Good Friday Morning Staff! I am thrilled to connect with you on the day before a much needed spring break. Two full rotations are in the books, and I just want to extend my thanks to everyone for doing their part to make it work as well is it could for our students and families. This post will be shorter than most with just a few reminders. My hope is that, in a few hours, your focus will quickly shift to whatever you have planned to make your spring break meaningful to you and your family!

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CALENDAR ITEMS:

• Monday, 3/29
  • Return to rotation A schedule
  • Fire Drill during advisory
• Tuesday, 3/30
  • Fire Drill during advisory
• Wednesday, 3/31
  • SIW (PLCs meet – menu of topics to follow)

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On the radar:

If you have reconsidered whether or not you would like to have a role in summer school initiatives and think you might like to participate, please fill out the survey here. It closes on 4/2.

In our SIW earlier in the month, I referenced an opportunity to have an informal equity listening session on Tuesday, 3/30 in the evening. With my candidacy for the position at Sisters still pending, I would like to hit pause for a moment, and will give you an update as soon as I can on rescheduling that opportunity.

TIME SENSITIVE OPPORTUNITY: If you are interested in joining Doug Reeves and his team at Creative-Leadership-Solutions as you work on a challenge, define a problem of practice, and test out interventions and ideas as you create an action research project, then sign up for the OSU-Cascades class.  It is a 2-credit class that is offered in Spring 2021 (see the syllabus for dates and course requirements).  Registration is currently open but will close on March 31st.  To register for the class, complete the registration and application form and upload them to this google folder. If you have attended a BLS-OSU Cascades class in the last 12 months, then you do not need to complete the application form.  There is an initial $35 application fee which will be billed by OSU-C once they receive your application. Additionally, we will compensate teachers for the five after school sessions (including May) and the time to prep for the May share out.  

If you have any questions, please contact Michele Oakes  ([email protected]).

Teachers, remember that we will hope to try and have scores entered for rotation B summatives by Friday, 4/2.

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SHOUT OUTS:

Thanks and congratulations to Karen’s work with Chinese culture club . . . and for Kelly Ye’s wonderfully creative and award-winning project!

Happy birthday shoutouts for break and the week after go to Jennifer Horn (3/20), Alisha Schmidt (3/21), Pat Roberts (3/30), Nicole Murphy (3/30), April McCarthy (4/1) . . . We hope you enjoy those Birthdays!

Good afternoon and happy Friday staff! I hope the week has gone well, and that rotation B has also gone as smoothly as possible. My guess is that many of you are being inundated with rumors and speculation about a return to having all students push back in. I have spoken to a few of you, but I do not have much, if any, intel beyond what you may have heard. What I do know, is that next week ODE will update the RSSL guidance and that will have a lot to do with shaping what spring looks like for districts across the state. Such guidance, as has been reported on, could include reducing the distance required for classroom seating and other interactions as well as overall square footage requirements for physical spaces. I hope that I will have more to report on this front headed into break.

In the meantime, I hope everyone will get out and enjoy the sunshine this weekend, and that we can recharge for our last week of rotation B headed into break!

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CALENDAR ITEMS:

• Sunday 3/14
  • Spring forward (set your clocks!)
• Monday 3/15
  • Virtual track meet (check in with Potts if you can help)
• Tuesday 3/16
  • Virtual track meet (check with Potts if you can help)
• Wednesday 3/17
  • All staff check in at 1:30 to review conference planning (In my WebEx room)
  • SIW (grade level teams) at 2:00
• Thursday 3/18
  • Stancliff out AM
• Monday 3/22 – Friday 3/27
  • Spring Break

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Staff To-Do’s:

• Please review the plan for the advisory schedule in the email that Mary sent
• Please review the list of your advisory students (if you have advisory) that received multiple NGs
  • Please plan to connect by phone with families to see what support they or the student may need and gauge how the feel the current rotation is going.
• For all families, we will have the first of our three SLGG related communications be focused conference information, and we will provide a script advisory teachers can work from for an email.

On the Radar . . .

Many of you have been inquiring about conference details. This is rapidly taking shape, and we will have a general information share prior to SIW on 1:30 on Wednesday in my WebEx room.

We still do not have any clarity over the testing standoff between the state and the federal government, but we will likely still have to send out some communication to families. When we do, that won’t necessarily be a signal that we are moving ahead.

Please use as much discretion as possible when referring to student information in an email. If information needs to be shared that includes a more than one piece of student information (name, assessment info, IEP information, other identifiable info) then this should not be sent via regular email. Generally, if any private information is needed to be shared we should be using BLS Send.

Initial enrollment numbers are out for fall of 2021. These numbers may flux depending on BLO enrollment, but as of right now we are looking at: 240 for 6th, 226 for 7th, and 192 for 8th.

Instructional technology has rebranded as BLS EdTech to avoid confusion with IT department, and here is their latest post.

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Shout Outs . . .

. . . to our team, which has been extremely generous in helping out when folks when guest teachers have not been available. Thank you so much for supporting one another!

Birthday love goes to . . . Shelby Paulson (3/13)!

Good afternoon staff! Thank you for another outstanding week of supporting students in this hybrid model. Everything we do takes a team effort, and it has been great to recognize our classified staff this week and the critical role they play in serving our students and families. Each of you bring unique talents and skills to our work, fulfill indispensable roles, and add value to our students’ experience. We honor and thank you!!!

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CALENDAR ITEMS:

• Monday 3/8
  • Incoming 6th grade orientation (5:00 PM in Stancliff’s WebEx, 6:00 PM for Spanish session)
• Wednesday 3/10
  • SIW 2:30-4:00 – Equitable grading practices with Doug Reeves (See the email from Lora Nordquist on 3/4 for the link)

(This is a departure from our previous plan for grade level meetings because we initially believed only ICCL leaders would be attending this presentation. This will push our grade levels back a week, but we will still push out lists of students with multiple no-grades to advisory teachers next week.)

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TO DO’s:

• Reach out to Mary or Steve if you have not had a chance to get a summative score entered for rotation A.
• You received a survey from Jim Boen about helping with summer school in early August. Please only fill out the survey if you are interested.

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On the radar . . .

Officer Schaier has been reassigned from middle schools and Bend Tech over to MVHS for the rest of the school year. He will continue to help us when needed in an as-needed capacity.

We are working out the logistics of conferences over the next few days but here are some things to expect:

• Students will prepare a guided slide show of their semester 2 progress to present to their parents
• WebEx conferences will be by invite/appt.
• Each teacher will create a 3-5 minute video that contains:
  • An introduction to you
  • How to best connect when needed
  • Overview of courses taught
  • Scan of the room
  • Highlights of important class policies
  • Overview of units taught
  • Tips on how to thrive in your class

We hope to have as many details as possible worked out by early next week, in terms of scheduling logistics and will subsequently update the back-to-school-docs folder. We will also do an information share in an upcoming SIW.

Shout out’s . . .

One more hooray for our support staff! Thank you for all you do!

Birthday love goes to Coach Mac and Mary Koike (3/12) and Shelby Paulson (3/13) Enjoy your birthdays!!