To Do

To be completed by December 6th:

Please send the following communication out regarding parent contacting staff in your next parent communication.

Emailing Your Student’s Teachers

Dear Families,

We know how important communication is for supporting your student’s success. We encourage you to reach out to your student’s teachers anytime you have questions, need updates, or want to share information. For a quick and easy way to contact your student’s teachers, follow these steps in ParentVUE:

1. Log in to ParentVUE.
2. Click on the “Class Schedule” button within your student’s account.
3. Look to the right side of the screen, where you’ll see your student’s teachers listed in blue.
4. Click on a teacher’s name, and an email form will open, allowing you to initiate a direct message to that teacher.

This tool makes it easy to stay connected, and our teachers are here to support you. Whether you have questions, feedback, or just want to touch base, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

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Watch the webinar by January 5:

From Dave:

YouthTruth Survey

This year we will be giving the YouthTruth survey to staff, families, and secondary students. The survey window is January 6 – January 31. Please find a few minutes to watch this short kick off webinar (you can watch it on 1.25 or 1.5 speed).

Elissa, our YouthTruth representative will be emailing school on Monday, November 18 with instruction for accessing the Survey Implementation Guide. I will follow up with additional information and resources as we get closer to the survey window. Thank you.

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Notification sent to families by December 6:

From Dave:

OSAS Testing Annual Notices and Opt-Out Forms

The Bend-La Pine website has been updated with the 2024-25 fillable PDF annual notice and opt-out forms that we are required to share with families. There are separate notices and opt-out forms for ELA/Math testing (grades 3-8 & 11) and the SEED survey (grades 3-11). Please share these resources through your commonly used channels (e.g., School newsletters, parent emails) and have copies available for parents to pick up in the office by the applicable dates listed below. 

https://www.bend.k12.or.us/district/academics/academics-overview/oregon-department-education-resources

ODE English Language Arts and Math State Testing

Consistent with the requirements of ORS 329.479, ODE has developed an annual notice (available through ODE’s Test Administration webpage) that describes these assessments, identifies the timeframe when the assessment will most likely be administered, and identifies an adult student’s or parent’s right to excuse the student from testing. Districts and public charter schools must provide parents with the ODE-developed annual notice at the beginning of each school year. In addition, districts and public charter schools must provide parents with separate notice at least 30 days prior to administering the statewide summative assessments in Math and ELA using the ODE-provided 30-day notice and opt-out form (also available through ODE’s Test Administration webpage), or a district-created form that exactly reproduces the language of the ODE-provided form. School districts and public charter schools must use the language of the 30-day notice and opt-out form provided by ODE to communicate with all parents about state testing requirements and their right to opt out for high school students by January 5, 2025, and for students in Grades 3-8 by March 2, 2025. 

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Notification sent to families at least 5 days prior to administering the SEED survey:

From Dave:

ODE SEED Survey

Oregon law (House Bill 2656) requires each school district to make the SEED Survey available to students in grades 3-11. Parents or guardians may decline, either verbally or in writing, to have their student participate in the SEED Survey. Schools will provide parents with notice of administration and the process for declining participation at least 5 days prior to administering the SEED Survey. Students may also decline, at any time, either verbally or in writing to participate. Students may also decline to answer individual questions on the SEED survey.

From Departments

From Scott in IT

Synergy Mail Issue and Resolution

The latest update to our student information system included a change in Synergy Mail, which removed the ability for recipients (families) to reply directly to the sender (teacher). This change was intentional by the vendor but was not communicated to any IT teams or any of their 6,500 school customers nationwide. As a result, we were delayed in communicating the issue and providing a solution.

As of today, November 14th, our BLS IT team has implemented an in-house fix that restores the direct reply functionality for recipients of messages sent via Synergy Mail. We understand that this issue may have disrupted important communication between teachers and families. Please let me know if there is anything my team or I can do to support you in reestablishing communication.

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From Kinsey – Policy, Advocacy, & Office of DEI:

Bias Incidents and Hate Speech:

When does a student’s comment to a peer or text on a t-shirt invoke our policies around sexual harassment, bias, bullying or intimidation, and when is it something permissible or protected?  What if a student is using a hand gesture that is known to be a communication of hate or oppression?  How do you balance intent vs impact, political speech, and a culture of dignity and belonging focused on learning?  If you have a tricky situation, need some policy guidance, or just want a thought partner, please reach out!  If you’d be interested in a collaborative conversation with other building administrators on how to navigate these incidents right now, please email me so I can gauge interest and need.  

As a reminder, please respond promptly to any complaints or bias incidents reported, including circling back with the reporter at the conclusion of your response.  This is a powerful way to show your commitment to the wellbeing and dignity of each member of your school community.

Latino Family Night:

Please drop by our 7^th annual district-wide Latino Family Night if you are able (invitation here–feel free to share).  The Woodburn High School mariachi band will perform (pictured here), and there will be dinner, partners, games, and fun! 

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From Jen:

It’s that time of year again.  November 21^st is College and Career Day in Bend-La Pine Schools.  As with last year, we are looking to draw attention to the multitude of pathways available to students after they graduate high school.  This is a K-12 day!  We want all students to be dreaming about what options they have after they leave our schools.  

Here are a few things you could do at your site to make the day a success.  It would be great if classrooms or advisories could look to do something for just 10-15 minutes this day.

• Dress as a professional
  • Encourage students and staff to dress up as someone from a career they are interested in.  Remember there are a lot of great careers out there!
• Wear college colors
  • Encourage students to wear the colors of a favorite college.  Remember, college can mean community college, trade school, 4-year university, etc.  Be careful with wording here as college brand clothing can be expensive and prevent students from feeling like they can participate.  Colors are more inclusionary.  
• Consider incorporating videos or lessons bringing awareness to careers and colleges. 
  • Our 6-12 sites could lean into some of the activities in SchooLinks.  All secondary students have required activities to complete through BLS School Counseling curriculum and to complete their Educational Plan and Profile, so this would be a perfect opportunity to complete one of these required activities.  Consider onboarding all your students if you haven’t already done so.  Students are required to take a “Find your Path” assessment when first logging in that will jumpstart the college and career exploration process.
  • Wayfinder also has some great resources, especially their integration with Roadtrip Nation and their Future Ready Collection K-12. For middle school, these have been added for the week of November 18th as potential advisory lessons in our scope and sequence.
  • Here is a great website from the State of Oregon called Career Journeys.  There are amazing short videos, lesson plans and other activities any teacher could do.
  • Also available is the Career Connected Learning Central Oregon website which allows exploration of career paths close to home.
• Consider inviting parents from the community in to talk about their careers. 
  • This could be done in a variety of ways from assemblies, to advisory, to lunch.  You could also ask parents to submit a short video of them talking about their jobs and stitch them together for students.  Remember our visitor and volunteer requirements if you decide to invite parents in.

We hope you’ll join in the celebration.  Please send pictures of your participation to Becca Burda.  

Calendar

November 19: HS Assistant Principals work session – 8:00-10:00 @ BTA

November 21: College and Career Day! Send pictures to Becca

November 21: MS Horizontal – 3:00-5:00 @ Pilot Butte MS

November 25-29: Thanksgiving Break

Where in the World

Didn’t have a submission this week, so I am sharing this celebratory picture of our Administrator of the Year, Scott Olszewski:

To Do

From Student Services Leadership

Check-in with Health Teachers, Counselors, Sources of Strength Teams, and School Newsletters – Coordinated Suicide Prevention Efforts in Nov and Dec

We are aiming to coordinate a multi-pronged approach to prevent student suicides over the holiday breaks.  Please check-in with these individuals or support your Public Health Specialist to organize a School Health Team meeting to coordinate these efforts. 

• Health Teachers – Deliver their suicide prevention lessons and present these Help Resources for Students slides before the holiday breaks, in coordination with their counselors to assure any students with follow up needs are identified, assessed, and connected with help resources before breaks.  See the full message here. 
• Sources of Strength Peer Leaders (by way of your buildings trained Adult Advisors) – Promote crisis helplines and engage peers in identifying who they can go to for help over breaks and what Strengths they can use to cope with challenges over breaks.  See the full message here. 
• Counselors – Coordinate with Health teachers so that there’s a clear way to identify, assess, and connect students who need mental health support to help resources.  Counselors may need your help to protect their time so that they’re able to follow up with students who need help before holiday breaks. 
• School Newsletters – Include two suicide prevention messages in your school newsletters: one in November before break and one in December before break.  These messages will also go out in the district Family Spotlight and will be forwarded from your Public Health Specialist to you (or the person you’ve designated to compile your school newsletters) with a request to publish them.  

From Departments

From Kinsey – Policy, Advocacy, & Equity:

Post-Election Resources:

As the presidential elections wrap up, we should anticipate and prepare to support the strong reactions, emotions, and conversations our staff, students, and families will experience.  As leaders, it is our responsibility to ensure our staff are informed, equipped, and supported regarding 1) the expectations for navigating this significant moment in time in a professional manner, 2) the resources available to them as employees, and 3) the strategies for supporting students through their own processing.

Here is a message for staff—I highly recommended you send this to your staff soon.  You are welcome to copy and paste this message verbatim, modify it to reflect your voice/style, or send something else.  Just don’t be silent on this topic!

Equity Stance Brochures:

I am going to re-print the brochure versions of our district Equity Stance.  (You received one at our August administrator launch.)  If you would like some for your school (ICCL team? PTA? A stack for the staff lounge?), please let me know by Nov 8th how many you need.  

Holidays:

Here is our policy on religion and holidays in schools.  Here is our “Do not schedule” dates document.  Here is a team reflection and guidance tool on holidays.  Consider reviewing these at an ICCL meeting, and/or sharing with all staff.  

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From Becca in Communications:

Did you see the latest Family Spotlight? The newsletter is solely devoted to safety and includes a message from Dr. Cook, resources for safe firearm storage, information about SafeOregon, crisis and care resources, details about our latest safety improvements and more. It can be a go-to resource when families have questions about safety in our district. Bookmark the October 30 Family Spotlight and have it at the ready!

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From Triz delaRosa, our new Director of Human Resources – Workforce Relations:

Here is the updated certified evaluation document for 2024-25

Probationary and temporary certified staff: 6 observations (Goals, 2 formals and 3 minis)

Attached you will find two documents to help you initiate the process with your staff.  Staff should be receiving notifications regarding goal setting in UKG.  There will be an option for you to review their goals once they have been completed in UKG.  You should also be working toward completing one (1) formal observation by the end of November and a second formal observation by end of January (both to be completed in UKG).

Please note that you will also be completing your mini  (3) observations throughout the year in UKG.

Contract staff ON & OFF evaluation cycle year: 3 observations

• One goal setting (by December 1)
• Two instructional/non-instructional mini-observations (by May 15)

Contract staff ON evaluation cycle year (in addition to above):

• Self-Evaluation (by May 15)
• Summative Evaluation (by June 15)

There will be additional information coming to you, as we plan to have ongoing instruction on how to complete all the necessary steps timely, and how we can support you in UKG.

Again, I appreciate your grace and patience as we work through the development and refinement of the evaluation process.  I know this information is coming out late and creating a crunch, but we are focused on having this information out to you all much sooner next year.

Please let me know if you have any additional questions.

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From Paul in Operations:

Building leaders are to pause any program expansion proposals (academic, athletic and extra duty) that will impact your site/facility until further notice.  We are in the process of creating internal procedures that will identify that necessary steps that will need to be taken in order to ensure compliance with regulations (i.e. Title IX, permitting, accounting), district policies, contracts and address departmental impacts.

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From Scott and Kayla in Safety:

Scott and Kayla will be out of town next week, November 4^th through November 7^th at a conference. We will continue to monitor our emails, cell phones, and text messages to support as best as we can while out of the office. If you have any emergencies that require immediate attention, please reach out to our Chief Operations Officer, Paul Dean for immediate support.

We are happy to announce that we are not staffed at 8 School Resource Officers in the district. Our newest SRO is Officer James Ragland, who will be working out of Pilot Butte Middle School. Please use the updated SRO point of contact roster to see who your current SRO is for your school, and to reach out to any members of the SRO team for support.

Middle School Only

November Meetings: Time to sign up for a November visit. Just one time this month.  Please choose a date over the course of the month. FYI: Stephen will be out November 6-8 at a conference.  Here is my Calendly link or you can use Outlook directly.

High School Only

Thank you for welcoming our Internship Coordinators, Sarah, who serves LPHS and Renee, who serves our Bend schools, to your building! Please support them in onboarding our juniors and seniors into internship opportunities.

Calendar:

November 5: MS and HS Administrator work session – 8:00-10:00 @ Cascade MS

November 6-8: Katie and Stephen at Synergy Conference

November 7: New Course Proposals Due

November 11: Veterans Day

November 19: HS Assistant Principals work session – 8:00-10:00 @ BTA

November 21: MS Horizontal – 3:00-5:00 @ Pilot Butte MS

November 23-27: Thanksgiving Break

December 10: HS Administrators and Counselors work session – 8:00-10:00 @MVHS

December 23 – January 3: Winter Break

January 3 – Choice Options Schools/Area Change Requests open for 25-26 school year

Where in the World

This week we are highlighting Chris Boyd, Principal at Caldera High School. Chris shared, “while my normal happy place is disappearing in the woods on a remote hike, floating a river, or climbing a local volcano on skis in the snow, dancing with my Central Oregon Stars was so much fun. 

My dance crew is near and dear to my heart. Love my dance peeps! We helped raised 107K for the Sparrow Foundation in Central Oregon.” Check out the Fresh Funky Fly Girls and a Boy!

To Do

From Kinsey – Policy, Advocacy, & Equity:

Attendance policy:

Last call for any feedback on content as we update the attendance policy.  Reminders from our conversation at your recent horizontal meeting:

• The draft linked above includes all language from both OSBA’s sample and our current version.  We’ll weave them into one coherent policy, but we left all the language from both in order for you to review and give input on preferences regarding any/all of it.  
• Please share with relevant office staff and ask for their insights.
• Feedback we’re looking for:
  • Anything in this language that contradicts our preferred practices, or anything missing that we should add to capture current processes working well in your buildings;
  • Requests for training or procedural support related to this policy topic;
  • Please don’t make specific red-line edits—I’m just looking for your general thoughts on what’s helpful for you to codify in policy.
• Send your team’s feedback to Kinsey via email or phone call, by October 25
• Related to attendance: We’ll be offering an admin PD group to dig into best practices for home visits.  More on that soon!

Upcoming events and key dates:

Please mark your calendars for these events:

• District-wide 7th annual Latino Family Night:
  • Thursday, November 21st  5:30-7:30pm at MVHS
  • The Woodburn High School student mariachi band will be performing!  Come grab some dinner, check out their performance, and connect with families, students, and staff for some games and fun!
  • Invitation here.  Family Liaisons and Latino Family Advisory members will provide you with some copies, but feel free to share in staff and family newsletters.
• MAC Survey Day: This will happen sometime the week of Nov 11.  Please make sure your FAN Advocate can get in front of staff ahead of that week, to introduce themselves and remind about procedures.  Also, thank you for prioritizing your own time to claim an activity that day if at all possible.  Without you doing that, we can’t afford to have FAN Advocates in our schools (eek).
• LGBTQIA2S+ Alliance principal conversation:
  • Our Alliance group would love to connect with principals (or an administrator from each school) for some conversation and to learn about what you’re proud of at your school, as far as LGBTQ student/family supports, resources, and experiences they can seek out.  
  • Please plan to join us Tuesday, January 21st.  (I’ll remind you later—just mark you calendar 🙂)
• Reminder: 3 years’ worth of Holidays/”Do Not Schedule” Dates 

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From Scott and Kayla in Safety:

Please review the updated  AQI protocols on our staff portal. We have updated the AQI map resources for administrators to use to make real-time decisions on AQI readings near your schools. We will now be using the EPA Air Now Smoke and Fire Map or the Watch Duty AQI Smoke and Fire Map applications that provide real-time AQI readings.

We will also be forming a stakeholder committee to review the AQI thresholds for cancellation of outdoor recess, sports, and activities. We will use the feedback from that committee to make future decisions and potential updates to our AQI threshold levels.

The public facing district website AQI page will be updated with this information in the next few days.

Departments

From Becca in Communications:

Celebrate a successful start to the school year at Educators’ Night Out at the High Desert Museum!

Thursday, October 24, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

• New this year – join us for a special presentation for school administrators! We’ll share about upcoming grant opportunities and projects. Administrators will also have their own opportunity to win a raffle (we’ll even give you more tickets for each educator from your school you bring with you!)
• Delicious snacks from the one of the best chefs in Central Oregon – Luckey’s Woodsman
• Fabulous door prizes from local businesses like Bar Rio, Bend Pet Express, Greg’s Grill, Mountain Supply, and so many more!
• Register by October 22 here!

Middle School only

Horizontals: Based on your feedback we will be moving to one two-hour meeting a month on a Thursday from 3-5 starting in November. Additionally, the majority preferred walkthroughs for our additional time together. Stephen will be updating calendars and reaching out with details soon.

High School only

Upshift: Just a reminder to enter your data!

Calendar

October 22: HS Principal work session – 8:00-10:00 @ Summit HS

October 23: All Administrators Training – EWS training @ 3:00-4:30 BSHS Perseverance Hall

October 24: MS Horizontal – 3:00 @ Pacific Crest

October 29-31: Middle School Conferences

November 5: MS and HS Administrator work session – 8:00-10:00 @ Cascade MS

November 7: New Course Proposals Due

November 19: HS Assistant Principals work session – 8:00-10:00 @ BTA

Where in the world

This week we are highlighting Matt Kitchen, Assistant Principal at Mountain View High School and his Happy Place! Matt shared:  my happy place is on the water.  Fishing, boating, or just watching.  But the honest answer is that my happy place is who I am with.  This is a picture of me and my girls at a camp this past spring.  Being with people that I love and enjoy is my happy place.  

To Do

From Dean in Teaching and Learning

Our first Educator Network Day of the year is this Wednesday, October 9. Administrators are required to attend and support two of the four sessions. Please ensure attendance is taken at the session. Here is the LINK for information. Here is the LINK to taking attendance.

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From Lisa in the Superintendent’s Office

Consider applying to be on the district’s administrator advisory team. See this week’s Staff Spotlight for more specific information. The deadline is October 16.

Reminders/Action items:

From Jessica Houser in the Business Office:

This is a reminder that the deadline for submitting information regarding employees who missed work due to being in a level two or three evacuation zone between September 9^th and 17^th is tomorrow, Friday, October 4^th at 12pm.

If you have not filled out the Google From, please do so at your earliest convenance to ensure we have all the necessary information. Your input is important for us to determine the next steps for those affected. There is no need for your employees to submit additional forms at this time.

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

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Reminder: All staff will receive a link to our annual cybersecurity training and are required to complete this mandatory training by November 30. It will take approximately 30 minutes to complete and is crucial in helping to protect both personal and district data from cyberattacks. Principals, plan to provide one staff meeting between now and November for staff to complete this training.

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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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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 Dave Van Loo:

2024 Student Health Survey

Remember to pick a date between 11/4 and 11/22 to administer the survey to all of your 8th and 11th graders. Then, 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   

Information from Departments

From Jenn in Student Services: School Counselors, Student Success, and Principals

I hope the school year is going well! On October 9th, we will be adding an additional Student Safe training before Educator Network Day (END) at 2:45 pm. For the week of October 7th, please work with your building admin to adjust your prep and case management time accordingly over the course of next week to allow for you to leave the building early, including travel time. Caldera will have dismissal at 2:15 so please plan to arrive by 2:10 pm.

2:15 – 2:45           Student Safe Training in Caldera Auditorium

2:45 – 4:00           SIW/END Caldera Auditorium

Timesheets are available for elementary SSCs and counselors from 3:15 to 4 pm and it is optional for you to stay past your contract hours. SSIs, Jen Goodman has communicated a separate plan with you about your training for the day. Please reach out with any questions.

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From Tracy in Instructional Technology

Digital Citizenship week is October 14-18, an annual campaign to promote healthy, balanced, and positive approach to media and tech use among young people. Here are some handy resources. 

• Common Sense Education: Digital Citizenship lessons and Teen Voices short videos
• Wayfinder: Digital Citizenship lessons found in Activities Library, filter to grade level   
• Digital Citizenship Kahoot! or search and filter to find one that best fits your needs 
• Visit our Instructional Technology blog for more, including resources for families 

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From Jess Calbreath in Teaching and Learning

Our BLS Financial Aid Information Night is coming up in two weeks! We will have one event in Bend at MVHS and one in La Pine the following week at LPHS. 

Please share with all your 12^th grade families.

Here is communication in both Spanish and English that you can use to spread the word via newsletters and post on your socials. 

****Once again, there there will be a separate Spanish Speaking Financial Aid night later this fall that is planned in conjunction with Kinsey and her team.  This is noted in the communication linked above****

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From Becca in Communications

We are excited to introduce Canopy, Bend-La Pine Schools new Employee Assistance Program (EAP) provider!

Canopy EAP services include mental health support, counseling, behavioral coaching, digital tools, and resources to help navigate life and work – from financial coaching to gym and pet insurance discounts – Canopy’s mission is to create happier and healthier lives for employees.

Canopy services are free, confidential, and available to ALL district employees and their family members. 

Learn more about Canopy and how to access their services on our district’s Benefits website.

Middle School Only

Conferences: As a reminder, the schedule for conferences this fall is: Wednesday 10/23 – Teacher Work SIW (planning for Tuesday 10/29 conferences), Tuesday 10/29 – School day & evening conferences after school (4 hours), Wednesday 10/30 – Teacher work day (8 hours) and conferences in the evening (4 hours), Thursday 10/31 – all day conferences (8 hours), no evening conferences, Friday 11/1 – Non-work day.

Please let Stephen know if you have any questions.

Calendar

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

October 9: Educator Network SIW Here is the LINK for information.

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

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

October 22: HS Principal work session – 8:00-10:00 @ Summit HS

November 5: MS and HS Administrator work session – 8:00-10:00 @ Cascade MS

November 7: New Course Proposals Due

Where in the World

This week we are highlighting Jessica Gambee and her Happy Place! Jessica shared: My happy place would be any summer adventure, particularly near or on the water. I love camping and exploring new places with my family. This is a picture of my kids paddle boarding on Elk Lake, in a rare moment of getting along.

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!

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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

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!