From Tammy and Karen
There’s nothing quite like the start of a new school year! Seeing students walk through the doors again brings so much joy—those big hugs, noticing how much they’ve grown, and realizing just how much we missed them. The hallways come alive with laughter and energy, and you can’t help but feel the excitement and hope that a new year always brings. Our administrators play such an important role in all of this, creating schools where kids and families feel welcome, safe, and ready to thrive from the very first day.
We have really enjoyed visiting your schools this week and having the chance to see you working with your staff to get ready for a great year! Congratulations on all your success so far and cheers to an exciting year to come
Important Links
- August 27th Elementary TLC Update
- 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
Notes from our Team:
From Jennifer Hauth–Director of Student Wellness
BLS School Counseling Program Updates for 2025-26
As we start the 2025-26 school year, we want to share important updates regarding our Comprehensive School Counseling Program (CSCP) and how you, as administrators, can be a support to the implementation of CSCP at your school. On August 27, BLS School Counselors gathered for a productive day of planning and collaboration. You can view their slide deck here to see the impressive work being done.
We are pleased to introduce the BLS School Counseling Handbook, a comprehensive resource designed for school counselors, administrators, and educational leaders. Inside, you’ll find:
- The mission, vision, and beliefs of our program
- District priorities and goals
- Roles of counselors and administrators
- Program design, implementation, policy and aligned practices
- Tools, templates, and practices for effective support
Here are the key expectations for this year:
- Complete School-Level CSCP Planning Template – due May 2026, outlining:
- Annual Calendar – due Oct. 2025
- Administrator Yearly Planning Conference – held by Oct. 2025
- Student Outcome Goals (Tier 1 & 2) – due Nov. 2025 (these can be used as SLGGs)
- Use of Time Study – by Apr. 2026
- Tiered Program Supports (by domain & tier) – by Apr. 2026
- Annual Data Review – by May 2026
- End of Year Results Presentation – May/June 2026
Additionally, counselors will now track student interactions using Synergy’s MTSS Activity Tracker Module, moving away from Student Conference, to enhance access to school counseling data as we continue to develop our MTSS dashboard.
For your reference: School Counselors Professional Learning Calendar with Shared SIW and END Dates.
Wayfinder Updates:
We are hopeful to have the Wayfinder admin dashboards have more accurate data but Synergy is currently sending too much data through Clever to Wayfinder. I have put in a help desk ticket but in the meantime, you can edit your teacher list using the following steps:
Here is the helpdesk overview on How to Edit User Data on Admin Dashboards.
- If you select “unclick content views” and only have “content completions,” then make sure to assign the workbooks or a collection as the featured content.
- For counselors and support staff, please mark them as “content views,” not “content completion.”
- If there are people in the app that do NOT use Wayfinder, unclick both “content views” and “content collections.”
Other Resources:
Student Success Intervention Updates
Student Success Coordinators/Instructors(Not Clinicians) will now track student interactions using Synergy’s MTSS Activity Tracker Module, moving away from the Synergy Intervention tab to enhance access in all interventions that students are receiving in one place as we continue to develop our MTSS dashboard. Here are the training slides from their PD day on the 27th.
We are excited to be moving forward with our Student Success Clinicians embarking on the Medicaid Billing endeavor! They were all trained on the SEAS Medicaid billing platform and here are the slides from yesterday. As a result of documenting the important clinical work that they are doing, our district can be eligible to be reimbursed for most of the vital services that they are providing.
In light of these changes, it is essential that our Student Success Coordinators and Clinicians are receiving their weekly prep andcase management time to ensure that they can engage in their documentation and provide care coordination for their students and families that they work with.
For Full-time Elementary Student Success Certified Staff
- Case Management Minutes: An elementary specialist has a scheduled total of no fewer than 215 minutes per week for case management responsibilities. This time is set aside in blocks of no less than 30 minutes for these responsibilities.
- Prep Time: An elementary Student Success Clinician is scheduled for a minimum of 385 minutes of preparation time per week. This time includes a period of at least 30 minutes per day, uninterrupted, within the student day for grades K-5.
For your reference: Student Success PD Calendars 25/26 with Shared SIW and END Dates.
From Julie Richards- Director of Elementary Curriculum
Here is the 1st draft of the Fall DIBELS schedule. Note: we are testing all of K-2 and only testing students in 3-5 who have not met benchmark in the last three benchmarking windows and new students. Please see email from Julie for a list of students in 3-5 who should be tested. ALL students K-5 will take ROAR (Rapid Online Assessment of Reading). Please reach out with any questions.
ICCL Reminder from Human Resources
We still have several schools who have not completed their ICCL hires for 2025-26.
- Please take a look at the ICCL Master List and verify the employees listed for your site are correct.
- If you need to hire, please follow the ICCL posting and hiring process (check-out line 281 on the ICCL Master List with ICCL Instructions).
- Any ICCL questions should be directed to Candy Gelatt in Human Resources: [email protected] or x1116.
From TLC Coaches
Welcome back to a new school year! The Elementary TLC Update is a short newsletter designed to share resources, announcements, materials, and news from our coaching and curriculum teams. You’ll see it in your inbox every other Wednesday.
We’re excited to kick things off and look forward to supporting you throughout the year!
August 27th Elementary TLC Update
This week’s update includes:
- Beginning-of-year assessments update
- Math housing documents and print-shop-ready files
- DreamBox and Forefront information
- Expeditionary Learning in Forefront
- and lots more!
From Kayla Martin – Safety
Please let Kayla and Scott know who your safety cadre member is and please complete the survey if you have not yet done so!
From Paul Dean – Chief Operations Officer
Animals on school grounds: We want to take a moment to remind school about our district practices with regards to animals on school grounds. We do not have any district policy that prohibits dogs outside of school hours on our property. ING-AR: Animal Visitors under Owner Responsibility reads:
- Owners walking animals on school grounds must follow city or county ordinances regarding leashing and sanitation.
- Principals and their designees have the authority to exclude persons and their animals from play fields when he/she determines that there are associated health and/or safety concerns.
- Last year, we created and distributed signs to your school.
Building leaders have the authority to temporarily close school playgrounds in accordance with Facility, Playgrounds, Fields & Property Community Use Guidelines [here is a Spanish Version]. We have created this Community Use Violation Notice [and here is a Spanish Version] that you may copy, edit, print, laminate and zip tie to your gate(s) when you are restricting public access by locking your gates.
If you would like to order additional signs ($65 each), please submit a work order request along with a budget code. Maintenance will collaborate with you regarding where to place your additional signs. Please reach out to Dan Dummitt for further assistance with signs.
Action Items
- Update student enrollment numbers daily
- Drop main schedule — live document into this folder
- Share Educators Night Out flier with staff
- Review the BLS School Counseling Handbook
- Please take a look at the ICCL Master List and verify the employees listed for your site are correct.
Important Dates
- September 2: Optional Teacher Work Day
- September 3: FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL
- September 9: Elementary Leadership Meeting, 3:00-4:30 at the Ensworth Media Center
- September 16: PLCs 1 and 2, 3:00-4:30
- September 23: PLCs 3 and 4, 3:00-4:30
- September 22-24: Rosh Hashanah–no scheduling of evening events on these days.
And finally… Bear Creek shared this video from their 20 second spotlight! Enjoy it here! And, if you happen to have video from your spotlight, please send it our way!
