Welcome
Hello and welcome to the first joint Middle School/High School communication, The Secondary Blog! Katie and Stephen have teamed up to create one central place for all things related to secondary education. From now on, you can find all your middle and high school news here.
If you read multiple level leader blogs, you may have noticed that much of the information is similar. We’ve decided to capitalize on that and consolidate everything into one convenient source. When information pertains to only one level, it will be clearly marked with either a High School or Middle School header.
Thank you and have a great weekend!
Important Docs:
Here is the BEA CBA.
Here is the OSEA CBA. This is currently an internal document. Please do not distribute.
To Do:
1. Tracking attendance and enrollment: Your office staff has been asked to track student attendance during the first week of school. Please support your staff to ensure these tasks get completed as this allows us to have a clearer picture of our enrollment. Please contact Rachel Mavis with questions.
- By Monday, 9/9/2024, if a student has not shown up to school, the student will be No Showed, unless a parent called in to excuse the student.
- For excused absences, students will remain enrolled up to the 11th day of absence, then they will be No Showed.
- For all students who miss the first days of school, then show up, office staff will be required to change enrollment and class start dates to reflect the date the student arrived. OAR 581-023-0006
2. Flex Time: If you are a school using Flex Time this year, please schedule a time with Rachel Mavis for your leads to get trained.
3. New Synergy Gradebook: (REPEAT) As you may remember, we have transitioned to the newest version of the Synergy Gradebook this year. Consider it like a software update for your phone. The functionality remains mostly the same but there are some new bells and whistles and they may have moved where you find something. Laura Clark has put together a slideshow for staff that shouldn’t take too long. Please find a way to go over this with teachers. Leaning on a staff member who gets tech may be a good approach. Laura has already shared the slideshow, “Synergy New Gradebook Highlights,” with last year’s Canvas Support Team.
4. Please share with your teachers (From Instructional Technology): Exciting news! This fall, BLS is providing full featured MagicSchool AI accounts to all staff and students. Generative AI platforms were the most requested items during the instructional tools request process last spring. Please spread the word!
MagicSchool is an AI platform designed for educators, with a large suite of tools that help with building lesson plans, writing IEPs, differentiation, ideating more engaging lessons, communicating with families, and more! MagicStudent, the student facing side of the platform, accompanies teacher accounts.
BLS is currently piloting MagicSchool but funds have been earmarked to purchase for any staff who would like to continue with their full featured ‘Enterprise’ account after October, which offers much more than the free version. Getting setup is simple using MagicSchool login instructions. Please contact Tracy Howk and Robbie Faith for AI support, staff training, and anything else related to instructional technology.
5. Bias Incident Student Lessons (From Kinsey): Early this fall, please reserve time at a staff meeting, PLC, or SIW for your staff to review the Bias Incident student lessons and prepare to teach them. In response to ongoing feedback and engagement with staff and students, Equity Coaches are refining prior years’ lessons. We’ll push out the 24-25 lessons to you within two weeks. I’d sugget aiming to have those completed across your building by October 25 latest. More to come—for now, just a note so you can plug this into your staff collaboration calendar.
FYI
8/28 Resources: Below are links to the two sets of presentation slides from the classroom teacher district professional development on 8/28. Additionally, here is a video taken from the MS session in the morning. The content was the same for both MS and HS so it will work for any teacher who missed this training.
Backwards Design with Katie Lyons
Standards Based Grading with Chris Burghardt
Additionally, here are the two surveys we asked staff to complete.
PD Evaluation (please only fill out if you attended)
Logistics of the new blog: If you still need to access information from the High School Rock Stars! blog, it will be available at the previous webpage. The previous two Middle School posts can be found on this site. Please bookmark this webpage moving forward.
Tabs at the top: Katie and Stephen will be working to get information important to you linked on the pages at the top of our blog. You will notice the tabs align with our strategic initiatives document. This is a work in progress and we will be adding links weekly. If there is something you’d like to see in these, let Stephen or Katie know.
FYI from the Departments
From Jenn and Jess: Here are the slides and documents from training this week.
Wayfinder:
Thank you to all the admin that came to our training on Monday. Here is a flyer that highlights all that is new since last year.
School Counselors:
Here are the agenda and slides from their full day training on August 28th. Jess also created this awesome resource sheet for all things school counseling to help them easily access program updates/reminders as they begin the school year.
Student Success:
Here are the agenda and slides from their full day training on August 28th. The coaches will be focusing their support on our 8 new Student Success Coordinator/Clinicians in the next week.
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From Eric Powell, Ted Helton, and Jason Westmoreland, your Code of Conduct and Synergy Team!
The Office Discipline Referral (ODR) form has been redesigned to simplify the form and align with the new reporting system. Typically, this form is used by staff who do the discipline data entry for administrators (an administrator may fill out this form and then give it to a staff member to put into Synergy).
Here is a link to the Live Google Doc we’ll use moving forward for this document (BLS ODR: 24-25). Please get rid of all your old ones you may have laying around. It will also be linked via the Student Management Resource Guide under the Investigations document (within that tab): Investigations (Student Management Resource Guide).
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From Kinsey: Equity Lens and Stance
Many of you have reached out to get copies of our district Equity Stance (the brochure you received at our admin launch) and the Equity Lens sticker. I’m having more printed so you can distribute, but in the meantime please remember: these materials are always available to you on the Portal under the Equity Tab (along with other resources like the current CAFE Program members list, etc). You’ll see the electronic version of the Equity Stance there, and at the end of that document is a link to the triangle Equity Lens tool that you can print for staff. Let me know if you can’t find something!
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From Lisa: Evaluations
Here are the expectations for certified evaluations that Lisa shared this week. Just a reminder that your Deans should be assigned mini observations and evaluations to complete. Please call if you have questions.
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From Paul in Operations: ODE Facility Site Visits
This is an important FYI that requires no action by building leaders.
ODE has signed a contract with Bureau Veritas (BV) to assess all school facilities. For partnering with them we (Bend La Pine Schools) will receive a comprehensive report detailing photos of system and component level deferred maintenance, assessor recommendations, cost to repair/replace system or component, cost to replace entire buildings, facility condition index, total gross square footage, observed Remaining Useful Life (RUL), ADA assessment findings and life safety deficiencies.
Please click on this Schedule of Visits beginning September 9th and continuing through November 1st to see when people will be visiting your school. Please note that BLS was assigned this schedule and was not offered input as to its timing. BV contractors will work with the BLS Maintenance and Custodial Departments to be on site visually inspecting facilities. School administrators are not required to attend the walk-through.
The information gathered by BV/ODE will be integral to Bend-LaPine Schools next Site/Facilities process in determining your schools’ facility’s needs.
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From Scott and Kayla in Safety:
Based on feedback our team has received, we are excited to provide opportunities for safety related professional development in the new school year. We are working on a survey that we will send out in a couple of weeks that we would like your feedback on the things you as administrators need to support the safety programs in your schools.
We will be asking you to identify one administrator on your team that will be the “go to” person for safety in your school. We will then be selecting 4 days that work for those identified individuals to meet with us, your campus monitors, and the SROs to work together on those identified training areas.
More to follow in a couple of weeks, but we wanted to get this on your radar so that when we send the survey out, it doesn’t blindside you to the request to select that individual. Please take time to think about areas of training you’re interested in receiving (i.e. reunification process, incident command for emergencies, standardizing campus monitor roles and responsibilities, etc.)- the more information we get from you, the better we can serve your needs!
Thank you for all you continue to do to keep our schools safe, and we look forward to working with you as the school year begins.
High School Only
From Jackie: Please share this with your Activities Directors, the advisors who oversee your environmental clubs, green team leaders and your CTE and science teachers. HS students are interested in increasing renewables and learning more.
Power Your Future: Inspire your students to lead clean energy solutions
The U.S. Department of Education has launched the Power Your Future Challenge — the second challenge in its annual CTE Momentum series to prepare high school students for rewarding careers and increase access to career and technical education. The Department invites teams to submit action plans that will advance the use of clean energy in local schools and communities.
To get started on the challenge, teachers and community partners can explore the available resources to learn more about clean energy and how teams can develop action plans to impact their communities. Potential entrants can also preview the submission form. Submissions are due by November 19, 2024. Up to 10 winning teams will receive an equal share of the $50,000 prize pool.
To learn more about the Power Your Future Challenge, register to attend the September 10 virtual information session, and sign up to receive the latest challenge information via email.
Middle School Only
Sign up for visits in September: Stephen would like to have each school sign up for TWO one-hour time slots for visits in September. It would be great to have them spaced into the first half of the month and the back half. Here is my Calendly link or you can use Outlook directly.
TAG ICCL at MS: The ICCL (TAG) role will be integral in enhancing our support for TAG students and ensuring that our practices are in line with our district’s high standards.
Please request to post this job in UKG.
The responsibilities of this new position will mirror the existing ICCL efforts, but with a targeted emphasis on TAG professional development and systems. This means that the individual in this role will be dedicated to fostering growth and improvement in our approach to identifying and servicing TAG students.
Key responsibilities include:
- Attending monthly meetings with district TAG leadership to strengthen existing systems and stay informed on best practices.
- Gaining deeper insights into identifying and servicing TAG students.
- Developing strategies for differentiation in the classroom to better cater to the needs of gifted learners.
Additionally, the person in this role will serve as a crucial conduit for TAG processes and services, ensuring that all staff within our building are well-informed and equipped to support TAG students effectively.
We believe this new position will significantly enhance our ability to provide exceptional educational experiences for all students by adding enrichment to our classrooms.
Reach out to Stephen DuVal for more information about the specifics of the role.
Calendar
September 3: First day for 6th and 9th graders
September 4: First day for all students!
September 9: Students who have not yet showed up to school should be no-showed
September 10: MS and HS Principal meeting @ MVHS 8:00-9:30
Where in the World
Stephen started this with the MS blog a couple weeks back and we’d love to keep it going. Each week, we’d like to highlight a place that is important to one of you. Past highlights included La Quinta, CA for Stephen and Phil’s Trail for Sean Keating. Please send Stephen or Katie a picture of a place important to you and why it’s important. We’ll have a spotlight each week!
This week we are highlighting Julie Stroinski, Principal at Sky View Middle School, who selected Green Bay, Wisconsin as her happy place. (Editor’s note: Go Pack Go!) Julie said,”My place that brings me (mostly) joy is Green Bay, Wisconsin. Despite never living there, it feels like home and reminds me of family. I have fond memories of my extended family summers there. Football is a big part of my family culture, and there is always something magical for me about this spot. ‘How can you not be romantic about football!?'”
