December 14, 2023 (AKA last blog of 2023)

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“And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been.”
~Rainer Maria Rilke

Do Now:

  • Mark your calendars with our leadership learning opportunities now, so you can schedule around them. All administrators should be in attendance during Horizontal, ICCL, and District Admin PD unless an unusual event occurs.
  • Plan to bring your School Design Plan and calendar with you to our January Horizontal at Miller Elementary (Tuesday when we return!!).
  • Plan for your office staff (all of them) to be away from 1-2:30 on January 17, March 6, April 17, and May 22. Please make a plan for your office to be covered in some way then which may include EA coverage.
  • Get ready for all things YouthTruth as we begin again in January. Use this Cheat Sheet to get rolling!

Reminders:

New Notes:

Ed Network Day: The SIW plan for Educator Network Day on January 10th from 1:45-3:15 will be lead by Admin/ICCL and will be dedicated to introducing and planning for the changes to the Oregon Math Standards. Please share this plan with your staff. To help your team prepare, Here are the slides from Kerry.  Included in the presentation are a couple slides at the beginning to help you prepare the END.  Reach out to Kerry Morton or Julie Walker with any questions.

Translation/Interpretation: For any translation or interpretation requests that you’ll need completed/filled by the first week in January, please ensure you submit the request to Linguist Link before Friday, December 15th to avoid incurring additional costs you may be responsible for. For example, if you plan to send a family newsletter or email between Jan 2-5, please submit that document to translation before winter break. Please share this reminder with your staff.

Black History Month Save-the-Date: Our Black Family & Student Union is organizing a kick-off event to launch February’s Black History Month. The event will take place Wednesday, January 31st. Mark you calendar!  

Also, please consider inviting the Equity Coaches to a staff meeting, SIW, ICCL meeting, or PLC gatherings in January to connect with your teachers about their plans for thoughtfully incorporating Black History Month themes into their instruction.  

New to Sharezies: There is a new formal observation form that you might use as you complete these that includes the rubric areas that are of focus this year. Feedback is welcome as you try it out! Jessica Scott has added all new info in the TAG Folder including the video of the last meeting if you missed it. Silver Rail has added the December to Remember staff activity outline. Finally, Pine Ridge also has some Solution-Focused Circles videos that might help with problem-solving tricky situations with students or others. Please reach out to Nichole if you are interested.

From Culture of Care Coaches: Parents may be interested in some of these events from the Parent Learning Series.

Raptor Student Safe: Raptor Student Safe is a new platform to enter, collaborate, and track data round NSSI (non suicidal self injury), suicidal ideation (suicide risk screens) and behavioral safety (threat) assessments for school teams.

At the January 10 Educator Network Day, the Student Services Team will train school counselors, school psychologists, student success coordinators and nurses on how to enter NSSI and suicide risk screens into this system. After this END training, school risk screening teams will enter these screens into this system moving forward and will be better able to collaborate and track student safety concerns in their buildings. 

All building administrators have access to their school site(s). Here is the BLS Raptor/StudentSafe Navigation Walkthrough document. Please make sure that you can log in to Raptor StudentSafe (using your district email address, no password required). Any technology issues or related problems, please contact our district Suicide Prevention Coordinator, Jamie Gunter at [email protected]. 

From Special Programs: Just a reminder that there are few organizations who can operate or observe within our buildings. Here is the Administrative Rule related to visitors in our schools: https://www.bend.k12.or.us/application/files/8216/9332/8866/KK-AR_final_8.11.23.pdf Overall, this practice operates out of this regulation because there are many individuals who ask for this type of access. Because it is a disruption to learning, it reduces our ability to ensure confidentiality, and it is very difficult to manage the credibility of differing credentials that are often associated with these requests, we only allow this type of practice when there is a formal MOU with an organization, such as the one we have with Deschutes County. We are happy to partner with outside providers when the parent provides an ROI and would be happy to have them be part of team meetings or get the insight of the different adults with whom the child works; however, this should not happen as observations when school is in session. 

From Cascade: Please share this flyer with your families in TAG. It outlines Cascade’s TAG info night on January 10th.

From Sustainability: Please share this info about Forest Classroom with your teachers in grades K-2 that is coming up on February 8th from 9-3:30. Subs are covered by the Children’s Forest. Register here:  https://forms.gle/vmer5ZAwNpzqCmPm9

From Curriculum, Instruction and Systems: Here is an activity in Wayfinder that is a fun activity to get staff moving and laughing. Direct Link to the PDF. Directions on how to find the lesson in Wayfinder

From HR: Please see separate e-mail from Paul regarding the process for Temporary and Probationary year three employees at this time of year.

From TLC: December 13th Elementary TLC Update The update for this week is the shortest of the year and only includes: report card info, Wayfinder, and movement info. Have a wonderful and safe Winter Break! Reach out to your elementary support staff for any needs or supports.

Holiday SOP: With the winter break upon us, it is time to remind staff about the Holiday shutdowns in schools. HVAC will be set to unoccupied mode in schools which means the temperatures will be set to 58 in the buildings. Please remind staff to shut down electronics, empty all mini-fridges and unplug them, close blinds, and turn down lights. The Raptor computers remain on for updates, but the screens can be turned off. The Standard Operating Procedures can be found here.

The Good of the Green Team: BLS has green team leaders in all but 5 schools this year and they are doing amazing work. Here are a few updates. Summit High students partnered with Miller to collect usable toys and are hosting a gift give for families at Bear Creek. Northstar, Ensworth, and Buckingham students completed waste audits to get baseline data for waste reduction efforts. Amity Creek is starting the 2024 school year with plates. BSH put waste stations throughout the school and Caldera Green team is inspiring students and staff to bring reusables to their pancake breakfast. The High School Green Leadership Coalitions wants to remind you all to have a great holiday and to reduce waste in how we wrap presents.

From IT: Parents can take an active role in how and how often school issued iPads are used while at home. Sending the following information home may be beneficial before the long winter holiday. There are two device monitoring applications available for Bend-La Pine families. The application descriptions and set up instructions are linked below. 

  1. Apple Screentime   Screentime is simply a group of features found in the settings menu on most all Apple devices.  Using Screentime is probably the easiest method to start for most families. Screentime allows parents to restrict applications and set time limits for device use.  Just remind parents to to turn off their “secret” passcode before the student returns to school!
  2. JAMF parent This application is installed on the parent’s phone and has a few alternative features that are not available in the screentime settings. It is important to note that any restrictions applied in JAMF parent will not function during normal school hours (7:30AM-4:30PM) Monday through Friday.

From Tammy and Lisa:

Planning for subs? We are still having difficulties with subs in buildings and principals are starting to want to use sub days for teams to plan together. When you are planning, please consult our Admin Calendar (linked at the top of this page and HERE). Please try to avoid the days colored in mauve as these are also days when several people are out in our district requiring subs already. Planning for teams to meet on other days will increase your likelihood of success when trying to secure subs.

Important Dates

  • Dec. 18-January 1: Winter Break—See you all back in 2024!
  • Jan. 2, 3:00-5:00 Elementary Leadership, at Miller Elementary
  • Jan. 10. Educator Network Day, in your buildings from 1:45-3:15
  • Jan. 15 No School in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
  • Jan. 17: Office staff meeting 1:15-2:15 (plan for them to be away from 1-2:30)
  • Jan. 23, 3:00-5:00 Elementary Leadership, at Buckingham Elementary
  • Jan 31, All Admin PD at Perseverance Hall, 3:00-4:30

And finally…

As Tammy gets ready to travel to London today, I thought I’d put out the idea of a quick staff challenge using the site https://www.geoguessr.com/. It’s an app too. In the computer version, individuals can go to the site, choose Classic Maps> World and play a 5 minute game. The challenge is to use google earth to look around and guess where in the world you are. The end guess shows how long you took to guess (max 5 min or 360 seconds) and how many miles you are from the actual location. You could have people compete and the person with the lowest combined time (in seconds) plus miles away would be the winner. I am obsessed with the app version and have come within one mile of the location on one occasion! Happy guessing!

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