Conferences are on the horizon and every teacher feels some level of anxiety over this event. Here’s an easy checklist to help teachers keep the main thing the main thing. If our schools can say, “Yes!” to the bullets below, we’ve done a great job during conferences.
Did the parent feel that the teachers:
- have their child’s best interest at heart
- get their child
- don’t judge them
- have empathy for any difficult situations
- are approachable and won’t get defensive.
- are flexible in creating solutions that meet the needs of their child.
- include them in helping their child succeed. (But they don’t feel like it’s all falling on their shoulders.)
- will help their child succeed
Do Now:
Title Budget Due 10/13: Please let Meryll know when it is complete!
UKG: Confirm Staff assignments in UKG by going to My Team>Employee Assignments. Use this google form to identify the corrections needed at your site. Due by Monday 10/16.
School Schedule: Share it HERE. Make sure that these have clearly defined PE minutes and that your classified supports have breaks and lunches. Due by Wednesday 10/18.
New Notes:
From Lisa and Tammy:
- Common learning topics: We are noticing that several people have similar needs and there may not be enough time during our scheduled meetings to get the learning to you. In order to get info to those who may have specific needs, we will be having hour-log sessions periodically on specific topics like budgeting, long-term siw planning, SLGGs, data access and use, etc. Look for these dates coming up in the future and if you have specific ideas, please let us know.
- School visitations: We are altering our schedules slightly to have a week with individual visits, a buffer week, two weeks of joint visits, and then a buffer week. We have noticed that as things get rolling we have had to make adjustments along the way. We will still notify you of when we are coming your way but have a bit more flexibility with times.
- Upcoming horizontal: At our next horizontal, you can plan on digging into personnel scenarios as well as behavioral scenarios together with colleagues. As we share more, we learn more! Jewell and Silver Rail will also be sharing.
From TLC: October 11th Elementary TLC Update
From Curriculum, Instruction and Systems-Julie:
Important: Please put the following in your family newsletters before conferences
Would you like to learn more about EL Education-the finalist for K-5 Language Arts Curriculum?
A sample of physical materials will be on display at each Elementary school during conferences (in the front entry) the evening of October 25th and all day on October 26th.
This information is currently being translated into Spanish. I will share as soon as I receive from Linguistic Links.
- The Math Curriculum Review Team members will be reaching out to you to share new learning with your staff. Please allow them at least 15 minutes, or more if you are able to present to staff before January 12th. They will do another between January 25-April 9 and one between April 22-May 31. If you do not have a representative, an Instruction Coach will be reaching out to you.
- At Fall conferences we are required by Senate Bill 1003 to provide a parent notification for any Kindergarten student who was “well below benchmark” as measured by Acadience (DIBELS) in the area of early literacy skills. Here is a link to the process and the letters. Refer to Julie’s e-mail regarding student names.
From the Office of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion:
- Halloween costumes: A reminder to be thoughtful as you prepare for any staff or team costume themes: avoid cultural appropriation or offensive caricatures or stereotypes. Some examples here. LEAD/Equity Coaches have shared with your school’s DEI-ICCL rep some resources for talking with students about this issue as well.
- International events and increased awareness: Please keep extra eyes and ears out for anti-Semitic comments or incidents right now. Our Jewish community is deeply impacted by recent international incidents and have indicated concern for increased bias incidents in this regard. Thank you for swiftly interrupting and reporting anything of this nature.
- Upcoming Office of DEI events: Thurs, Nov 16th: Our annual district-wide Latino Family Night will be November 16th at Pilot Butte Middle School. Dinner 5:30pm, Opening 6:00pm, Sessions 6:30-7:45pm. Please join us to welcome and connect with your Latino families! Feel free to invite your staff and families directly.
UKG Information:
- What to do in UKG when staff is out for training: Staff MUST submit a Time-off Request for ‘School Business’ Leave. This will not affect their accruals in any way, but it does help the district track employees who are not in their regular position. This Time-Off Request should NOT be overridden in the timesheet with a Secondary Job if it is in their regular work day.
- IF the employee works later than their regularly scheduled time, only then must they add an additional line to their timesheet in UKG, on the date of training, and add those hours, selecting the appropriate Secondary Job and include a GL code if necessary. Staff should not modify any existing lines on their timesheet.
- Instructions on how to properly record this time in UKG see the following document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/18HfaYzpt_IseySx-FE5fpl3XFUwQwMoyP4-KoVN-ABk/edit?usp=sharing
- Admin UKG To Do List
- Additional Note: When subs are needed to cover a staff members job, while they are away for training, notations of where that sub needs to be charged must be noted in Red Rover, not UKG. Red Rover is a separate system which needs this information to ensure costs of subs are accurately tracked. Red Rover does not talk to UKG.
Conferences and Seesaw:
- Have teachers review their list of connected families and be prepared to help those who still have not connected
- Have teachers print copies of the instructions on how to connect and help parents sign up on the spot
- Follow up with teachers afterward about families still needing to connect. Work together to reach out again
- Want more information or Seesaw how-tos? Check out this document
New to Sharezies: If you want to check out pre-formal observation tools, take a look at some additions from Juniper and Pine Ridge. Elk Meadow created a tool to house the goals that were written during SIW this week. The new TAG folder is shared as well.
Reminders:
- Title:
- Safety:
- Fire Inspection Document
- Update the drill tracker and the drill evaluation form in your schools google safety resources folder following drills
- HR:
- SLGG Tools: You may have staff use this google form digitally or print version.
- SPED:
- Student Services (SPED) Coaches Roles and Responsibilities
- Monthly REQUIRED inclusion EA Trainings: Contact Krista Hough or Stephanie Smith for info
- Prevent, Teach, Respond information, PTR Facilitators Guide
- MTSS Tier 3 process
- TLC:
- Any Wayfinder bright spots? Please let Tammy or Lisa know for the team to observe
- Most recent TLC Update
Important Dates:
- Oct. 13 Title 1 Budgets due to Meryll
- Oct 24, 3:00-5:00. Elementary Admin meeting 3:00-5:00, at Jewell, with Jewell and Silver Rail hosting
- Oct. 25, 3:00-4:30 Monthly Administrator PD at Perseverance Hall at Bend High (UKG!)
- Oct. 25 & 26: School Conferences
- Oct 25-27. Tammy and Lisa out at a PBIS Leaders Conference
- Oct. 26: Additional CPI Training (paid by SPED for Inclusion or SPED teams)
- Nov 2-3 ASIST training. Reach out to Jamie Gunter with questions
- Nov. 15 School Design Plan Template due
And finally…
A reminder that you can’t have rainbows (2!) without a little rain! Thanks for sharing Elk Meadow!
