Cheers to Jesse, Erich, Calah the Office Manager, and their team over at Jewell Elementary—the 50th birthday celebration was an amazing event tonight! I was so amazed at all the former staff and students who came from near and far to check out the school, including the first principal 50 years ago, Bill Scott! (Small world–he was my advisor in my admin program 21 years ago!) It was such a special time for so many people. Nice work Jaguars!
From Tammy
Sharezies: The “Sharezies” document has been updated with another sample “Care” referral form, this time from Elk Meadow. This is a document that a teacher would use to request some
Pine Ridge Student Voice Council: Want an idea to grow your student voice input? Check out this note in Pine Ridge’s Staff Newsletter about their Student Voice Committee. There is a link to an information packet and application that clearly outlines the purpose and plan that PRE has for incorporating student voice into their practice. Thanks for sharing Nichole and Ned!
Pine Ridge Stuent Voice Committee: Below is the link to the information and applications that students/families will need if they are interested in applying for a spot on the Student Voice Committee. This is for 3-5 students. 3-5 teachers please send this link out as soon as possible via your classroom newsletters or your preferred communication system.
Dear Pine Ridge Families,
In an effort to have student voice more present in decision making at Pine Ridge, we are forming a student voice committee. The committee members, selected from grades 3rd-5th, will submit applications to be part of this committee. Below is a link to more information and the applications. If you have any questions, please contact Mr. Myers at [email protected]. Click here for the link to the information.
Topics of Interest/Problem of Practice: Here is a link where you can write down a topic of interest that you would like some thinking partners around. Some of the topics may be solved quickly here by your collaborative skills and ideas and some may make it to collaboration at a horizontal meeting.
To costume or not to costume–that is the question: Here is a link where you can let each other know what you are doing to adjust or not any costume celebrations. As a friendly reminder, should you choose to do costumes, we want to adhere to having respectful costumes as part of the celebrations. Here is a pre-made slide deck and a poster for teachers to discuss with students the way to celebrate appropriately. Equity Coaches can support these conversations if needed.
Important Links
Notes from our Team:
Tracy Howk in IT: This is last minute, but we just got work this class is in jeopardy of canceling, so please pass it on to your staff!
HDESD is putting on a free AI conference for educators on October 11. Dean says there’s sub pay available for those who want to attend. They’re looking for more participants to sign up or they’ll have to cancel, which is a bummer because the speaker lineup sounds great. The timing might also be handy as we’re launching MagicSchool AI in BLS. Registration ends OCT 1. Register here!
From Scott Mc in IT: October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and we’re excited to announce Cyber October! Throughout the month, our IT department will be sharing valuable resources to help improve your cyber hygiene and protect our school district from cyber threats.
Here’s what you can expect:
- Weekly Tips and Tricks: Easy-to-follow advice to help safeguard your digital life.
- Scam of the Week Announcements: Stay informed about the latest online threats.
- Cybersecurity Best Practices: Strategies to keep your data and devices safe.
In addition, all staff will receive a link to our annual cybersecurity training. This mandatory training will take approximately 30 minutes to complete and is crucial in helping to protect both personal and district data from cyberattacks. The window to complete the training is October 1st through November 30th. Look for these updates in your inbox each week. Together, we can strengthen our defenses against cyberattacks! Thank you for your continued vigilance and support.
From Dave VanLoo, Director of School Improvement:
2024-25 District Assessment, Testing, & Surveys. Here are two updated support documents summarizing common standardized tests and surveys for the current school year. One is a schedule showing when different assessment activities occur. The other is a general overview of the purpose and logistics of these assessments. Both documents will continue to be updated throughout the year as is beneficial. Please reach out with any questions.
Synergy MTSS Module Update. New this year schools will have access to data within Synergy’s MTSS module. Over the past few months staff have been hard at work building the infrastructure to make these tools available. Within the next few weeks, we expect to make the Early Warning System (EWS) available to schools. EWS is a tool for identifying students who may need additional support in the areas of attendance, behavior/discipline, and academics. Later this year additional tools will become available. While this development is occurring, vast amounts of student data remain available in DART and in the OSAS portal (state testing data). Reach out to Dave if you have questions about accessing or interpreting these data.
Bus Moments from Kim and Tina:
Students coming back to school. When we need to return a student to school (ex. no parent present at stop in the afternoon), we will be returning the student back to school, but it will be in the bus loop, not the front entrance/parent. Our buses are too big to fit in these front door loops- we did $20,000 + damage trying to get into a school yesterday afternoon 😕. Our routers will call the office and let them know when the buses arrive.
Guest Riders: Students who are not routed on a particular bus, cannot ride that bus. This includes if they bring a note from home saying they can go to Sally’s house for a play date. Caveat, if they ARE routed to the bus, they CAN get off at a different stop with a friend as long as they have a note from the school or from home.
We will be adding these tags to all kinders backpacks within the next 2 weeks. Red for RED kinders (don’t let off without a parent there), green for GREEN kinders (can be let off without a parent). The tags have first name, last initial, stop information and student ID#. We will also be notifying families of this, so they keep it on the backpack.
There may also be a few kiddos (Grades 1-5)that we keep an “extra eye on” that will also have a RED tag. This will just help alert drivers to make sure they are getting off at the correct stop. Schools can expect to see us up in the bus loop putting these on kinders in the afternoons. Hopefully this will be helpful in getting them on the right buses and off at their homes 🙂
Message from Jason & Ted (IT) and Eric (Student Services) about Synergy & Discipline Entry
We have learned that all incidents being inputted into Synergy as “Admin-Managed” are being labeled as “Major” in Synergy. Not every incident administrators input are going to be Major, so we needed to create a solution to this problem.
IT has generated a solution to this issue that is now LIVE in Synergy. Moving forward, you will notice the following options for you to select when entering incidents. Using these three options we can now correctly input incidents in alignment with our Student Code of Conduct:
Staff-Managed = Code of Conduct Response Level 1 (by Staff) [NOTE: Not all schools are utilizing Staff-Managed this year]
Minor Admin-Managed = Code of Conduct Response Level 2 (by Administrators)
Major Admin-Managed = Code of Conduct Response Level 3 or 4 (by Administrators)
From Jennifer Hauth, re: Wayfinder’s Waypoints. Waypoints, the initial summative assessment for students will be live in Wayfinder from September 15th through November 15th. Summative Waypoints allow educators to measure student growth of Wayfinder’s six Core Skills across the school year. By administering the summative Waypoints assessments, educators can understand areas of strength and growth for individual students and the class to make informed, data-driven decisions about instruction. Here is the info on Waypoints, including the new Waypoints Implementation Guides to help teachers set up the reason we are assessing students as well as instructions. The final summative assessment for students will be open May 12th through June 13th for students.
Waypoint Guide K-2. Waypoint Guide 3-5
From Michell Spetic, Nurse on Special Assignment: OHA / ODE has changed the Communicable Disease Guidance for Schoolsguidelines this year for students and staff returning after having vomiting or diarrhea. They may now return to school after 24hrs of no vomiting or no diarrhea (this replaces the previous 48hr guideline)
Here is a copy of the When to Keep Your Student Home. This information has been sent out to office managers
Here is the link to the full Communicable Disease Guidance packet:
Action Items
- Share HDESD AI conference info with your staff ASAP–Deadline is Oct 1
Important Dates
- October 1: Admin/ICCL Meeting–Ed Center Board Room, 3:00-4:30
- October 15: Horizontal Meeting at La Pine Elementary, 3:00-5:00 (La Pine and Juniper host) Please allow extra time for travel, depending on where you are located it could take 45 min to get there. Please do your best to be on time.
- Conferences: Oct 29–3:15-7:15, Oct 30–3:15-7:15, Oct 31–7:15-3:15
- Work Day: October 30, 7:15-3:15
- October 30: Administrator EL training–all day, exact time and location TBD
- October 31: Safe School Trainings need to be done by today
- November 11: Veteran’s Day–No School
And finally…click on the diagram below to see the details of how to buffer yourself from burn out.
