What an amazing welcome back celebration on Tuesday! So fun to see the variety of ways your schools chose to shine during your 20 seconds of fame and what an incredible team we have. I laughed so much—I’m sure it was with you and not at you! It’s going to be a great year!
From Tammy
Staffing: We are now where we are waiting to see who shows up the first two weeks to determine if there are areas that are dire and need to be problem solved. Some of you have classes that are at the ratio or slightly over and we are aware of that. I know it is hard to be in that place and appreciate your positivity with your staff who may need that optimistic lens right now.
Community Connections: We have had several community organizations reach out with field trip ideas, music connection opportunities, and more. Here are links if you want to learn more. As always, follow our visitor policy for having guests come by our school to visit the classrooms.
Sunriver Music: They have funds to sponsor “Mindful Music Moments” for 6 more schools.
Schillings Garden Market: They have fall field trip ideas at their amazing farm.
Veterans of Foreign War Auxilliary: They are available for interactive patriotic conversations with students about the flag and Patriot Day (Sept 11).
Certified Evaluation Process: Yesterday you received an email from Lisa Birk and Sarah Barclay outlining the expectations this year for certified evaluations. See the plan here.
I want to point out a couple of changes that tighten up our processes that are critical to employee support. First, is a very important timeline with probationary teachers and formal evaluations. The first formal evaluations need to be fully completed by the end of November (before Thanksgiving break), with the second rounds being fully completed by the end of January. This timeline is important in that we have to make recommendations to renew or not renew contracts by mid February.
The second is that some of the domains and standards that are being evaluated are different ones this year. That said, if an administrator has a documented existing concern about a certified staff member’s performance in ANY standard or domain on the evaluation system, or if a concern surfaces during this year, the administrator may include the applicable standard/domain in the evaluation of the certified staff member. The staff member should be formally notified of this focus on additional standards/domain as soon as the concerns appear. If at any time, you have a concern about an employee’s performance or professionalism, please make sure you loop me in on the concern.
Julie and I will be creating a SLGG document soon to share with you that contains plug and play SLGGs. We heard loud and clear how helpful this will be. Stay tuned!
First Week: It is my goal to get around to every school next week on either Wed, Thur or Fri. I will not expect to sit down and have a conversation with you, but rather just have a quick face-to-face to let you know how much I appreciate you!
Action Items
- Update staffing plans every day please (for one more week).
- Please read this information on having a successful partnership with Kids Inc.
- Have an amazing first week!
Important Links
- Tier 1 Expectations
- Personal Electronic Device Expectations in English, en Español
- School Issued iPad Expectations
- Assurances for Learning
- Sample Main Schedule with Assurances
- Priority Standards (Critical Areas of Focus)
- Investigations Powerpoint is now in the slide decks above.
- August 28th Elementary TLC Update!
Notes from our Team:
From Scott and Kayla in Safety : Based on feedback our team has received, we are excited to provide opportunities for safety related professional development in the new school year. We are working on a survey that we will send out in a couple of weeks that we would like your feedback on the things you as administrators need to support the safety programs in your schools.
We will be asking you to identify one administrator on your team that will be the “go to” person for safety in your school. We will then be selecting 4 days that work for those identified individuals to meet with us, your campus monitors, and the SROs to work together on those identified training areas.
More to follow in a couple of weeks, but we wanted to get this on your radar so that when we send the survey out, it doesn’t blindside you to the request to select that individual. Please take time to think about areas of training you’re interested in receiving (i.e. reunification process, incident command for emergencies, standardizing campus monitor roles and responsibilities, etc.)- the more information we get from you, the better we can serve your needs!
Thank you for all you continue to do to keep our schools safe, and we look forward to working with you as the school year begins.
From Eric Powell, Ted Helton, and Jason Westmoreland, your Code of Conduct and Synergy Team!
The Office Discipline Referral (ODR) form has been redesigned to simplify the form and align with the new reporting system. Typically, this form is used by staff who do the discipline data entry for administrators (an administrator may fill out this form and then give it to a staff member to put into Synergy).
Here is a link to the Live Google Doc we’ll use moving forward for this document (BLS ODR: 24-25). Please get rid of all your old ones you may have laying around. It will also be linked via the Student Management Resource Guide under the Investigations document (within that tab): Investigations (Student Management Resource Guide).
From Robbie and Tracy in Instructional Technology: MagicSchool AI is here!
Exciting news! This fall, BLS is providing full featured MagicSchool AI accounts to all staff and students. Please spread the word! MagicSchool is an AI platform designed for educators, with a large suite of tools that help with building lesson plans, writing IEPs, differentiation, ideating more engaging lessons, communicating with families, and more! MagicStudent, the student facing side of the platform, accompanies teacher accounts. BLS is currently piloting MagicSchool but funds have been earmarked to purchase for any staff who would like to continue with their full featured ‘Enterprise’ account after October, which offers much more than the free version. Getting setup is simple using MagicSchool login instructions. Please contact Robbie Faith and Tracy Howk for AI support, staff training, and anything else related to instructional technology.
From Julie Richards (formerly Walker) in Curriculum, Instruction, and Systems: Please communicate with your staff that the Dreambox Launchpad (placement screener) is open, and students will need to take this assessment the first time they are on Dreambox. We are asking that 1st-5th grade classrooms complete the Launchpad assessment by September 30th and K classrooms complete the assessment by December 2nd. This information will also be communicated in the TLC Blog.
From Paul Dean: ODE Facility Site Visits This is an important FYI that requires no action by building leaders.
ODE has signed a contract with Bureau Veritas (BV) to assess all school facilities. For partnering with them we (Bend La Pine Schools) will receive a comprehensive report detailing photos of system and component level deferred maintenance, assessor recommendations, cost to repair/replace system or component, cost to replace entire buildings, facility condition index, total gross square footage, observed Remaining Useful Life (RUL), ADA assessment findings and life safety deficiencies.
Please click on this Schedule of Visits beginning September 9th and continuing through November 1st to see when people will be visiting your school. Please note that BLS was assigned this schedule and was not offered input as to its timing. BV contractors will work with the BLS Maintenance and Custodial Departments to be on site visually inspecting facilities. School administrators are not required to attend the walk-through.
The information gathered by BV/ODE will be integral to Bend-LaPine Schools next Site/Facilities process in determining your schools’ facility’s needs.
From Jennifer Hauth in Social Emotional and Mental Well Being:
Wayfinder: Thank you to all the admin that came to our training on Monday. Here is a flyer that highlights all that is new since last year.
School Counselors: Here are the agenda and slides from their full day training on August 28th. Jess also created this awesome resource sheet for all things school counseling to help them easily access program updates/reminders as they begin the school year.
Student Success: Here are the agenda and slides from their full day training on August 28th. The coaches will be focusing their support on our 8 new Student Success Coordinator/Clinicians in the next week.
From Rachel Mavis in IT re: start of the year attendance procedures in Synergy
Hello! I am working with the school office staff to track student attendance during the first week of school and this is what the plan will be. Just wanted to make sure you were all in the know.
- By Monday, 9/9/2024, if a student has not shown up to school, the student will be No Showed, unless a parent called in to excuse the student.
- For excused absences, students will remain enrolled up to the 11th day of absence, then they will be No Showed.
- For all students who miss the first days of school, then show up, office staff will be required to change enrollment and class start dates to reflect the date the student arrived. OAR 581-023-0006
From Kinsey – Policy, Advocacy, and Equity:
Bias Incident Student Lessons: Early this fall, please reserve time at a staff meeting, PLC, or SIW for your staff to review the Bias Incident student lessons and prepare to teach them. In response to ongoing feedback and engagement with staff and students, Equity Coaches are refining prior years’ lessons. We’ll push out the 24-25 lessons to you within two weeks. I’d suggest aiming to have those completed across your building by October 25 latest. More to come—for now, just a note so you can plug this into your staff collaboration calendar. Thanks~
Equity Lens and Stance: Many of you have reached out to get copies of our district Equity Stance (the brochure you received at our admin launch) and the Equity Lens sticker. I’m having more printed so you can distribute, but in the meantime please remember: these materials are always available to you on the Portal under the Equity Tab (along with other resources like the current CAFE Program members list, etc). You’ll see the electronic version of the Equity Stance there, and at the end of that document is a link to the triangle Equity Lens tool that you can print for staff. Let me know if you can’t find something!
Important Dates
- September 4: First day of school!
- September 6: In bed by 7, thoroughly exhausted!
- September 15: Payroll Cutoff—timesheets and approvals for this last period (August 13-Sept 15) are due today!
- September 24: Horizontal Meeting at High Lakes Elementary, 3:00-5:00 (High Lakes and Amity host)
And finally…
I know after several displays of the worm this week, you were all wishing you knew how to do “the worm” as well. Here ya go!
