Month: March 2024

Do Now:

• Levy Presentations: If you haven’t yet signed up, please sign up for a levy presentation for your staff to better understand this upcoming ballot item.
• Vulnerable Students Commitment: To date, only 11 administrators at the elementary level have completed the commitment from our training on Wednesday. Please complete this now if you haven’t yet.
• Student Services Survey: One administrator per school needs to take this- Survey Link
• CPI training: Please let us know who will be attending and when you will attend HERE. As a reminder, Assistant Principals are asked to participate first if available.
• Relax and refresh this Spring Break! You deserve it❤️❤️❤️

Reminders:

• Please make sure you share this message with families regarding care resources during break.
• Take some time in the next week or so to complete your School Design Mid-Year Review.
• ECSE Information Update: Please review THIS GUIDANCE with your team as you make a plan for your site.
• Excellence in Education: Please refer to Ryan’s e-mail about Excellence in Education Nominations. Due by March 24th!
• TLC Update: March 6^th Elementary TLC Update
• Tentative BEA Agreement can be found HERE
• Inservice Week Certified work calendar for 24-25

New Notes:

From Jenny White: Life and Career Readiness

Support students to develop healthy personal boundaries through activities and discussions that promote self-confidence, character, and the ability to set and maintain boundaries in various contexts. Directions on how to find the collections on Wayfinder.

Direct Links: Kindergarten. 1st – 2nd. 3rd – 5th

From Tami Pike: UPDATED COVID-19 INFORMATION

The current supply of COVID-19 iHealth tests for BLS expires at the end of March. There has not been an expiry extension notice provided from the FDA. OHA will no longer be distributing free iHealth tests to schools. Unexpired COVID-19 tests can be obtained at a local pharmacy or through a health care provider. 

For more information on when to stay home due to illness, please visit the “Health Info and When to Keep Your Student Home” in the Bend-La Pine Schools website.

From HR: The HR Department is moving from the 3^rd floor of the Ed Center to the 2^nd floor (in the space previously occupied by HDESD).  Because of the move, our physical offices will not be accessible during the week of April 1-5, but HR staff will be available via phone (you may use our current extensions) and email throughout that time.

From Lora: First Aid/CPR Training District Reimbursement

To ensure that BLS meets the state requirement for staff ratios of current CPR/First Aid certifications, the district supports the following: 

• The school may assign staff to attend training during their regularly scheduled workday, in which case attendance would not be timesheeted;
• IF administration has solicited volunteers because their schools need additional staff with certifications, BEA staff who volunteer to attend training after working hours may timesheet 3.5 hours at the curriculum rate;
• IF administration has solicited volunteers because their schools need additional staff with certifications, OSEA staff who volunteer to attend training after working hours may timesheet 3.5 hours at their hourly rate.
• If more staff volunteer to attend training than the number needed to meet the ratio, the district will timesheet only the number of staff needed, in the order in which they signed up for the training. 
• For the 2024-25 school year, schools will use either their SIW or discretionary funds to make these payments. 
• Staff will code the 3.5 hours into UKG to “Other.”  The timekeeper would approve and code the hours to First Aid/CPR.  Before approving, staff will need to show their First Aid/CPR card from the district.  

From Tammy and Lisa:

Staffing Plans: These are coming out tomorrow morning to everyone. There shouldn’t be any surprises as we have met with all of you to discuss but if something seems incorrect or you’d like to talk through options, please reach out to either of us. We ask that these are completed by April 19th.

Transfer Interviews: We are targeting April 23rd for transfer interviews. There will be more information from HR coming soon with all the details for staff and we will share details with admin regarding location and times as soon as possible.

Erin’s Law: Child Abuse Prevention Month (April) is upon us. This is a friendly reminder that you need to let April Jorgenson know when you plan to teach your Erin’s Law lessons. As of today, she has received zero, nada, zilch, from anyone about the dates. Thanks for checking in with her.

Important Dates

• March 24: Excellence in Education Nominees are due!
• March 25-29: Spring Break—enter in UKG which days you will be taking as non-contract
• May 21: National Board Info Session 4:30-5:30 in board room
• April: Naglieri testing & SBAC for ELA
• April 2: Elementary Horizontal at Lava Ridge with Lava and High Lakes sharing, 3:00-5:00
• April 4: Central Oregon Job Fair
• April 10: Youth Truth Training 1-3 pm in the Board Room (all Elementary Admin)
• April 17: Office Staff training in the board room from 1:15-2:15.
• April 19: Staffing plans due
• April 23: Transfer interviews (Location and time TBD)
• May: SBAC for Math and Science
• May 30: School Counselor Celebration in board room 8-9:30

And finally…

Take note! Before you break out your green to wear on Sunday, some of your Irish colleagues would like to remind you that it is the Shamrock, and not the 4-leaf clover, that is associated with St. Patrick’s Day! Just a bit o’ trivia for ya thar!

Do Now:

• Kindergarten Orientation Night! Please put your date in THIS DOCUMENT, by March 15
• Job Fair: You rocked the sign ups—Thank you!!!
• New! Who and When are you taking the CPI training: Please let us know HERE
• School Design Mid-Year Review–see below

Reminders:

• ECSE Information Update: Please review THIS GUIDANCE with your team as you make a plan for your site.
• Excellence in Education: Please refer to Ryan’s e-mail about Excellence in Education Nominations. Due by March 24th!
• TLC Update: March 6^th Elementary TLC Update
• Culture of Care: Check out the Wellness Activities for Families!
• Tentative BEA Agreement can be found HERE

New Notes:

From Jenny White:

• The Wayfinder highlight this week is Restorative Circles.  In the TLC update there was a highlight on Restorative Practices so below are additional collections that will give you resources for your community connection time.
• Facilitate restorative circles that encourage dialogue, empathy, and understanding. This collection of lessons and activities can be used to provide a platform for conflict resolution, healing, and strengthening relationships within the classroom community.
• Directions on how to find the Restorative Circles in Wayfinder.
• Direct Links to Wayfinder’s Collection
• Kindergarten
• 1st – 2nd
• 3rd – 5th

From Lora: Here is the link to the Inservice Week Certified work calendar for 24-25

From Scott in IT:

Your giant Stanley Cup may be costing your school money!

We have been issuing teacher computers to all certified staff since 2006.  Eighteen years ago.  In each of those eighteen years, our breakage has been relatively flat.  That is, until January of this year.  For the first half of the school year, we had 4 teacher laptops turned in for non-warrantied damage.  Since January 2024 we have already received 18!  Eight of which the user reported that a (water) spill was the source of the damage.  

Your school or facility will now be responsible for the cost of any computer repair or replacement caused by damage or negligence.  Any money going toward repair is less money going toward necessary technology updates or innovation.

Now, we can’t officially link the cause of this uptick to the popularity of Stanley sippy cups that seems to have occurred at exactly the same time. However, it is quite a coincidence!   Please help us and your school by keeping any beverage on a separate surface away from your computer.

AI tools: AI tools are considered apps or services!  As such, both IT and Teaching and Learning need to be informed to perform the required Privacy/Security/Quality audit before they are put to use.  The details of this process can be found here.  

From The Whole Student Services Department:

The Student Services Team has been working all year to implement and support Positive Behavior Support Plans. We want to hear from you about your experiences and needs moving forward. Please take a few minutes to fill out the attached survey. We only need one administrator per school to complete it. Thank You!

Survey Link

From The Communications Department: Please make sure you share this message with families prior to spring break. We want to make sure our families have the resources for care during break when we are not available to support.

CPR/First Aid Training: Do it!

The district offers free CPR/First Aid training to all employees. The majority of the training is online with a 20 minute in-person skills check-off by one of our district instructors. Instructions on how to sign up for the class are below.

  How to Register for CPR/First Aid Training/Renewal Course for BLS Staff  in UKG

• Go to UKG 
• My Info (drop down menu, 3 stacked lines upper left side, above your initials) 
• My Career 
• My Learning 
• Access Learning (upper right side) 
• Training (top menu bar) 
• Courses 
• First Aid (on right side) 
• Click on First Aid Link  
• Click on green Enroll Now button 

Please contact Michelle Spetic if you have any issues signing up.

From Tammy and Lisa:

Registration: Dear Office Staff–We just want to make sure that as you are starting to help new kindergarten families and incoming families register for school, that we load all areas of the registration form into Synergy. Recently, we have discovered a large group of multilingual families that were not receiving services properly because sections on the forms were not put into the system. Super important we make sure our families receive all the necessary services for their child. Thank you for your help with this. Also, don’t forget, you are all (Office Managers and Secretaries) expected to attend the Office Staff training in the board room on April 17, from 1:15-2:15. Your admin will make sure the front office if covered in your absence–in fact, your admin may be the ones to do it!

Check out Sharezies: Thank you Patrick and Lybe for a couple of examples on how you are surveying your staff as to their interests in what grades to teach within your buildings this next year.

• Staffing Preference Survey
• What are you doing next year? Survey

Erin’s Law: Child Abuse Prevention Month (April) is upon us. This is a friendly reminder that you need to let April Jorgenson know when you plan to teach your Erin’s Law lessons. As of today, she has received zero, nada, zilch, from anyone about the dates. Thanks for checking in with her.

School Design Plans: While it is a little past mid-year, it’s not too late to pull up your design plan document and add in your notes of where you are at in working towards your goals this year. Are you on track with the activities, PD, and student growth you are hoping for? Do you need some thinking partners on how to create momentum? Are you knocking it out of the park and crushed your goal and are ready to adjust it? At your next ICCL meeting, you will want to do this reflection and take some time to talk about next steps.

Important Dates

• March 15: Kindergarten Orientation documentation due
• March 20: Admin PD at Perseverance Hall at Bend High 3:00-4:30
• March 24: Excellence in Education Nominees are due!
• March 25-29: Spring Break—enter in UKG which days you will be taking as non-contract
• May 21: National Board Info Session 4:30-5:30 in board room
• April: Naglieri testing & SBAC for ELA
• April 2: Elementary Horizontal at Lava Ridge with Lava and High Lakes sharing, 3:00-5:00
• April 4: Central Oregon Job Fair
• May: SBAC for Math and Science
• May 30: School Counselor Celebration in board room 8-9:30

And finally…

As we gear up to have one more week until Spring Break, take some time to focus on some Healthy Happiness! Share the love (and calendar) with your staff too.

Do Now:

• Please make a plan for Kindergarten Orientation. More info in Tammy and Lisa’s section.

Reminders:

• Job Fair: Please sign up for one shift at this link by Wednesday – March 20th. Job Fair will be April 4th from 1-6.
• End of Year Counselor Celebration: Please make sure you have scheduled at least one of your admin to be part of the counselor celebration from 8-9:30 on May 30th in the boardroom.
• End of Year Schedule: Now 6/5 will be an building discretion SIW and 6/12 will be a teacher-directed SIW. Please make sure all activities (even for those students who matriculate to a new level) are academic during our added days. This may mean that you need to move our celebrations to better send that message.
• Admin CPI VP target: Sign up HERE. 
• TAG Testing Timeline: Please make sure these dates are on your radar and you have a plan for testing at your school.
• ECSE Information Update: Please review THIS GUIDANCE with your team as you make a plan for your site.
• Excellence in Educaiton: Please refer to Ryan’s e-mail about Excellence in Education Nominations. Due by March 24th!

New Notes:

From Jenny White:

• Wayfinder Activities of the week are focused on commitment and growth mindset. Kindergarten: Intro to Growth Mindset. 1^st – 2^nd: Drawing, Dancing, Dialogue. 3^rd – 5^th: Intro to Goal Setting
• Principals and leaders here is an idea you could use for your staff from Wayfinder. Believe. Video that is connected to the lesson: The Olympic Athlete that Teaches Kids About Life Hurdles. In a community circle or small table groups after watching the video teachers can share one thing that helps them believe or keep going when they are faced with hurdles.

TLC Update: March 6^th Elementary TLC Update which includes:

• Restorative practices lessons from Wayfinder
• Movement moments
• Storyline Design course information

From Jennifer Hauth- StudentSafe Raptor Training: We have recently expanded our partnership with Raptor Visitor Management System to include one of their new products called StudentSafe. StudentSafe is platform to enter, collaborate, and track data round NSSI (non suicidal self injury), suicidal ideation (suicide risk screens). Eventually, we will use this platform for behavioral safety (threat) assessments for school teams as well. Stay tuned for more information this summer from Eric Powell.

On February 28^th, all School Counselors, Nurses, School Psychs and Student Success Clinician/Coordinators were trained in the new platform and will be using this tool for all Suicide Risk Screens and NSSI going forward. School risk screening teams will enter these screens into this system moving forward and we will all be able to better collaborate and track student safety concerns in buildings going forward.  You may have already received an alert in your inbox from a risk screen that has been completed in the last 10 days by one of your staff. The emails alerts will come from StudentSafe.

All building administrators have access to their school site(s) dashboards and data. Here is the BLS Raptor/StudentSafe Navigation Walkthrough document. Please make sure that you can log in to Raptor StudentSafe (using your district email address, no password required). Any administrator or building team who would like more training, or for any technology issues or related problems, please contact our district Suicide Prevention Coordinator, Jamie Gunter ([email protected]).

From Paul in HR: This week office managers received information from HDESD about subs and a change to 4 hour sub positions. They will now need to be entered in as 3.99 in Red Rover and they were instructed to watch for this through the end of this year. Check in with your office manager about these new practices for your awareness and reach out if you have questions, reach out to Tammy or Lisa.

From Julie: Regarding….clarification on disposal of Wonders Materials….Information went out a couple of weeks ago communicating to teachers to go ahead and send home Wonders leveled readers. I strongly recommend teachers keep the leveled readers as additional reading materials in your classroom libraries. Additionally,  I recommend keeping all of your Wonders and Wonderworks decodable readers as these are great resources!! Communication regarding anthologies will be communicated after Spring Break. 

From Dr. Cook: Potential opportunity for fifth grade students in the area of science and space!

From Tami Pike: Clarification/Update to Overdose Emergency Kits

Information was included in your blogs last week on the Overdose Emergency Kits. Questions have come up regarding kit placement locations in school buildings. Currently, there are 2 doses of Narcan in every AED cabinet in our schools. The emergency kit cabinets received from OHA should be stored as follows:

Elementary Schools (each received 1 emergency kit cabinet)

• 1 overdose emergency kit cabinet mounted to the wall in the school nurse’s office. 
• 1 box (2 doses) of Narcan to be placed in the orange front office first aid kit.
• All remaining extra Narcan doses received should be stored in the overdose emergency kit in the school nurse’s office. 

Please inform your staff about the locations of the additional doses of Narcan. Many staff received Narcan training at the beginning of the school year by their school nurse. For additional Narcan training, please connect directly with your school nurse to arrange a training time.

From Tammy and Lisa:

Although we still do not have a finalized copy of the CBA for BEA, HERE is the tentative agreement that was shared with all members in order for them to ratify. As questions arise, please reach out for clarification. It will be several months before everything is crystal clear.

There are a couple of new tools in SHAREZIES in the area of Testing Tools. Check them out!

Per our contract: No later than the first week of April, building administrators will convene their Kindergarten staff to develop a plan for transitioning students into Kindergarten. It’s that time of year again when we begin to talk about Kindergarten Orientation Expectations so, by the end of next week, (March 15) please meet with your Kinder team to determine how you will meet the expectations outlined in the document above. All spring orientations will be in May. As soon as you have a plan for your site, please add your date and description to THIS DOCUMENT. Our district communications team will use this for to communicate to families all through April. And, we are tentatively planning to do our kindergarten roundup with the bus at parks on April 20th. More on this in future updates.

Important Dates

• March: Prep for Naglieri
• March 15: Kindergarten Orientation documentation due
• March 20: Admin PD at Perseverance Hall at Bend High 3:00-4:30
• March 20: Sign up for Job Fair due
• March 24: Excellence in Education Nominees are due!
• March 25-29: Spring Break—enter in UKG which days you will be taking as non-contract
• May 21: National Board Info Session 4:30-5:30 in board room
• April: Naglieri testing & SBAC for ELA
• April 2: Elementary Horizontal at Lava Ridge with Lava and High Lakes sharing!
• April 4: Central Oregon Job Fair
• May: SBAC for Math and Science
• May 30: School Counselor Celebration in board room 8-9:30

And finally…

Do Now:

• Be glad February is over!
• Enjoy the upcoming weekend!
• Be on the lookout for your data on Friday! Between now and the time you meet, spend time digging into it, so you can speak fluently about the data with your ICCL team.

Reminders:

• CPI info update from last week: Sign up HERE.  Many of you have inquired about what is paid—it is all paid, the conference fee, transportation, hotel accommodations if needed, and meals. I know several of you have signed up for the April sessions in LA, as you indicated you wanted the training sooner and it is during conferences, so missing student contact time is minimal.
• TAG Testing Timeline: Please make sure these dates are on your radar and you have a plan for testing at your school.
• ECSE Information Update: Please review THIS GUIDANCE with your team as you make a plan for your site.
• Additional Student Services Staffing Requests: If your 70 of emergency EA time is gone, additional requests must be made by an admin. See last blog for details.
• Wonders Reading Materials At this time, we need to hold on to all TE’s and Anthologies. You should start sending home leveled readers after the close of a unit with your students. 
• February 21^st Elementary TLC Update

New Notes:

From Jennifer Hauth:

From Lisa and Tammy: It is our expectation that all schools with counselors send at least one of your admin to attend this celebration. The counselors present a lot of good information about the impact of their work and we should all be present to celebrate it. If you do not have a school counselor (yet) you are still welcome to come celebrate as well!

From Lora Nordquist: Here are two important items pertaining to the adjustment of the end of they year schedule.

1. Revised SIW Schedule. Because the week of June 10^th is now a full week, Wednesday, 6/12, will be an SIW. This changes the designation of our June SIW’s. Wednesday, 6/5, will now be a building discretion day; Wednesday, 6/12, will be a teacher-directed work day.
2. End of Year Activities. With the last two days of school being pushed to the week of June 17^th, the district’s expectation is that end-of-the-year celebrations (5^th grade or 8^th grade promotions, field days, etc.) be scheduled during these last two days. Additionally, the high school exam schedules should carry over to the 17^th, at least, or the 18^th. Full speed ahead with learning!

From Ryan Kelling: We are very excited for the 2024 Educator Job Fair, which will be held at Deschutes County Fairgrounds on Thursday, April 4 from 1:00 – 6:00 pm.

Please sign up for one shift at this link by Wednesday – March 20th. You will notice there are 2 shifts, 12:00-3:30 and 2:30-6:00. Please save the date and time to your calendars.

We are offering a remote component again this year in an attempt to attract a wider range of candidates. There is a spot on the sign-up sheet to indicate if you are interested in meeting with candidates via MS Teams. Kathryn Moseley will follow up as the event gets closer to those who indicated that they are interested in helping our efforts to reach a wider range of candidates by participating in the remote interviews.

Some nuts and bolts for the day:

• Lunch will be provided, more info to come.
• Interviews will be 15 minutes long
• Interview questions and rating forms and rubrics will be provided
• The first interviews will be scheduled at 1:00, the final interviews will be scheduled at 5:45
• You will receive training prior to starting
• Please bring a fully-charged laptop
• NO OUTSIDE FOOD OR DRINK PERMITTED

Please, let me know what questions you have and thank you in advance for participating.

From Nurse Tami Pike: On February 8, 2024,A 90-day state of emergency was declared by the Deschutes County Commissioners for the escalating fentanyl crisis in Central Oregon. As a response, all schools are being equipped with the following kits. Please follow the directions below for placement. If you have any questions, please reach out to your school nurse.

Overdose Emergency Kits. BLS received several Overdose Emergency Kits through OHA’s Save Lives Oregon Initiative. Each kit contains:  Administration instructions, 4 boxes of naloxone, 2 CPR face shields, and 1 emergency box for storage. Each middle and high school received two kits and elementary schools received one kit. 

Overdose Emergency Kit Location. Ideally, the Overdose Emergency Kit box should be mounted on a wall next to an AED cabinet so that it is easily accessible. However, this may not be feasible for your school site. Please consult with your school nurse about where the best location would be for these Overdose Emergency Kits. AED cabinets still contain 2 doses of naloxone. 

Overdose Emergency Kit Location and Expiration Date Information. Once the location of the Overdose Emergency Kits have been identified, the school nurse will add the locations and the naloxone expiration dates to our district AED Master Spreadsheet.

From Tammy and Lisa:

Important Dates

• Feb 27: 3:00-5:00. Elementary Leadership, at North Star Elementary
• Feb 28: Ed Network Day (see details above from Julie)
• March 20: Admin PD at Perseverance Hall at Bend High 3:00-4:30
• March 25-29: Spring Break—enter in UKG which days you will be taking as non-contract

And finally…

Are you having a bad day? Call: 707-8-PEPTOC. You won’t regret it! Really—do it!