“To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.” – Leonard Bernstein
You might be feeling the above quote all too much right now. Remember, the planning you do today will set the course for the entire year. Channeling a commitment to advancing Belonging and Instruction is the name of the game which means clearly defining expectations, routines, and focus areas for students AND staff at the beginning. As Brene Brown reminds us, “Clear is kind”- and that clarity sets everyone up for success- including you. When things start to feel big, remember to keep the main thing the main thing and lean on our teammates. We’ve got this- together!
FYI
Standards of Practice: We’ve had a few people reach out to us regarding our standards of practice related to time and materials. HERE is the latest. It is important to know that while it doesn’t outline Social Studies and Science specifically, choosing the Knowledge Building Pathway within LA this year will hit on the science standards via Language Arts.
Wayfinder Administrative Training: Thank you for all for attending the training on August 11th with Diana from Wayfinder. I know a few of you missed it so Jennifer wanted to send out the recording. Please don’t hesitate to reach out with questions. Also, the Wayfinder booklets have been delivered and many of the schools were short booklets. Stephanie Bent has been working to order more workbooks based on the most recent enrollment numbers and those should be delivered soon. Austin James is working on the Clever integration for teachers and access to the digital curriculum.
Accessing Safe Schools Trainings: Paul Dean has created a help document and help video for employees to access the Safe School’s Trainings in UKG. This went out to athletic departments and I am not sure if it has been shared district wide yet. Here is a link to the help video and this is a document that staff can use to guide them through the process.
The basic system is to login from their district UKG screen and go to the learning module. Because of the varied nature of the trainings, employees need to go select the training that they need- it isn’t auto-populated. If staff need access to other trainings than this, please email [email protected] for assistance.
Reminders and Asks
For Monday’s Meeting: As part of our connection activity on Monday, we ask that you all come to the meeting with “Your Voice”. Ben Johnston is going to lead us in understanding this personality/leadership tool and how he has used it in the past with teams.
To find “Your Voice”, please take the free quiz using THIS LINK (click on the blue area on the bottom right of the page). Thanks, to Ben for jumping in to be the first person to share!
In addition to Ben talking with us, we will have a visit from several different district folks about various topics, community partners sharing their missions, and Jessica and Dan will be talking a bit about the MTSS process that they ran last year.
Feedback for August 9th: Please take a moment to provide us feedback related to the Elementary-Specific Training Day. Thanks in advance for your input!
From Student Services:Crisis Prevention Intervention Training Opportunities. This training is our non-violent crisis intervention training. This is a requirement for each school to have a team trained in their building. HERE is the link to currently trained employees. Registration for these trainings in UKG. If you have specific questions, please contact Magadalyn Hasse in the Student Services office at ext. 1060.
We have 3 CPI trainings this month.
Aug 24 – CPI for Administrators ONLY- This was created JUST for administrators based on feedback last year but currently, only one person is signed up.
Aug 31 – CPI Refresher Course
Sept. 1 – CPI Initial Course
From Paul Dean in HR: This is very long, but importantUKG and My Team membersInformation: Building leaders may notice that there are employees on their My Team area of UKG who were temporary teachers last year and are still appearing as if they are on your 2023-24 roster. This is due to a deliberate decision that we made in June to not terminate temporary certified staff (a) because so many of them are rehired, it would create double work if we had terminated them on June 30th, and (b) if we terminate them, then they would not have BLS email access nor UKG access to track job openings and communicate with hiring managers
On August 18th, we will begin the process of terminating temporary certified staff from the 2022-23 school year who have not been rehired. As we process those, you’ll notice them drop off of your My Team rosters.
Before building leaders departed for the summer, office managers emailed an updated certified FTE list for the 2023-24 school year to [email protected]. We are still processing the changes from those FTE lists and assisting new hires so your My Teams information will become gradually more up-to-date each day.
July was devoted to BLAST new hires and movements (we had an unusually large volume of these this past year) and assisting moving new certified staff through the onboarding/licensure process.
Onboarding New Employees. Please note that once an external candidate accepts an offer of employment, it can take 7+ days for them to be cleared to work. Drug testing takes as long as 5 days once the person goes into the lab and background checks can take an average of 3 days after they submit the necessary information. In addition, the new hires have to complete all of their onboarding paperwork before they are legally allowed to show up at your site. DO NOT HAVE THEM WORKING PRIOR TO NOTICE FROM HR.
If you post a job today, begin interviews after 5 days, do your necessary reference checks, submit a request to hire, wait for HR approval, get a verbal offer of acceptance THEN the 7+ day onboarding process begins. Please take this timeline into consideration as you may need to have a substitute to begin the school year for people who have not been cleared to work in time for the start of school.
Supervisors will receive an email from one of our Specialists when employees clear the hiring process and are permitted to begin working, but if you want to check the status of a new hire, please wait until at least 7 days after the verbal acceptance to email [email protected]. REPEAT: DO NOT HAVE THEM WORKING PRIOR TO NOTICE FROM HR.
HDESD Sub System: Red Rover Replacing Frontline Absence Management We are hearing from staff that they have received a login notice from Red Rover. Please help us communicate to staff that HDESD passed last year’s data from Frontline to Red Rover therefore it is NOT up to date with 2023/24 data, Office managers will need to work with HDESD to align current staffing assignments with Red Rover accounts as this is outside the scope of BLS HR’s work.
We have not received a request from HDESD to give them updated data from the 2023-24 school year yet so it will be a few weeks before you can expect to see anything different in Red Rover.
Update: We received this email from HDESD on Thursday morning
Good morning HR partners,
I wanted to share the email below that was sent to your office managers yesterday with the news that invitations had been sent out to staff to login to Red Rover and set up their profiles. We go live on Monday and at that point, staff will be able to add absences and select their preferred substitutes. Also, on Monday, our substitutes will be able to begin accepting jobs.
Please know that we will be working alongside office managers, staff and substitutes during this transition and while we know there may be anxiety with a major software change like this, we stand ready to assist in any way we can.
Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions or concerns.
Thank you,Kristen Johns, Human Resources Manager, High Desert Education Service District, 541.693.5625, [email protected]
2023/24 Evaluations
All BLAST, certified and classified evaluations will be completed through UKG’s Performance module. Level Leaders will add Paul to a horizontal team meeting in late September to provide a training and answer any questions that you have. Here is the anticipated timeline:
October 1 – Certified goal setting/SLGG go live
December 1 – BLAST goal setting go live
February 1 – Classified goal setting go live
We are happy to provide another training in March/April to guide you through the self-evaluation and summative evaluation process and ask that level leaders schedule Paul to join another horizontal meeting training during that window of time.
Wildfire Smoke / AQI and Heat Illness Training Reminder. Administrators are not being asked to deliver the trainings, rather, please encourage your staff members to take time to review the training materials available on the portal:
OEBB Open Enrollment is open! Please encourage staff members to check out the Benefits website for all kinds of great information, learning opportunities, and resources to help them complete their enrollment. Enrollment closes on September 15.
Paid Leave Oregon. Paid Leave Oregon is “a-go!” American Fidelity is the equivalent plan provider for BLS. We are working to set up information with American Fidelity for employees to submit their applications online and will send out communication once the system is ready.
Please check out the Paid Leave Oregon portion of the Benefits website for more information. If administrators have questions around employee, eligibility, etc. please reach out to the Benefits team at [email protected]
EAP & Wellness Resources. A reminder that the Human Resources Portal page has some great information and resources for employees to help support their well-being.
Wellness Resources available to all employees and benefit eligible employees are listed here
From Scott McDonald in IT.Help Desk: Please note: our excellent IT Help Desk is for district staff only! Please do not forward or give our IT help desk number to students or families for any reason. Nope! Not even for the reason you are thinking about right now!
Student Connectivity Solutions: For the previous three years, our district has provided hotspots to students who did not have internet access at home. The demand for these hotspots has decreased significantly from over 600 in 2020-21 to 132 in 2022-23. Additionally, the federal funding for student hotspots has moved toward a family-centered solution called the Affordable Connectivity Program.
The Affordable Connectivity Program allows qualifying families to receive internet from almost all providers at a significant discount. I encourage you to promote this program to your families in any way possible. Families from any of our CEP campuses automatically qualify. If you are a principal from a CEP school, you can use the attached letter (in both English and Spanish) as a starter template. Be sure to modify all of the highlighted areas before distributing the letter to your families.
Finally, we in IT know that connectivity is a significant barrier (ranked 5th) to student learning. Other solutions (including hotspots) for those with insecure housing are being considered. We will communicate additional possibilities as they become available.
From Tami Pike: The Oregon Department of Education is requiring that individual schools complete a school-level communicable disease management plan for the 23/24 school year. The plan template for the schools in our district is almost complete. All individual school sites need to do is enter information relevant to your school sites. (It will be painless, I promise.) Please have your school plan completed and submitted to me by Tuesday, August 22, 2023. (Instructions on how to complete your school’s plan are listed below.) The deadline for me to submit this information (on behalf of Bend-La Pine Schools) to the Oregon Department of Education is Friday, August 25, 2023. (*Attached you will find the school nurse assignment list as of August 13, 2023. You will need this information when completing your CD Management Plan for your school site.)
1. Please DOWNLOAD and complete ONLY the yellow highlighted areas in the 2023-24 School-Level Communicable Disease Management Plan for Bend-La Pine Schools Template. Please do not input information directly into the Google Doc template. You must download it first.
2. When saving your plan, please title your school plan as follows:
YOUR SCHOOL NAME 2023-24 School-Level CD Management Plan for Bend-La Pine Schools
3. Please upload the completed plan for your school into the following Google Drive folder.
Also from Tami Pike. Illness Symptoms and When to Stay Home
Bend-La Pine Schools follows the Oregon Health Authority/Oregon Department of Education’s Communicable Disease Guidance for Schools. This guidance includes when an individual should be excluded from attending school (in-person) or any school-related activities such as clubs and sports.
For information on symptom-based exclusion guidelines, see page 8 of the Communicable Disease Guidance for Schools.
Fever – An individual must be fever free for 24 hours without the use of fever reducing medications.
Diarrhea/vomiting – Must be at least 48 hours since last episode.
COVID-19 is no longer an excludable disease (unless symptoms of fever, vomiting, and/or diarrhea are present). Parents/guardians/staff are no longer required to report positive cases of COVID-19 to the schools. COVID-19 test kits and medical grade face masks are available to students and staff upon request. Check with your school nurse about how to obtain a supply for your school.
Please refer families to the Health and Wellness section on our Bend-La Pine Schools website for more information about when to stay home.
Kids’Inc Building Link: If you have a Kids Inc program, please make sure you check this link for your 3 spaces.
Staffing Plans: Keep on updating those plans! (Staffing Summary Tab–update actual numbers in column E and section averages). Don’t know what we are talking about? Let’s talk!
Inservice Week : Here is a reminder of the the guidelines for inservice week, as you and your leadership teams plan and prepare for your launch to the school year.
Important Dates!
August 21: 8:00-12:00: Elementary Admin Horizontal, Board Room
August 22: Deadline to upload your school’s communicable disease plan here
August 28, 7:30 am: New Teacher Orientation Day at North Star Elementary (until about 9 for administrators and a full day for new staff)
August 29 8:30-9:30+ District Virtual Welcome Back Event (see Scott’s notes above about the enthusiasm around it.
August 30, all day: Districtwide Wayfinder and Really Great Reading Training for all
September 6, first day of school! It is a full Wednesday.
and finally….
Did you know that August is Happiness Happens Month? Click on the image to link to a monthly happiness calendar, courtesy of The Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley.
