member currently employed as a Lunch Detention Supervisor cannot continue in that role. We understand this may impact your current lunch supervision schedules. Katie and Stephen have already worked with some buildings to construct supervision schedules that do not violate this statute, so please reach out to them for support in adjusting current supervision plans as needed.

Certified staff may elect to perform duties during their lunch hour so long as those duties could be performed at another time. For example, lunch clubs are still permitted to continue, including those with Advisors compensated through an Extra Duty stipend. Any such club meetings, though, cannot be mandated to take place during lunch.

Please let me know if you have any questions or need further clarification.

3. Refer to the CPI Email from Sean: Make sure you have the proper number of staff attending training to ensure we meet the required ratio. Please reach out to him with questions.

4. Remind your ICCLs of 10/1: We will be having our first Admin/ICCL Priority Standards and Grading PD on October 1st. We are working on a location but we will be meeting from 4:15 to 6:15. Note: The new MS TAG ICCLs do NOT need to attend this session.

5. Fill out this survey from the safety team: We are asking all school administrators to complete our safety survey by Monday, September 30^th. Please provide as much feedback as possible, so we can provide high quality professional development to your site safety designees and campus monitors. Link here.

FYI

September 18: There will be no Admin PD on the teacher work day SIW 9/18. Please use this time to plan professional development in your building.

Attendance Awareness Month: Governor Tina Kotek signed a proclamation declaring the month of September 2024 as Attendance Awareness Month. She was joined by Oregon Department of Education (ODE) Director Charlene Williams, Senator Suzanne Weber, education advocates, and school district representatives.

ODE has released a Social Media Toolkit, a resource designed to help education leaders, advocates, and community members increase school attendance awareness.

Information from the Departments

​From Dave in TLC:

The Oregon Student Heath Survey (SHS) will take place again this fall. SHS is given to all 6^th, 8^th, and 11^th grade students. While we have yet to settle on an exact window for administration, we likely will aim for a roughly 2-week period sometime between late October and November. The survey should take students about 30 minutes to complete, and parents and students can opt-out. For those who have done this before, the process is basically the same as previous years. Schools and districts will receive reports in the spring. 

Going forward, SHS will become an annual requirement as is specified in House Bill 2656. 

Be on the lookout for more detailed information in the coming weeks and let us know if there are weeks that may be problematic for scheduling the SHS.

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From Lisa:

THIS DOCUMENT, known as the Culture of Safety contact list, is available for our admin teams to know who to access for a variety of things that come up in our district.

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From Sean in Student Services:

Please see the link to view the Student Services Professional Learning Schedule 24-25.  This is the PD calendar for all learning specialists, school psychologists, speech pathologists, school counselors, and Student Success staff.

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From Aimee with Deschutes County:

Last Call:  Staff Registration for the Sept 24 Sources of Strength Adult Advisor Training

This is the only Sources of Strength Adult Advisor training planned for BLS this year.  Make sure any staff who need to be trained this year get registered now for the Sept 24 training.  This is a full-day, in-person training located in downtown Bend.

Registration is free, but any sub costs would need to come from your school’s $5,500 Sources of Strength budget. Ask your Public Health Specialist if you have questions about your Sources budget or plans.  

This training is required for any adults who will be supporting Sources of Strength Peer Leaders, but it is not limited to just those advising Sources Peer Leaders.  This training is also useful for GSA club advisors, or other affinity group advisors, and advisors/teachers supporting student-led advocacy projects related to student health or an inclusive school culture. 

Sources of Strength is effective at increasing student belonging, engagement in school, connection to supportive adults in school, likelihood to refer a friend to an adult for help, and acceptance of help from adults.   

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From Ryan in HR:

Safe Schools

It has come to our attention that some of you have experienced issues with completing your required courses on the SafeSchools platform. Specifically, some users have successfully completed modules and received a certificate of completion, but these completions are not being recognized in the Schoox system, which informs UKG of your status.

While the exact cause of this issue is still being investigated, we wanted to share some tips that may help you avoid or mitigate these problems:

1. Use a Computer: Please avoid completing courses on your phone. Using a desktop or laptop computer can help ensure the platform functions correctly.
2. Browser Choice: We recommend using Chrome as a browser when accessing SafeSchools. Other browsers may not be fully compatible with the platform.
3. Course Interaction: Avoid pausing or skipping forward in videos. Engage fully with each module and ensure you answer any questions that appear promptly.
4. Save Completion Certificates: After finishing a course, please save or screenshot your completion certificate. This will serve as proof of completion if the system does not update automatically.
5. If your trainings do not register as completed: complete all of your safe school trainings and email all of the certificates in one email to [email protected] letting us know that they didn’t complete. We will credit your courses on our end.

We understand the inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your patience as we work to resolve the issue. If you encounter any problems, please contact [email protected] for further assistance.

Thank you for your attention to this matter and for your continued commitment to completing your required training on time.

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From Paul in Operations: (Repeat) Over the summer, we updated our community use guidelines.  Walt Norris met with all of the custodians to review the expectations regarding access to ES school playgrounds and MS tracks (we are not opening HS tracks at this time).  Custodians have been instructed to leave one gate upon for community access in the summer, on weekends and before/after school hours and were encouraged to engage with building leaders about which gate that should be.

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From Lisa: Evaluations (REPEAT)

Here is an updated version of the certified evaluation plan for 24-25. This includes Teacher Librarians. Just a reminder that your Deans should be assigned mini observations and evaluations to complete. Please call if you have questions.

High School Only

Nothing This Week

Middle School Only

TAG Info – Please take a second to fill out this document regarding your TAG support this year.

UpShift – Principals, we will be using our second visit this month to talk UpShift. Please invite all relevant people to our scheduled time.

Calendar

September 18: Teacher Work SIW – NO ADMIN MEETING

September 24: High School Admin Horizontal – 8:00 at Realms

September 26: Middle School Horizontal – 3:00 at Cascade

October 1: Admin/ICCL Session – 4:15 – 6:15 – Location TBD

Where in the World

This week we are highlighting Katie Legace and her Happy Place! The Metolius River is a place of joy and peace for Katie. She has been visiting this area since for over 25 years and loves to camp and hike here, especially in the spring and the fall.

Please email a picture and brief description of you Happy Place to Katie or Stephen!

Welcome Back!

Congratulations on a successful first week of the school year!

We hope these first few days of the 2024-25 school year have been filled with joy at having students in our schools once again! Let’s ensure that every student and staff member thrives this year!

Important Docs:

Here is the BEA CBA.

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

To Do:

Tracking attendance and enrollment (reminder): 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

Action items/reminders

New Synergy Gradebook – (a reminder): 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.

Bias Incident Student Lessons (From Kinsey – a reminder): 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.

Information from the Departments

​From Kinsey – complaint process follow up:

Here are some follow-up resources from our recent Complaint Management conversation.  Note a few actions items for you below—thank you!  

Also, I recommend you bookmark key links or save this email somewhere accessible.  Please share this message with relevant leaders in your building (office staff, counseling, athletics, etc).

Reach out if I can support with any complaints, bias incidents, or related policy issues.

Flowchart for navigating complaints, policies, and timelines.  

• I have more hard copies, too.

Form for reporting a complaint or a bias incident.  

• Note: this form is new!  Please be sure all staff in your building replace old bookmarked versions with the link above.  The link on student and staff iPads has been updated to this new form.

Poster with QR code.  

• The poster leads to this webpage with details on complaints and a link to the reporting form.  
• Please replace old versions of this poster that are displayed at your site.  At a minimum, display the new poster in your lobby, staff lounge, and gym areas. 

Reminders:

• If something moves from a concern to a complaint, be sure it is promptly recorded via the reporting form linked above. 
• When a complaint is submitted via the form, I’ll connect with you.  You’ll receive a link to your School Dashboard of all complaints and bias incidents, including the new submission.  
• In the Dashboard, click on the new complaint to see details, record outcomes, add your team notes, and/or to request additional support.

Questions or issues coming up?  Please reach out!

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FROM: Eric Powell / IT Discipline Support

We have identified an unexpected change to typical discipline data entry which has occurred because there is no mechanism to separate those piloting Teacher Referrals from those who are not when it comes to “Accepting” (or “Denying”) discipline incidents.

Previously, there was no concept of an “Incident Approval Queue”, you simply entered a discipline incident using either Student Incident or the Incidents screen in Synergy and the data was immediately ‘live’ in the system.

However, this year some schools are piloting Teacher Referrals, which introduces the concept of (and a Synergy screen called) “Incident Approval Queue”, allowing administrators to determine what discipline data should be accepted (or declined) from entering the system.

The side effect of adding this has been that ALL schools are affected by the change and will need to use the approval queue to finalize data entry by accepting ALL incidents regardless of how they are generated. This is required for the data to be state/federal reported, as well as being displayed in ParentVUE.

What you need to do:

As a principal or VP/Dean, using the Synergy quick launch, type “Incident Approval Queue” and wait for the search to complete, then click on the resulting link to enter the Incident Approval Queue screen.

Once you have entered the screen, you can review any incident in question. You can click the Student ID to review the Student Incident screen, and the ID (Incident ID) to go directly to the incident in question if you want to review beyond the description displayed in the grid.

NOTE: For those participating in the Teacher Referral pilot, you may want to edit the Incident description to include your initials at the end of the description if you are working on an incident to indicate to the rest of your team you are handling that incident. Therefore, any incidents entered by a teacher via the Teacher Referral process without a set of initials has NOT yet been reviewed by anyone. This may be a quick way to identify who is working on what until we can get a better solution in place for you to manage who is handling which incidents / students.

To accept the incident, look to the far-right Action button, and select “Accept” if the incident has had all the data entry done for the incident and is ready for parents to view, etc.

NOTE: Most users will only have Accept / Deny – don’t worry about the other options if you don’t have them.

This will remove the incident from the Queue and make if available to view in ParentVUE and to be included in State/Federal reporting. THIS IS REQUIRED FOR ALL INCIDENTS.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact any/all of the following via email:

Eric Powell = [email protected] 

Ted Helton = [email protected]

Jason Westmoreland = [email protected]

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From Dean: Please check in with teachers teaching Math 1 (either in MS or HS) or Algebraic Problem Solving to confirm that they have signed up for the required Math Medic training on 9/17.  Full day subs are covered by TLC.

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From Josh: 504 Coordinators

Welcome back to a new school year! I hope you all had a restful summer and are ready for another successful year ahead.

I’m pleased to inform you that we have updated all of our 504 forms to better support our students’ needs. In addition, we will be introducing a new process for annual 504s that I believe will be a significant time saver for you.

To ensure everyone is familiar with these updates, we will be holding a mandatory training session. You can choose from one of three times on September 11, 2024: 8:15 AM, 10:30 AM, or 2:00 PM in the Board Room at the Education Center. NO SIGN UP NECESSARY.

Thank you for your continued dedication to our students. I look forward to seeing you at the training and to another year of great work together.

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From Andrea in Human Resources

New Incident Report Form now available in the Staff Portal

As a follow up to the investigations trainings in August, the revised Incident Report Form is now available in the Staff Portal. The form now has a second page for the post-incident/accident investigation.
 BLS Incident Report Form – staff 9.2024.pdf

As a reminder, a site administrator or supervisor must complete a post-incident/accident investigation after every incident that results in employee injury. The investigation must be completed within 5-10 business days following the injury. Please reach out to Andrea Wilson if you have any questions, need assistance with an investigation, or have form feedback. Thank you again for your partnership and help as we navigate this new process!

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From Jennifer:

Student Success:

We have a new coaching model this year and many of the coaching assignments have changed as we onboard 10 new SSCs. Going forward, schools with the Student Success Intervention will have a Student Success team that will have two coaches – one team member will have a mental health/clinical/care coordination focus (Darlene and Megan) and one will have a system, SPED, PBSP/Data focus (Jen and Amanda) but they will work very closely together and will take the lead based on the situation or students need. We will be moving forward with building out a Medicaid billing model for our clinicians over this school year to launch for next school year. This information has not been shared with SSCs yet but more information to come as we learn more about what is possible in Oregon with Medicaid and schools. This became a possible opportunity for us going forward as of September 1^st. The team has already been working closely with teams onboarding new SSCs so please reach out to your coaches if you have any questions. More to come as we navigate this new transition….

Wayfinder:

We continue to have integration issues with Clever and Wayfinder for some staff. If you have a staff member that does not have the correct access or correct school listed, please use the instructional tool process to request what is needed. All elementary and middle schools that ordered workbooks should be receiving them this week if they have not already.

Waypoints, the intial summative assessment for students will be live in Wayfinder from September 15^th through October 18^th and the final summative assessment for students will be open May 12^th through June 13^th for students.  Summative Waypoints allow educators to measure student growth of Wayfinder’s six Core Skills across the school year. By administering this optional summative Waypoints assessments, educators can understand areas of strength and growth for individual students and the class to make informed, data-driven decisions about SEL instruction. Here is the info on Waypoints, including the new Waypoints Implementation Guides to help teachers set up the reason we are assessing students as well as instructions.  

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From Lisa: Evaluations

Here is an updated version of the certified evaluation plan for 24-25. This includes Teacher Librarians. 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 Jessica Houser in the Business Office:

We know this is a busy and exciting time with many staffing changes happening across your sites. Please be aware that the cutoff for processing Personnel Actions (PAs) to ensure accurate payment and proper system setup for employees is Tuesday, September 10th. Any PA actions for September should be initiated in UKG by Monday, September 9th, using the appropriate HR action under the ‘team’ tab.

After this date, payroll processing begins, and any delays in submitting PA actions may affect employee pay or cause system issues. We appreciate your continued support when employees have questions, such as “Why hasn’t my location been updated in UKG yet?” Once a request leaves your hands, please understand that it can take some time for the system to reflect the changes. Your patience during this process is greatly appreciated.

Reminders:

• Classified Staff: PA actions should be completed for location changes (Nutrition, Custodial, and Transportation only), budget code changes, and FTE adjustments.
• Certified Staff: PA actions should be completed for budget code changes, FTE adjustments, and position changes within your school.

For questions, please reach out to:

• Classified Specialists: Cara Gienger and Kelly Marty at [email protected]
• Licensed Specialists: Trish Uhart and Candy Gelatt at [email protected]
• Payroll Specialists: Jenny Ostrom, Kate Pardo, Lisa Brinlee, and Jenny Helvie at [email protected]

Thank you and we hope it’s been an incredible week with students!

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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.

Here is the latest Operations blog

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From your IT team:

Classroom Device Management Tools for Teachers

There are two applications available to assist with classroom device management, Apple Classroom and JAMF Teacher.

Apple Classroom

Apple Classroom is familiar to Bend-La Pine teachers, as it has been available for some time. The guide linked here provides all the information you need to get started with Apple Classroom. Common uses include:

• Monitoring all student devices at once, displayed on a single screen
• Locking iPads to a blank screen while giving instructions
• Locking an entire class or individual students into a specific app
• Managing small (ad hoc) groups of student devices

Apple Classroom is ideal for elementary classrooms or any classroom that doesn’t frequently require internet access.

JAMF Teacher

JAMF Teacher is a newer application for Bend-La Pine teachers and offers more restrictive controls than Apple Classroom. With JAMF Teacher, you can create a pre-determined digital lesson that allows access to specific websites and applications while blocking all others.

Use the instructions linked here to create your first JAMF Teacher lesson plan. JAMF Teacher is particularly well-suited for secondary classrooms that use online curricula.

For best results, we encourage both applications to be accessed from your iPad, rather than your computer.

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From Scott and Kayla in Safety:

School Resource Officer Update:

“We are excited to have our School Resource Officers and Deputies back working back in your schools with you this week. Please review the district’s SRO/SRD point of contact information and phone roster located in the Safety Resource share drive and reach out to us with any questions regarding the SRO program.”

Safety Training:

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.

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From Walt Norris, Custodial Supervisor:

Moving into the new school year the sustainability position is changing. Jackie Mueller-Wilson has taken a job with Deschutes County Solid Waste as a Community Outreach Coordinator. She will have some connection with the schools because of her position, mainly for support of the Green Team. 

The sustainability position has been refined, going forward we will be concentrating on three main objectives:

• Waste reduction across the district.
• A lunch waste/composting/recycling system for elementary schools
• A recycling program for secondary schools

The main focus this year is put our efforts into what we do as a district for sustainability. If we thrive on sustainability as staff, this will carry over to make the students thrive. The sustainability position will also support the Green team initiative and also the SEM’s (Strategic Energy Managment) program. Please continue with the Green Leadership Coalition through your schools and once the position is hired, we will work on the best way to support the Coalition. Best guess will be October to see the position filled.

Please reach out with any questions, I will do my best to answer or find someone that can, thanks

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From Sean in Special Programs:

iPads for your EA’s:

As a reminder, each inclusion EA in your building is issued a device (iPad or laptop) and needs to have read only access to Synergy SE, so they can review student IEPs.  Please check with your inclusion EAs and have them confirm that their Synergy SE access is working.  If not, please submit a help desk ticket to ensure they have access.  Thank you!

Special Education Staffing Update:

Each year, learning specialists provide our administrative team needs assessment, which help us staff your buildings.  We believe we have a good staffing plan given the available resources.  At this point, we have used all our staffing allocation to hire learning specialists, inclusion EAs, and other specialists.  This includes already using 50% of the discretionary budget to hire inclusion EAs for the year.  Before we look at any other staffing, we will need to wait until after we can verify all student enrollments, which should be within the first 5-10 days of school. After that, we will create a plan to support the sites with unexpected needs. Please remember that you can utilize your 70 hours (the “high needs” line item in your school budget) worth of funds to get a substitute. If you do end up using this option, it would be important to communicate with our team.

Thank you and I hope you have a great start of the year.

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

TAG ICCL at MS: Contact Stephen if you are having any issues finding an ICCL to take on TAG in your building.

Calendar

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

Last week we highlighted Julie Stroinski, Principal at Sky View Middle School, who selected Green Bay, Wisconsin as her happy place. (Editor’s note: Go Chiefs!)

This week we are highlighting Donna Servignat, Principal at Summit High School, who selected her kitchen in her new home! “…this is my happy place.  I love cooking, gathering around the dinner table, hosting gatherings.  Loving my new place and settling into a new happy kitchen!!!”

Thanks for sharing your Happy Place with us Donna!

Please email a picture and brief description of you Happy Place to Katie or Stephen!