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 6th 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!
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.
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.
