To Do
Yearly Evaluation Notification (more info below as well): All staff members should be notified annually as to what evaluation cycle they are on and what they can expect to experience regarding eval process. We believe most of you, as site administrators, already have this practice in place but if you don’t and you need some templates, please feel free to use the e-mail templates listed below. This is also a good time to notify the member if you plan to address any standard that is not part of the abbreviated list in their End-of-Year evaluation. Questions on your list of staff? Reach out to Triz and Jessica Lamay- they have been coming to sites to walk admin through the tools as needed. Annual Evaluation Notification Templates
Admin ALL PD: Take a moment and complete the feedback form for our Admin PD yesterday. Go ahead and list me ([email protected]) as the facilitator and call it Admin ALL PD 10/1.
The first Educator Network Day is Wednesday October 8. Here is the info for sessions and admin assignments for Oct 8.
Your support is key to the success of this day. This is what support looks like for our teacher leaders:
- Arrive on time to the session
- Support the teachers leading the session – assist with whatever they need
- Make sure teachers sign in and are accounted for – use the attendance QR code. Probably easiest to print and bring a copy yourself.
- Actively participate the entire time of the session (model what we expect of staff and you will learn along the way, as well).
Mark Your Calendars: 8th grade CTE Fly Up will be Tuesday, March 3rd.
From Departments
From Operations:
Annual school fire inspections start next week
Bend Fire & Rescue will begin its annual fire inspections October 9 for all schools in the city’s coverage area – everything but our Sunriver and La Pine schools. The Bend city fire inspections are scheduled to run through November 7. Jim Scott, Building Services Manager for Bend-La Pine Schools, will notify each school’s principal and office manager of its inspection date the week prior.
From Ryan in HR:
We are excited to announce the first iteration of mid-year orientation and onboarding for new hires, beginning Thursday, October 23 and continuing every other Thursday for the remainder of the year.
These sessions are designed to ensure our new employees enter their roles feeling confident, connected, and supported. Each orientation will include:
- Payroll, Human Resources, and Policy: An overview of organizational practices and role-specific information.
- IT Support: Small group time to set up single sign-on and other key systems.
- Union Introductions: Opportunities to hear from OSEA or BEA, if their position is represented.
- Role-Specific Training: A half-day dedicated to job-specific skills and expectations.
- For school-based staff, Level Leaders will take the lead on this portion.
- For non-school-based staff, HR has collaborated with Directors, Assistant Directors, and Supervisors to develop tailored plans.
Important Note: All candidates who accept a position after Friday, October 10 will not be permitted to start work until they have attended one of these orientations.
This new process reflects our shared goal of ensuring that every employee starts their journey with Bend-La Pine Schools on strong footing, well-prepared to contribute and thrive.
Thank you for supporting this important step in welcoming our newest colleagues.
Please connect with Ryan with any questions.
From Eric in Student Services:
If an Administrator at your site does not have Synergy discipline access (to enter Minor or Major incidents into the discipline module), would you please Email Eric Powell to let them know who needs access to the discipline module in Synergy?
We are working with IT to schedule a discipline module training for any administrator who needs this access and want to determine whom to invite to this potential training.
If you don’t know what the “discipline module” in Synergy is, then you probably need this training!
If you can create Student Incidents via this screen, you are good to go:
From Kinsey – Office of Policy and Advocacy:
Dignity and Belonging: Community Engagement
Here is the Bingo card from our leadership meeting. Please keep a copy throughout the year that you cross out as you go.
This spring:
- completed copies will go into our raffle for some great prizes!
- we will share the number of leaders from each school/dept who completed the full Bingo, and celebrate the creative ways your team engaged with the community in this process.
Community Visit #1: The Giving Plate sign-up. The dates for this tour/visit are coming up, so sign up soon!
Here is our home visit guidance. Feel free to share with staff as applicable, and ask your Liaison or FAN Advocate if you can join their next visit.
Animals on Campus
Thanks for the conversation on this topic at horizontals recently. As a reminder, any animals on your campus must be approved by you. Policy here. Quick reference:
- If service animal for staff: direct them to Benefits.
- If service animal for student: contact Student Services.
- Therapy animal, classroom pets, or other visitors: request form here, principal approves/denies.
- Parent bringing animal at pick-up or school activities: this is prohibited.
From Triz in HR:
As we keep cruising through staffing updates, your Evaluation Rosters might not be perfectly up to date yet. If you spot anyone who shouldn’t be on your site list—or someone who’s missing—please email Jessica Lamay with the names to remove/add. Thank you!
What “ON-cycle” means
Contract staff marked ON-cycle were flagged because either:
- we do NOT have a finalized summative in UKG from last year (24-25), or
- they’re returning to the regular schedule from the 2023–24 cycle.
If something looks off, it’s often because last year’s steps weren’t fully finalized and the item is still pending in the system.
Quick checklist (2 minutes!)
- Open UKG → To Do and complete/submit any evaluation steps sitting at your stage.
- If an assignment still looks incorrect, reach out to Jessica Lamay and Triz so we can verify and update as appropriate. We appreciate you helping us keep everything clean and current—your attention here makes the whole process smoother for staff and students. 🙌
Linking Files:
Once you’ve dropped your files into the shared site folders
Please be sure to link them into the correct column of your workbook.
See steps in the samples below:
- Click to select the file you are attaching in the workbook.
- Click the ‘chain link’ icon to copy the link to that file -OR- Ctrl/Command+C.
- Click on the ‘File Chip’ in the corresponding row and column for that employee/eval piece. Ctrl/Command+V -OR- Right mouse click, then click Paste, to attach the file.
- Tab -OR- click on the file name pop-up (as above) to complete the attachment.
- File is attached.
From Scott in IT:
It is Cyber October once again!
Beginning next week look for tech info, tips and tricks both in the blog and in your email as we recognize Cyber October.
We will also be bringing back the “Phishing Derby” with some even bigger prizes for reporting suspicious emails.
From Gabe in Athletics and Activities:
Here is BLOG for this week: September 29th-October 3rd, 2025
From Jess Calbreath:
Here is the counseling BLOG for this week.
From Sara in Student Services (repeat):
MS Only
From Dean: We are now past the point in time where the iReady assessment can be used for bypassing a grade level. We will open the window again in the spring for next year.
We have our first round of admin walkthroughs 10/7 at 1:30 at Sky View. Team 1 is Anne Marie, Darla, Dave, and Julie.
HS Only
Here is the plan for the HS admin assignments for the END sessions.
Please remember to link the slides for each of your BD SIW sessions under the SIW planning tab in the HS Admin Handbook.
Proposals for new courses are due November 6. Proposals will be reviewed the following week and building leaders will be notified if they are approved and will be added to the district course catalog. Use this link to submit a proposal.
It is necessary for our students taking college dual credit courses through COCC to use DUO to access their accounts at COCC. DUO is the college’s multi-factor authentication tool and is required for students (both College Now and Concurrent) to access their COCC accounts and services.
Once students are no longer able to use their cell phones in January, they will need to access DUO on their iPads. Thanks to Tracy Howk, t is now available! TO DO: Please share this with your college dual credit teachers. Reach out to Katie or Tracy if you have questions.
Please review the important information about modified diploma processes and expectations highlighted in the Special Edge for this month. If a student is approved to be on a modified diploma and is taking modified coursework, this must be reflected on the transcript using a particular course code.
Bonus question this week. Email Katie the answer to this question correctly before Friday at 3:00 and get your name entered into next week’s drawing: What are the six “to dos” that must be completed prior to getting an out of state trip approved?
Calendar
October 7: Secondary Admin Tier 1/UpShift work group – 9-11 @ CMS
October 7: MS Admin Walkthrough (Group 1) – 1:30-3:30 @ SVMS
October 8: Educator Network Day
October 16: TAG Admin/ICCL training (MS only) – 3:30 – 5:30 in the boardroom
October 23: MS Horizontal – 3-5 pm @ LPMS
October 29-30: MS Fall Conferences
WHO in the World??
Congratulations to our winner from last week: Becky Aylor for guessing the strange creature highlighted in the blog last week! It was a hagfish! Did you know that the hagfish can make enough slime equal to 400 times their own volume!? Ewww..!
So Katie went rogue last week! I’m going to keep with the theme and mix it up with WHO in the world. Any admin who correctly identifies the person (bonus points if you can state what happened on October 2nd for this individual) 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:
