October 16, 2025

October: When the Lost and Found pile achieves legendary status

From Tammy and Karen

We have had great site visits with you this month and have been so impressed with your productivity in getting SLGGs, SIPs, and everything else done. We recognize that you have also been so busy building community with your staff, students, and their families! This time of year, our calendars are full and our patience sometimes… less so. However, this is also the best time to slow down and take a pause when we feel that “October Overwhelm” creeping up on us. Remember that being rooted in purpose means we don’t have to rush to prove our growth — it’s steady, grounded, and real. So refill your coffee, smile at a student story, and give yourself permission to thrive slowly. Even trees take their time turning colors.

Important Links

• October 8th Elementary TLC Update.
• SPECIAL EDGE LINK OCTOBER 2, 2025
• 1-Page Student Management guide
• Topics of Interest/Problem of Practice *New space for the 25-26 school year
• FAQs for Special Education Inclusion Topics—Keep checking in here! BEA and BLS supported
• Dates to recognize groups

Notes from our Team:

From Julie in Curriculum and Instruction

It’s time to begin delivering Erin’s Law lessons.  Here are the resources for your teachers.  Please share with your staff. 

From Jennifer in Student Well Being

3- 12 Waypoints open until Friday October 24th end of day. Thank you to all of you that have had your students complete the assessment. School-wide student data will be ready for review on Monday, October 27th.

K–2 Waypoints Assessments Instructions for Teachers

• The custom Waypoints formative assessments are now open in the app for K–2 teachers. Here are the questions.
• Julie emailed these instructions to all K-2 teachers, and they will be listed in the TLC blog next week.
• Please have teachers complete them by November 21.
• You’ll find them listed in your “To Do List” on your Wayfinder Teacher Page as “2025 K Beginning of Year,” “2025 1st Beginning of Year,” etc. Each includes only six questions aligned to the Life and Career Readiness priority standards reflected on the progress report. These are educator observed Waypoints and they are not on student iPads.  Detailed instructions here.  I have turned off the K-2 Educator Observed Summative assessment so that will no longer be visible for K-2 teachers.
• Tip:  Have a class list with questions listed across the top.  Think about students who might fall into the sometimes (2-developing) or rarely/never (1-beginning) category.  Use this rubric to observe these students first. Then use professional judgement and observation to consider where the rest of your class is in their development.   In addition, when teaching Wayfinder lessons, notice which lessons are focused on the priority standards and observe how students respond to the corresponding lessons.  

From Lillah Lehner in Safety:

All STAS/SIRC Teams:

After completing a Level 1 STAS or SIRC assessment, please upload the 2 page Outcome and Safety Plan into Synergy>Student>Documents tab>STAS/SIRC is a new Doc Category tab. The Doc Comment will be Outcome and Safety Plan.

The following people will have access to this document:

1. Principals and Assistant Principals
2. Counselors
3. Student Success
4. Athletic Directors
5. SPED specialist such as Pych’s
6. District Directors/Executive Directors

Please call Lillah Lehner in Safety with questions: 541-355-8854

From Kinsey – Office of Policy and Advocacy:

Student organizing: clubs, petitions, etc:

Students have the right to gather and organize–examples include forming new clubs, circulating petitions, etc.  However, we can put certain limitations on these activities, when done thoughtfully.

Here is the relevant policy with guidance for you.  A couple reminders: No new student clubs should be forming without principal approval.  If you believe a club, petition, or other student-organized activity is going to cause a disruption and should be prohibited, please contact me so we can discuss specific considerations.

Please remind staff about this policy and ask that they contact you if they are hearing about clubs or other student organizing that would require procedural considerations under this policy. 

Family engagement calendar: 

We now have an Outlook calendar to communicate and coordinate district-wide family engagement events and key dates!  It includes district-wide events where families are the audience, such as Financial Aid night or Latino Family Night, as well as the “do not schedule” dates for religious observances.  

This is a staff-facing tool, for awareness, access, and coordination of school, district, and program-specific family events.  Please work with your office staff to add this calendar to your school Outlook calendar—instructions here.  

If you are planning a district-wide event and would like it added to this calendar, please contact Dalia Juárez or email [email protected].  

From Dave VanLoo in School Improvement

OSAS Testing Annual Notices and Opt-Out Forms

The Bend-La Pine website has been updated with the 2025-26 fillable PDF annual notice and opt-out forms that we are required to share with families. There are separate notices and opt-out forms for ELA/Math testing (grades 3-8 & 11) and the SEED survey (grades 3-11). Please share our website with links to the required forms using whatever methods you typically communicate with families and have copies available for parents to pick up in the office by ODE’s dates and timelines below. 

Bend-La Pine Schools :: Oregon Department of Education Resources 

ODE English Language Arts and Math State Testing

Consistent with the requirements of ORS 329.479, ODE has developed an annual notice (available through ODE’s Test Administration webpage) that describes these assessments, identifies the timeframe when the assessment will most likely be administered, and identifies an adult student’s or parent’s right to excuse the student from testing. Districts and public charter schools must provide parents with the ODE-developed annual notice at the beginning of each school year. In addition, districts and public charter schools must provide parents with separate notice at least 30 days prior to administering the statewide summative assessments in Math and ELA using the ODE-provided 30-day notice and opt-out form (also available through ODE’s Test Administrationwebpage), or a district-created form that exactly reproduces the language of the ODE-provided form. School districts and public charter schools must use the language of the 30-day notice and opt-out form provided by ODE to communicate with all parents about state testing requirements and their right to opt out for high school students by January 4, 2026, and for students in Grades 3-8 by March 1, 2026. 

ODE SEED Survey

Oregon law (House Bill 2656) requires each school district to make the SEED Survey available to students in grades 3-11. Parents or guardians may decline, either verbally or in writing, to have their student participate in the SEED Survey. Schools will provide parents with notice of administration and the process for declining participation at least 5 days prior to administering the SEED Survey. Students may also decline, at any time, either verbally or in writing to participate. Students may also decline to answer individual questions on the SEED survey.

Please contact Dave with any questions.

From Sean Reinhart, Jennifer Hauth, and Jamie Gunter

The Student Services Team is reaching out with a yearly reminder of protocols and procedures around suicide risk and non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI), as required by Adi’s Act (Senate Bill 52).  We will be providing a series of updates to ensure that administrators are informed on updated protocols. 

Reminder: Postvention

Please review the updated protocols in the BLS Sudden Death Response Procedures For Building Admin & Staff. We will review this information at the December 3, 2025, Safety Cadre. 

• View the updated sudden death response procedures.

• Review with all of your building staff on these procedures.
  • Ask all staff to contact their building administrator if they become aware of any information on the death of a staff member, student, or parent in your school community. 
• If a Staff member reaches out to an administrator:
  • Thank the reporter and ask that they don’t contact other individuals and share the news they have heard. Oftentimes the information is inaccurate or incomplete and unknowingly propagating rumors can cause harm.
  • The building administrator reaches out to Sean, Jennifer, Scott, or their Level Leader (in that order until the first person is reached).
  • Student Services will walk you through next steps. 

Best-practice postvention around notification helps to prevent further harm or contagion, ensures accuracy and consistency, protects and respects the family, supports emotional safety, and lays the foundation for healing and recovery. If you have questions or concerns around this process, please reach out.

From Lindsley Gehrig – Instructional Coach

Here is a self-paced Acadience progress monitoring training to share with school leadership teams. I hope this serves as a solution for schools needing to train staff on progress monitoring. This training is still a work in progress but can be shared now to get folks started. 

Challenges of training folks like we have in years past:

• Pulling staff from buildings for large training
  • Duty/lunch schedules disrupted
  • Sub shortages
• Training within each building
  • 19 individual schools 
  • Instructional coaches focusing on early literacy instruction and math curriculum adoption
  • Schools not having access to an experienced assessor (interventionist or learning specialist)

I recommend leadership do the following to set folks up for success:

• Dedicate time within the staff members’ schedules
  • They do not need to be done all at once, you can focus on one subtest at a time
  • I think about 30+/- minutes per subtest
• Have people do it together!
  • They can calibrate and discuss
  • Problem-solve together

From Scott McDonald – Information Technology

Synergy Mail Delivery Issue

It has come to our attention that on occasion, certain Synergy (ParentVUE) messages are currently being marked as “spam” and are not able to be viewed by families with a TDS email address.  We have already engaged both Synergy support and TDS to identify the cause and resolve the issue as quickly as possible.

In the meantime, please be aware that teachers using Synergy mail may occasionally receive a  “bounce back” message from families who are unable to view their message.   We will provide an update as soon as normal delivery is restored.

Looking for a few administrator iPads-
As we transition students over the next two years to the iPad 11, we will be lean on older device inventory.   If you are an administrator and you rarely use your iPad for your position, we hope you will “volunteer” to turn in your iPad to your IT Client Service representative.   Thank you in advance for your help. 

Action Items

• View and Print the BLS Sudden Death Response Procedures For Building Admin & Staff.  If you have an event at your school, reach out to Sean, Jennifer, Scott, or your Level Leader (in that order until the first person is reached).
• Look at Lindsley’s self-paced Acadience Course and follow her tips for success.
• Share Erin’s Law information with staff.
• Waypoints Assessment window closes on October 24th. Please remind staff and check out your progress in Wayfinder.
• Please work with your office staff to add the Family Engagement calendar to your school Outlook calendar—instructions here.  
• Review Opt Out notices and contact Dave VanLoo with any questions
• Never use your iPad? Consider returning it to IT for reuse!

Important Dates

• October 16: TAG Admin ICCL 3:30 – 5:30 Education Center Board Room
• October 21: PLCs 3 and 4, 3:00 – 4:30. (PL C3PO @ Silver Rail and We Are the Winners @ La Pine)
• October 22: Elementary Safety Cadre 1:30 – 3:00 at Silver Rail Elementary
• October 29: Teacher work day (8 hrs)   Conf. (4 hrs.) Admin will have a ½ day Amplify training on this date. (Half in the morning and half in afternoon–check your calendar invite)
• October 30: Parent Teacher Conferences
• October 31: No School and School Improvement Plans are due today.
• November 4: Horizontal Meeting 3:00 – 4:30 at the Board Room
• November 11: Veteran’s Day
• November 12: All Admin PD from 3:00 – 4:30 at Perseverance Hall

And finally… Congratulations to our Next Duck Drawing winner Ned Myers !

Ned is the Assistant Principal at Pine Ridge Elementary! If you are in need of some fast energy, fun socks, a skip in your step, or advice about where to have fun in the Bend area, then Ned’s your guy! Ned is a native of Bend and a graduate of Bend High School. To say he is enthusiastic about his school, the district, and his home town would be a big understatement! Congratulations Ned! Let us know your coffee drink of choice and we will deliver!