Thank you for an amazing welcome back week! We are so impressed by the number of teachers choosing to be early adopters! That is a testament to your leadership and hard work!

Thank you all for your attendance at the Standards Based Grading Mini Conference.  Below is an electronic version of the 1-page handout.  On page 2 is a link to the folder of all of the slides from the mini sessions. Handout from Mini Conference 

To Do

MS and HS Principals: plan on sending out this SBGI letter: Family letter to your families by next week. Scroll down for the Spanish version and be sure to remove the MS/HS grade chart based on your level

HS Principals only: Please send this letter as well, regarding College Dual Credit: Family Letter – College Dual Credit (Spanish Translation should be ready within the week and will be added)

Feel free to add your school logo and your signature, but do not change the contents of the either letter.

MS/HS Principals: Teachers who are Early Adopters need to send this letter to the families for every class in which SBGI will be implemented. Scroll for the Spanish version.

Chris and I shared the SBGI district communication plan in our session Wednesday morning which includes letters, graphics and templates that may be helpful for schools and teachers. Here are the slides. We also included screenshots that may be helpful to share with families and students.

From Departments

Grades and Credit AR changes approved by School Board:

Changes to the Grades and Credit AR were approved at the last board meeting.  

During a bargaining session with BEA, it was determined the amount of time a teacher must have feedback in the gradebook (SYNERGY) from the time in which an assignment was due.  

Teachers are required to update their gradebook 3 weeks after an assignment was due to them. Thank you for reviewing this change with your teachers.

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From Sean Reinhart and Aimee Snyder:

$5,000 Budget Per School for Sources of Strength

Each school has the opportunity to receive $5,000 for operating Sources of Strength-Secondary for the 2025-2026 school year.  

Work with your Healthy Schools Public Health Specialist to develop a plan and budget that will aim to meet Sources fidelity by the end of the school year.  See the BLS Sources of Strength Budgets and Fidelity document with more details. 

Once schools have a plan/budget that will meet Sources fidelity, remaining funds can be used for other evidence-based/-informed suicide prevention efforts, such as timesheeting for coordinating school-wide Wayfinder lessons or school health teams that coordinate multiple positive, inclusive school climate activities over a 4-8 week time period. 

This is a two-year grant, specific to suicide prevention. Funds will not rollover. Unspent funds will be reallocated across Sources schools in the 2026-2027 school year and must be spent by the end of that school year.

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ICCL Reminder from Human Resources

We still have several schools who have not completed their ICCL hires for 2025-26.

• Please take a look at the ICCL Master List and verify the employees listed for your site are correct.
• If you need to hire, please follow the ICCL posting and hiring process (check-out line 281 on the ICCL Master List with ICCL Instructions).
• Any ICCL questions should be directed to Candy Gelatt in Human Resources: [email protected] or x1116.

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BLS School Counseling Program Updates for 2025-26

As we start the 2025-26 school year, we want to share important updates regarding our Comprehensive School Counseling Program (CSCP) and how you, as administrators, can be a support to the implementation of CSCP at your school. On August 27, BLS School Counselors gathered for a productive day of planning and collaboration. You can view their slide deck here to see the impressive work being done.

We are pleased to introduce the BLS School Counseling Handbook, a comprehensive resource designed for school counselors, administrators, and educational leaders. Inside, you’ll find:

• The mission, vision, and beliefs of our program
• District priorities and goals
• Roles of counselors and administrators
• Program design, implementation, policy and aligned practices
• Tools, templates, and practices for effective support

Here are the key expectations for this year:

• Complete School-Level CSCP Planning Template – due May 2026, outlining:
  • Annual Calendar – due Oct. 2025
  • Administrator Yearly Planning Conference – held by Oct. 2025
  • Student Outcome Goals (Tier 1 & 2) – due Nov. 2025 (these can be used as SLGGs)
  • Use of Time Study – by Apr. 2026
  • Tiered Program Supports (by domain & tier) – by Apr. 2026
  • Annual Data Review – by May 2026
  • End of Year Results Presentation – May/June 2026

Additionally, counselors will now track student interactions using Synergy’s MTSS Activity Tracker Module, moving away from Student Conference, to enhance access to school counseling data as we continue to develop our MTSS dashboard.

For your reference: School Counselors Professional Learning Calendar with Shared SIW and END Dates.

Wayfinder Updates:

​​We are hopeful to have the Wayfinder admin dashboards have more accurate data but Synergy is currently sending too much data through Clever to Wayfinder. I have put in a help desk ticket but in the meantime, you can edit your teacher list using the following steps:

Here is the helpdesk overview on How to Edit User Data on Admin Dashboards. 

• If you select “unclick content views” and only have “content completions,” then make sure to assign the workbooks or a collection as the featured content. 
• For counselors and support staff, please mark them as “content views,” not “content completion.”
• If there are people in the app that do NOT use Wayfinder, unclick both “content views” and “content collections.”

Other Resources:

• Staff Leader resource library: Staff slide decks, implementation ideas, mtss overview 

Student Success Intervention Updates

Student Success Coordinators/Instructors(Not Clinicians) will now track student interactions using Synergy’s MTSS Activity Tracker Module, moving away from the Synergy Intervention tab to enhance access in all interventions that students are receiving in one place as we continue to develop our MTSS dashboard. Here are the training slides from their PD day on the 27th.

We are excited to be moving forward with our Student Success Clinicians embarking on the Medicaid Billing endeavor! They were all trained on the SEAS Medicaid billing platform and here are the slides from yesterday. As a result of documenting the important clinical work that they are doing, our district can be eligible to be reimbursed for most of the vital services that they are providing.  

In light of these changes, it is essential that our Student Success Coordinators and Clinicians are receiving their weekly prep and case management time to ensure that they can engage in their documentation and provide care coordination for their students and families that they work with.  

For Full-time Elementary Student Success Certified Staff

• Case Management Minutes:  An elementary specialist has a scheduled total of no fewer than 215 minutes per week for case management responsibilities. This time is set aside in blocks of no less than 30 minutes for these responsibilities.
• Prep Time: An elementary Student Success Clinician is scheduled for a minimum of 385 minutes of preparation time per week. This time includes a period of at least 30 minutes per day, uninterrupted, within the student day for grades K-5.

For Full-time Secondary Student Success Certified Staff: 

• Case Management Minutes:  A secondary specialist has a scheduled total of no fewer than 215 minutes per week for case management responsibilities. This time is set aside in blocks of no less than 30 minutes for these responsibilities.
• Prep Time: A secondary Student Success Clinician is scheduled for no fewer than 300 minutes of preparation time per week.  Preparation time shall include at least one daily preparation period equal in length to a normal class period.

For your reference: Student Success PD Calendars 25/26 with Shared SIW and END Dates.

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From Paul Dean:

Animals on school grounds: We want to take a moment to remind school about our district practices with regards to animals on school grounds.  We do not have any district policy that prohibits dogs outside of school hours on our property.  ING-AR: Animal Visitors under Owner Responsibility reads:

• Owners walking animals on school grounds must follow city or county ordinances regarding leashing and sanitation. 
• Principals and their designees have the authority to exclude persons and their animals from play fields when he/she determines that there are associated health and/or safety concerns. 

Last year, we created and distributed one of the signs below to your school.  

We have created this Community Use Violation Notice [and here is a Spanish Version] that you may copy, edit, print, laminate and zip tie to your gate(s) when you are restricting public access by locking your gates.  

If you would like to order additional signs ($65 each), please submit a work order request along with a budget code.  Maintenance will collaborate with you regarding where to place your additional signs.  Please reach out to Dan Dummitt for further assistance with signs. 

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From Kayla in Safety:

SafeOregon has been updated and the entire admin team at each secondary school will receive emails and calls. Our new AD/APs at the comprehensive high schools have been added to callout list for SafeOregon. Additionally, now that all Deans are listed as APs they have been added to the callout list. 

Linked here are the Safe Oregon Protocols. All new admin were briefed at the New Administrator orientation. Reach out to Kayla with questions.

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From Gabe Pagano Director of Activities and Athletics:

August 25th-29th, 2025 – Weekly SMORE

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From Jess Calbreath, Lead Counselor

Counselor updates for August 29, 2025

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From IT:

Parents will be able to view schedules in ParentVue on August 29.

HS Only

By tomorrow, August 29: link your SIW plan to HS Admin calendar/planner

Calendar

September 3: 6th/9th grade only days!

September 4: 6th-12th grade students back to school!

September 11: HS Tier 2 Academic Intervention Team meeting 2:30 @ SHS

September 16: HS Administrator WS 9-11@ LPHS

Where in the World

Congratulations to our winner from last week: Paul Hutter. The answer was La Forchette, Lake Geneva, Switzerland.

Each week there will be an image of a landmark from someplace in the world. Any admin who responds with the correct location (be specific!) by Monday morning will be entered in a drawing for coffee/tea or morning beverage of choice to be delivered by Katie or Stephen. Note: This contest will be limited to MS and HS admin.

Here is the image for this week:

To Do

After the morning sessions on 8/27, please provide PLC/Department time for teachers to debrief their sessions. Here are some guiding questions you can use, or develop some of your own. It is important to have your teachers participate in this work as part of the entire day of training.

SSC, SSI, School Counselors, School Psychologists will not participate as they will be in training at Caldera HS all day!

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Look for an email from Lisa tomorrow with information on the new BLAST leave sheet and process.

From Departments

From TLC:

Curriculum Update 

We are working hard to get all the final curriculum purchased and deployed. However, we know that there will be a few curricula that fall through the cracks. Teachers will be able to see all the curricular tools that have been assigned to their courses here: https://instructionaltools.bend.k12.or.us/ . If you hear from a teacher that they do not have access to something they requested, they should check there first to see if it is deployed. 

We know that there are some teachers who have new requests due to a reassignment or now want a new curricular tool. Additionally, there are always a few tools that for no fault of the teacher, do not get deployed.   We have created a process to record their need and expedite the curricular resource. 

Here is a Google form that can be used to help us understand any missed curriculum. Please share with office staff who may be working with teachers in need of curriculum.

Health Curriculum textbooks, Live Well, will begin to arrive next week.  Northwest Text Depository has emptied their shelves for us, but it looks like they are a few short. Skyview and 3Rivers will arrive mid-September. Teachers and students will have access through Canvas to digital text.  

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Standards Based Instruction and Grading Mini-Conference

On Wednesday, August 27th all teachers and administrators will be meeting at PCMS for our SBIG Mini conference. Please encourage your staff member to take a bus from LPHS, BHSH, MVHS or CHS to alleviate parking issues.  We will have parking spots at PCMS, Miller Elementary, and Summit (for those who want a bit of a walk), but that will not be enough!

Also, please encourage staff to bring a device to access the Google Folder of presentations (available next week) and other resources. 

Here is the 1-page document that teachers will receive when they walk into PCMS. This is for your information, do not share with staff. Presenters are still working to load presentations into the folder. General information was in last week’s blog post. 

After the morning sessions, please provide PLC/Department time for teachers to debrief their sessions. Here are some guiding questions you can use, or develop some of your own.

SSC, SSI, School Counselors, School Psychologists will not participate as they will be in training at Caldera HS all day!

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From Ryan Kelling in HR:

Updated Requirement: Interviews for All Vacancies

In the past, Administrators and Supervisors were not required to conduct interviews when the number of applicants matched the number of vacancies. While this may have streamlined the hiring process, we have since identified it as a poor practice because it removes the opportunity to evaluate the applicant’s skills, knowledge, and ability to meet the demands of the role. This approach does not align with our commitment to selecting the most qualified candidates through a fair and thorough process.

Effective immediately, all candidates must participate in an interview before being considered for hire, regardless of the number of applicants or vacancies. 

This ensures that:

• Each candidate demonstrates proficiency and readiness for the role.
• We maintain a consistent, equitable hiring process across the organization.
• Hiring decisions are based on observable qualifications and competencies.

This shift strengthens the integrity of our selection process and supports our goal of bringing the most capable talent into every position. Please plan accordingly when scheduling your hiring process.

If you have questions about this change, please call me.

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From Jess Calbreath, Lead Counselor:

School Counseling Program Updates 

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From Gabe Pagano Director of Activities and Athletics:

Athletics and Activities weekly updates

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From Eric Powell in Student Services:

10-Day Inactivation Process to Attendance Staff

On August 27, your secretarial staff who input/track daily attendance will receive the following information regarding changes to our 10-Day Inactivation process. 

Here is a link to that information: 10-Day Inactivations

The key highlights for you to know about are:

*Synergy will auto-send attendance letters to families after a student has missed 6 consecutive school days (Unexcused or Unverified ONLY)

*Synergy will auto-send attendance letters to families after a student has been 10-day Inactivated

*Both of these letters request families to connect with the school to schedule a meeting focused on supporting the student return to school

*At days 3, 6, and 9, school teams are asked to designate a staff member to reach out to the family to check on the student

*If a student is 10-day inactivated, your school team can fill out a Request for Assistance to ask the District’s Tier 3 Attendance team for support with a Home Visit or family outreach

Thank you!

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Also from Eric:

The Synergy/Tier 1 Slides for your staff if you need them are LINKED HERE

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From Karen Rush with Ed Tech:

AI PD & Resources in One Place

Everything you need for the Artificial Intelligence PD is on the new AI in BLS website, including the full slide deck for your upcoming staff training, and the AI syllabus statement and Acceptable Use Scale, to be included in course syllabi. 

The training takes about 90 minutes. We’ve scheduled it during August in-service so staff can explore AI early, with the hope that leveraging it can help lighten their workload as the year gets rolling. 

There’s no need to be an AI expert. Just open the deck and guide your staff through it. The goal is to share accurate, useful, and timely information as we navigate the meaningful use of AI across the district.

Questions? Reach out anytime: [email protected]

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Specific note for TRS, SVM, BSH, CHS, LPH, and SHS

Over the weekend of Aug 16, student schedules from your school were inadvertently released to Canvas. This was not the fault of school staff. A misconfiguration in our system released these data prematurely. The issue was identified on Aug 18 and steps were immediately taken to prevent any further sharing of student schedules to Canvas. On Aug 19, our Canvas admins removed the student schedules from the Canvas environment. At this time, we are aware that some families were able to view schedules for their students. Those schedules were not finalized and have since been removed. We are now in a state where student schedules will become available in Canvas on Aug 28.

If you hear from a parent or guardian, please let them know that drafts were inadvertently shared and may contain errors.  Actual schedules will be available on Aug 28.  

This issue did not affect teachers.

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From Rachel Mavis in IT:

NEW Attendance Features!

L10 – New late (Tardy) code for Teachers and Office staff will use for students who arrive 10 minutes + after class start time.  In the past teachers have been required to use Absence Unverified. By using a super late code, the student will be marked in class – but super late.

ParentVUE Attendance – Parents will have the option to submit attendance through ParentVUE.  The attendance request will go into a queue, where the office staff will Accept or Deny. More details and information will be released soon.

MS Only

Please wrap up your part time schedules and share them with me this week!

HS Only

Cell Phone Policy: If you are interested in representing our HS team in a discussion, review, and feedback session regarding district policy for the new cell phone requirements, please contact Katie and Kinsey by Thursday the 21^st – today!  We would love to see at least one administrator from each high school.  We’ll reach out to folks after that to schedule the conversation.

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$ if you act fast:  You could claim $1,449.58 to use towards attendance incentives THIS year.  The first HS principal who emails me that they are committed to using the money to support attendance in 25-26, will receive the account code!

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The BLPO enrollment changes are in effect at the beginning of this school year.  HERE is the link to the guidance.

We are busy delivering congratulatory signs to students earning an outstanding exam score on an IB or AP exam or a Seal of Biliteracy.  If you are interested in helping to delivery these to the homes of our students, please reach out to Scott Maben.  The plan is to deliver them before school begins Sept 3.

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By August 22: Part Time Schedules should be linked HERE

By August 22: link/complete the inservice plan document and the teams/leads doc in the HS Admin calendar/planner

By August 29: link your school’s SIW plan to HS Admin calendar/planner

Calendar

August 25: Certified return to work

August 26: District Welcome Back – Virtual – 8:30-10:00

August 27: District PD Day

September 3: 6th/9th grade only days!

September 4: 6th-12th grade students back to school!

Where in the World

Congratulations to Julie Stroinski who won the drawing last week!

Each week there will be an image of a landmark from someplace in the world. Any admin who responds with the correct location (be specific!) by Monday morning will be entered in a drawing for coffee/tea or morning beverage of choice to be delivered by Katie or Stephen. Note: This contest will be limited to MS and HS admin.

Here is the image for this week:

To Do

1. Share syllabus requirements with staff
2. Submit 2025-26 BLAST Non Contract calendar to Stephen and Katie (VPs, submit to your principal. 
3. A new website and ParentSquare are coming! Complete this SURVEY for communications by August 1.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Please share this information with your teachers regarding August 27:

We are  excited to invite all secondary teachers and administrators to a special Standards-Based Instruction and Grading Mini-Conference at Pacific Crest Middle School on August 27 from 8:30 to 12:15, for the District Directed Professional Development Day. 

This engaging professional development event will begin with our keynote, “Instructional Pillars and What’s in the Box?”, followed by almost 20 choices repeated over three interactive sessions selected designed to deepen understanding of the SBIG framework. Participants will explore how proficiency in district standards—not behavior—drives grading, how feedback via rubrics empowers student learning, and how practices like the decaying average and reassessment opportunities support growth. Sessions will highlight practical strategies, technology tools, communication approaches, and ways to design assessments that truly measure learning. Join us to connect with colleagues, learn from expert presenters, and prepare for a smooth, impactful shift to Standards-Based Grading.

Due to parking concerns, buses will run from Bend Senior High School, Caldera High School, La Pine High School and Mountain View High School. Buses will leave Bend schools at 8:00, and La Pine High School at 7:45. We encourage you to ride the bus or carpool to the site. 

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After the morning sessions, please provide PLC/Department time for teachers to debrief their sessions. Here are some guiding questions you can use, or develop some of your own.

SSC, SSI, School Counselors, School Psychologists will not participate as they will be in training at Caldera HS all day!

From Departments

From Ryan in Human Resources:

Our New Certified Administrator Orientation will be held on Thursday, August 21 at North Star.

• Breakfast: 7:00 AM – Bend Breakfast Burrito will be catering; enjoy a burrito, muffin, coffee, and connection time with our new hires.
• Program Start: 8:00 AM

Any school or department that hired a new Certified employee is required to send a representative so that you can connect with that person/people, but all are welcome to attend, and we encourage you to join us in welcoming our new staff.

If you’re unsure whether your school needs to send a representative, please email me directly.

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From your Student Services Administrators

This was sent to all student services staff members today:

Welcome back to the 25-26 school year!

Please see the attached schedules for in-service week for returning certified and classified staff and new certified and classified staff.

New staff (certified and classified), you have additional onboarding, so please make sure you are looking at the new certified or new classified schedules.

ALL certified staff, the schedule for the District PD day is embedded in the calendar on August 27^th with a link labeled District PD Day.

If you have any questions, please reach out to [email protected].

We look forward to seeing you!

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From Scott in IT:

Greetings,

Our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) for student device use was updated during the 24-25 school year.  The new version is what our families are receiving in their enrollment materials.  I have linked the updated AUP here.  Sections that you may want to be familiar with include:

      • Grade 6-12 Insurance Device Damage and Loss Guidelines

      • Device Use

      •The Student Pledge

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From Kinsey – Policy, Advocacy, & Equity:

(HS Admin Only) Cell phone policy changes:

If you are interested in participating in a discussion, review, and feedback session regarding district policy for the new cell phone requirements, please contact Katie and I by Thursday the 21st.  We would love to see at least one administrator from each high school.  We’ll reach out to folks after that to schedule the conversation.

In the meantime, here are talking points you can use with your staff.  

Policy Notes:

Updated Attendance policy (updated per conversations and feedback throughout last year).  Please be familiar with the changes to procedures and responsibilities, share with your office and MTSS staff, and bring any questions to the September horizontal admin meeting.  Related: Employee Attendance policy–good reminders for all of us!

Updated Grades and Credits policy final version.  Feel free to share this directly with your teachers and counselors (secondary in particular), if helpful.  

Here are the reference slides from the policy training last April.  Topics/Guidance includes:

  -Law enforcement, student searches, DHS,

  -ICE (here’s additional ICE guidance),

  -controversial subjects (share the policy with your teachers),

  -parent requests for teachers, etc.  

Please share those reference slides with applicable staff, print, and/or bookmark as needed–you don’t want to be looking for these in a time-sensitive situation. 

Updated transportation policy: We updated the series of policies related to transportation.  One important change for you (and ADs/coaches):

Either we provide the bus, or students/families need to coordinate their own rides—employees, including coaches, should not coordinate groups of students with drivers of private vehicles.  Parent volunteers or team parents are welcome to coordinate with other volunteers, but district employees are not involved in non-district transportation arrangements. 

Related: field trip permission forms have been updated (all languages available on the Portal): please share with teachers and office staff.  

Have a recommendation regarding a policy issue?  Please use this form to suggest updates, request changes, identify gaps in policy language, etc. 

Looking for the policy that covers a particular topic?  Need help interpreting a policy for a particular situation?  Contact me! 

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From Kinsey – Policy, Advocacy, & Equity:

Here is follow-up from the complaint training this week.  Please save, file, or bookmark as needed (also sent via email):  

Flowchart for navigating complaints, policies, and timelines.  

Your Dashboard–put this in your Bookmarks Bar!  The link leads to your personal school-specific view (Smartsheet is magic).  

Form for reporting a complaint or a bias incident.  

• Available on the district website: ‘Engage with Us’ blue rectange –> Complaints
• Available as an app/icon on student and staff iPads
• Poster with QR code, for community spaces on campus (lobby, staff lounge, gym, stadium).  

Reach out to me if I can support any investigations or responses to complaints, bias incidents, or policy interpretation or decisions.  Triz is your go-to for employee issues that your admin team identifies directly (not a complaint brought to you by a third party), or for determining personnel actions if your complaint investigation has confirmed there was employee misconduct, policy violation, or performance issues.  

Appreciate your (competitive) engagement in the training.  I learned a lot about how to play Jeopardy!  I hope you learned a bit about complaint navigation.  I’d love any feedback on the training or this topic as it arises.  

Thank you~

 

MS Only

1. UPDATE: Part Time Schedules done by 8/22
2. Send staff-facing Admin team responsibility document to Stephen by 8/31
3. Fill out inservice week times in MS admin calendar/planner by 8/22
4. Fill out Teams/Leads by 8/31

HS Only

August 18, 2025 Counselor and HS admin meeting: Counselors and the admin who oversee the counseling department should attend this virtual meeting from 10-11. We’ll be reviewing key aligned practices that are especially important as we launch into the busy start-of-year season, including:

• Grades and Credit AR Review
• Partial Credit Updates
• BLSO Guidelines and Process with SmartSheet
• Expanded Options

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By August 22: Part Time HS Schedules should be linked HERE

By August 22: link/complete your inservice plan document and your teams/leads doc in the HS Admin calendar/planner

By August 29: link SIW plan to HS Admin calendar/planner

Calendar

August 21: New Teacher Work Day

August 22: Middle School Advisory Meeting – Ed Center Rm 312 – 11-1

August 25: Certified return to work

August 26: District Welcome Back – Virtual – 8:30-10:00

August 27: District PD Day

September 3: 6th/9th grade only days!

September 4: 6th-12th grade students back to school!

Where in the World

Congratulations to MacKenzie Groshong who won our first drawing last week!!!

Each week there will be an image of a landmark from someplace in the world. Any admin who responds with the correct location (be specific!) by Monday morning will be entered in a drawing for coffee/tea or morning beverage of choice to be delivered by Katie or Stephen. Note: This contest will be limited to MS and HS admin.

Here is the image for this week:

Important reminders

Safe schools training completion:

You may have questions about the time for staff to complete the mandatory safe schools trainings. This time is already accounted for so you do not need to designate more time for the completion of these trainings.

Evening events for certified staff:

Beginning with the 25-26 school year, certified staff may be required to attend three evening events. However, they must be notified 60 days prior to the event.

Here is the relevant language in the CBA:

15.4. Certified Employees may be required to attend up to one after-school/evening event in the remainder of the 2023-24 school year, up to two (2) after-school/evening events in the 2024-25 school year, and up to three after-school/evening events per year in the 2025-26 school year, such as graduation, family engagement events, open house, etc., and use the remaining time towards Safe Schools training, as contracted “Day 190”. Site administrators will communicate required dates to all Certified Employees no less than sixty (60) days in advance.

To Do

AI PD & Resources in One Place

Everything you need for the Artificial Intelligence PD is on the new AI in BLS website, including the full slide deck for your upcoming staff training, and the AI syllabus statement and Acceptable Use Scale, to be included in course syllabi. 

The training takes about 90 minutes. We’ve scheduled it during August in-service so staff can explore AI early, with the hope that leveraging it can help lighten their workload as the year gets rolling. 

There’s no need to be an AI expert. Just open the deck and guide your staff through it. The goal is to share accurate, useful, and timely information as we navigate the meaningful use of AI across the district.

Questions? Reach out anytime: [email protected]

From Departments

From Scott Maben (Communications):

I’m excited to share that we are building our new websites this summer, with a planned “go live” date of November 1. At the same time, we are starting to plan the launch of our new communications and engagement platform, ParentSquare, in the coming school year. We will share updates with you on both projects at our admin retreat in August.

To help us now, we need each school (Principal or designee) to complete the following form no later than August 1:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScSUMVGL3UMfY1YGPAYngJtDvEK4ATwrnxxwqOQhQMdfBXW0Q/viewform?usp=sharing&ouid=103087345545212921575

For ParentSquare, our goal is to complete all necessary training, onboarding and user orientation in the next six months, and go live with in January 2026 when we return from winter break.

To meet this timeline, we will need to provide basic training in use of ParentSquare for all staff members who have a role in communicating directly with families. This includes administrators, office staff, teachers, counselors, specialists, and family engagement roles.  After discussion with level leaders, it was determined that SIW time will not be an option for this training, we will develop a series of four short (20-minute) presentations that you can provide during staff meetings this fall. Every school will need to make time for these staff trainings in October, November and December to ensure everyone is prepared to make the switch to our new platform in January.

ParentSquare will be our approved platform for all communications – at the District, school, classroom and program levels. Several platforms (such as School Messenger and BLConnect) will be discontinued immediately, while others will be phased out over time. The strength of ParentSquare depends on consistent use and fidelity to the platform, and it will be critical for staff to refrain from using other apps or tools outside the suite of services we will have within ParentSquare.

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From Eric (Student Services):

IMPORTANT RESOURCE GUIDE: Here is a direct link to the 1-page Student Management Resource Guide: LINK HERE 

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From Tami Pike (Student Health):

To ensure a safe and successful field trip experience, review the Field Trip Checklist in advance.

It is essential to notify your school nurse at least two weeks prior to any field trip.

If a student requires direct nursing support during the trip, please complete the updated Request for Direct Care Nursing Services form at least two weeks prior to any field trip.

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From Kim Crabtree (Transportation):

Your school principal may receive an invite from Commute Options to meet.  Commute Options partners with us to help deliver education regarding safe walking/rolling to school. Commute Options has a great bike safety program (they provide the bikes/helmets).  We work closely with them to create safe walking paths to schools for our non-bus riders. Our department has hired an Active Transportation Coordinator (Michelle Rhoads) through a 2 year grant. The grant is very specific on where Michelle’s work must be directed (5 Title 1 schools). 

We hope to build a robust program district wide to support those that do not ride a bus. If you have questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to me. If you are looking for education for your students- Commute Options is your go-to at this time (we are happy to coordinate that for you also through them). 

Have a great safe start to the year!

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From Kinsey Martin (Policy/Advocacy/Equity):

Can you please share here the contact information for your school’s parent organization(s)?  

I would like to be sure your school’s parent/family perspectives are included in work like the re-design of fundraising policies, the development of a district family engagement calendar, and any trainings or activities they might want to participate in.  I don’t intend to spam them with lots of messages, and I’ll copy a member of your team in any messages I send, so you’re looped in.

Feel free to forward this to colleagues who have relevant info to provide for your school as well.  Let me know what questions you have.

MS Only

Deliverables

1. Part Time Schedules done by first day of school – Try to give Stephen a copy by inservice if possible
2. Send staff-facing Admin team responsibility document to Stephen by 8/31
3. Deliver TAG presentation information to staff inservice week (TAG admin and ICCL)
4. Share syllabus requirements with staff
5. Fill out inservice week times in MS admin calendar/planner by 8/22
6. Fill out Teams/Leads by 8/31

Calendar

August 14: MS/HS Horizontal – Caldera High School – 8-12

August 21: New Teacher Work Day

August 22: Middle School Advisory Meeting – Ed Center Rm 312 – 11-1

August 25: Certified return

August 26: District Welcome Back – Virtual – 8:30-10:00

August 27: District PD Day

Where in the World

This year we will have a twist on where in the world. Each week there will be an image of a landmark from someplace in the world. Any admin who responds with the correct location (be specific!) by Monday morning will be entered in a drawing for coffee/tea or morning beverage of choice to be delivered by Katie or Stephen. Note: This contest will be limited to MS and HS admin.

So, for week one here is the image: