Monthly Archives: December 2020

12.18.2020

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Welcome to the most anticipated winter break in recent memory! What an intense few months it has been! Just a few items for your consideration as we wrap up the week and prepare for a couple of weeks of rest from our hard work.

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TO DO:

Have an amazing and well-deserved winter break! Despite the travel and get-together limitations associated with COVID-19, I hope that everyone unplugs, relaxes, gets outside, and enjoys these next couple of weeks with an eye of optimism looking ahead to 2021!

(I will update this section on the back end of break and send a reminder)

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ON THE RADAR

Santa. He will literally be on the radar here. The Hallmark Channel. Activities and people that bring you joy. A good book or two. Relaxing music. Time to reflect and look ahead. Yummy baked goods. Zoom calls with family. A variety of beverages and spirits. And, hopefully, good times had by all . . .

(I will update this section on the back end of break and send a reminder.)

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SHOUT OUT . . .

. . . to our collective PBMS GIANTS community. As I am sure all of you are, I have been overwhelmed the last week or two, and frankly all of this fall and early winter, by the seemingly endless supply of energy and creativity that you bring to your work and to our kids. Your willingness to try new things, repeatedly head back to the drawing board, and share your learning with your peers has kept students and adults engaged and aspiring for more. And while not all of us are holding WebEx meetings with students on a daily basis, our staff who are behind the scenes are doing an amazing job supporting our students families and each other. Our collective mindset is one of resolve to make the most of what is possible given the circumstances, and I know our students, families, and broader school community feels it, so thank you!

Special thanks to Heather for all of her hard work organizing our gifts this year, and all of our staff who made this week festive and fun!

Happy birthday to our staff who have spent a lifetime getting “combined” birthday and Christmas gifts!

Letty Hellerud (12/24), Kristi Bourlai (12/27), Brett Brunner (12/28), Lisa Brooks (12/31)

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12.11.2020

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CALENDAR ITEMS:

  • Wednesday 12/16
    • Safety team meeting (9:00 am)
    • Staff meeting (2-3 pm in Stancliff’s WebEx)
    • Superintendent search public forum (5:00 pm & 6:15 pm) Click here for more info.
  • Thursday 12/17
    • Hybrid planning (3:00 pm)
  • Friday 12/18
    • Social (1:00-1:30)

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TO DO:

Teaching staff:

If you were not able to this week, please make sure that you have updated your Synergy grade book settings with the new scale that includes the P/NG. Click here for instructions. As we mentioned in grade level meetings, timely and accurate entry of summative grades into Synergy will allow us to update the new spread sheet that Mary created for tracking student progress.

In that same spirit, if you have an advisory class, please look for communication early next week around giving families an update before we head to break.

Please use this document that Mary sent out on Thursday to sign up to host one of the social activities. Stand by for protocols managing student behavior.

All staff:

Please work from home if you are experiencing any symptoms that could potentially be related to COVID-19. If there is anything you need from us in the way of support for working from home, please let us know.

Please continue to follow safety protocols when working here on campus, including wearing a mask when not in a private enclosed work space, social distancing whenever possible, and using the QR code to check in and out.  

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ON THE RADAR

For teachers that are new to Bend-La Pine Schools, remember there is a training on 1/13 from 2-4 pm that will focus on metacognition, Habits of Mind, and Habits of Interactions within specific academic disciplines. If you have questions please reach out to Dean Richards.

Our Hybrid Planning Team has met twice now, and we are working out site specific details in the following areas: 3 week rotations, classroom sanitation logistics, student movement in hallways, student movement in classrooms, adult movement in classrooms, library access, and staff collaboration. Our goal is to create a “quick-guide” for adults and one for students and families that summarizes what we believe will be best practices. We will also develop a schedule for sharing the information in advisory and other forums ahead of our return to a hybrid model.

Bend-La Pine Schools is participating in the Youth Truth survey after returning from the winter break. It consists of three components: student survey, staff survey, and family survey.  The student survey will be administered in Individuals and Societies classes. We will communicate with students, staff and families ahead of the survey administration.

Middle School Athletics will continue to follow the high school athletics calendar, which was recently updated to include 3 different seasons between Feb. 22 and June 11.

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SHOUT OUTs

Thank you to Val Overley for being a rock star! Her peers would want her and everyone else to know: “She has created endless hours of Canvas Videos for staff and students to help us navigate through all things Canvas. She is a super problem solver and is more than willing to find the answer to any question as she patiently walks us all through tech challenges. Not only is she a tech queen, she also writes and develops amazing digital learning lessons for her students. She is awesome.”

Happy birthday to the following individuals: Val Overly and Kim Crosby (12/13), Chuck Clair (12/14) Patty Brun (12/16) & Todd Brown (12/18) Enjoy your day!

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TOOLS & RESOURCES

Please refer to Scott McDonald’s emails from this week if you are continuing to experience issues with WebEx glitches. Here is the form to report issues to folks at tech.

Here is a link for District Tech Tips and Tools for CDL

Welcome to GIANT Connections!

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Over the course of this CDL year, I have found that my weekly preview/updates were becoming very information heavy, and often contained information to which staff would likely need to return. I hope that moving to this blog format will help you feel more connected and that it will be an effective resource and archive for our collective work. So feel free to bookmark this page and return as often as you need to. Thank you in advance for your patience as I explore the formatting and resources that this forum will provide!

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CALENDAR ITEMS:

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TO DO (This section of the post will include items that need your attention right away):

Teaching staff, please make sure that you are updating summative scores in Synergy as timely as possible. Data used in grade level meetings as well as for the creation of LIPI cohorts requires an accurate picture of where students’ progress is. This will also help families have a real-time picture of where their student is at in ParentVue. We will update our data dashboard at least weekly to capture your new entries.

Teaching staff, please make sure that all Synergy summative scores as of December 1 (it’s fine if you have already changed scores from before that date) align with the new district secondary grading practices. For us, this simply means that any zeros be converted to an M for missing or a 1. We will talk further as a school about how long we leave “missing” designations as such before changing them to a 1, but for now either is fine to replace a current zero.

All staff, please continue to follow safety protocols when working here on campus, including wearing a mask when not in a private enclosed work space, social distancing whenever possible, and using the QR code to check in and out.  

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ON THE RADAR (This section will be an FYI section that address miscellaneous items that we should be aware of as a staff. Feel free to forward me information you would like me to include. )

After break, we will have more opportunities for LIPI. Mary and our team have been hard at work contacting students and arranging transportation and meals for a group of 20 or so students from each grade level. We will host one weekly morning session for each grade level. (6th grade – Monday, 7th grade – Tuesday, and 8th grade – Thursday). The primary purpose of these sessions is to give struggling students some added support and accountability, but they will continue to engage with their regular courses through WebEx during their scheduled sessions. We will also have Math specific check-ins on Wednesday’s. For now, Matt Hodges will run all of these sessions except for the Tuesday session. If you have members of the community ask questions about how students are/were selected, please refer them to the admin or office staff. 

If you thought a PBMS social could not be pulled off during CDL, you have underestimated the creative powers of our WEB crew. More details on this next week . . .

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SHOUT OUTs (In any given week, you can forward me items to be included in this section)

This week, I would like to personally thank Amy Brunner for helping us maintain a consistently positive presence on our social media accounts!

I would also like to acknowledge all of the hard work that our team as done to provide LIPI opportunities. It is a big group to thank, but I would like to highlight the ambition and resolve that Deb White and Jennifer Horn have shown in supporting their cohort. It has been instrumental in helping Mary and I wrap our heads around expanding this type of opportunity for other students.

Our custodial team, led by Jessica Hillier, continues to do great work in preparing our building to receive students when the time comes.

A happy birthday for next week goes to Christy McWilliams! Enjoy your day!

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TOOLS & RESOURCES (This section will spotlight instructional tools and other resources that we can all benefit from. Feel free to pass tips along to me to include.)

Here is a link for District Tech Tips and Tools for CDL