February 1, 2024

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Here’s to seeing no shadow tomorrow!!

Do Now:

Important! Please work together with your Office Manager to compare your Red Rover absences with each staff absence in UKG. I recently discovered a school site where a staff member had been gone a lot. When I went to the business office to see the report in UKG, they only had 2 days documented from back in October. Red Rover showed the person out a lot more than that. This is a big problem! This staff member is not getting any of their sick days deducted and even took unpaid days without permission. All staff must be using UKG to request all absences (personal days, sick days, school business, jury duty, unpaid, etc.). It is very important you follow up on this and make sure staff are registering all absences (whether or not they need a sub) in UKG. Thank you!

Title Schools—Please work to get all your documents into your folders so you can stay caught up. Here is the link to the Mid-Year check-in slides from Tuesday. Don’t hesitate to reach out to Meryll or Tammy with any questions.

Train Your Brain: It is now the time of year when we begin planning for this program. Here is the link to the sign-up sheet. Principals, please sign up on this sheet for your spring session by February 16th at the latest.

Please register for a CFEE (Coaching for Educational Equity) Training if you have not yet participated in one. It is a 4 day commitment and we are committed to seeing that all leaders in Bend-La Pine have had the training. Get a jump start and plan for it now. See Kinsey’s section below.

Please make a plan with your staff around teaching to meet Erin’s Law between February and May. Here the resources for both the family letter and instruction. Principals, please document and ensure lessons were taught via this form.  Return to April Jorgenson in Teaching and Learning when complete. You can refer to last week’s blog for other resources as well.

SRO Cards, posters, goodies to Kayla in Safety by Feb 9!

Finally, we are looking for teachers to share their practice and ideas with other teachers at our Feb 28th Educator Network Day.  Please have them sign up here if they have an idea for a session and are willing to facilitate that session.

Reminders:

New Notes:

From Kayla and Scott in Safety: As a reminder, volunteers need to be 18 years or older to serve in a supervisory capacity at schools. Minors are not able to attend field trips as chaperones or work as volunteer coaches as it poses a liability for the district. This information is reflected on the District Volunteer Page.

From Sean in Student Services: Learning Specialist Transfer and Hiring process for 24-25 school year:

Hi all, we want to give you a preview of the process for hiring certified Learning Specialist for next year.  

  1. Currently, we are identifying schools that will have opening for Learning Specialists for the 24-25 school year.  These are folks that are resigning or are temporary.  You will be contacted if you are on the list.
  2. If you are on the list of schools in need of a Learning Specialist, you will be invited to the transfer interviews, currently scheduled for Monday, March 4(2:30-5:00).  We will have a pool of candidates available that have requested a transfer and indicated that one of their choices is your school.  
  3. If you are at the transfer interviews and a candidate is not selected for your school, you will be invited to the pool interviews scheduled on Tuesday, March 11 (1-5 PM).  Also, if you now have an opening because of the pool interviews, you will be invited to participate in this pool interview process.  
  4. There will be three postings for Learning Specialist.  A La Pine area pool posting, an elementary pool posting, and a secondary pool posting.  During this interview process, we will be looking at new candidates that have applied for learning specialist positions in your perspective pool.  
  5. Once we complete the initial round of posting, interviewing, and hiring for all schools, any additional hiring will be completed at the building level with Student Services admin support.  This means the posting will be specific to your school and you will be the hiring manager with support from student services admin.

Please let Josh, Colleen, or myself know if you have any questions.

From Jenny White (SEL). This week’s highlight from Wayfinder is Creating Connections Collections.

The goal of the collections are to foster meaningful connections and cultivate empathy  along with enhancing belonging in classrooms and beyond. Engage students in interactive activities, discussions, and reflective practices that promote understanding, kindness, and authentic connections that empower them to build a more compassionate and connected world.

Directions on how to find your collections.

Name Pictionary

This is a fun connection you could do at a staff meeting or you could have your staff create these fun name cards at a staff meeting or SIW and then put them up in the lunch room for staff to guess throughout the week. (maybe the top winner can win a prize)

Link to the lesson. Link to directions

From Kerry Morton, Math Coach. The Math Curriculum Review Team will be requesting another time to share a nugget from our work between now and April 10th. Based on your SIW schedule, this can be a quick 15 minute session or a full SIW. The sessions will continue to focus on math equity and pedagogy. Getting feedback about instructional materials will start in the 2024-2025 school year. Please reach out to Kerry Morton or Julie Walker with any questions or concerns.

From Culture of Care: Click on the photo below for a great idea! Reminds me of Rosland’s Mindful Music first thing in the morning.

From Dave VanLoo in TLC: OSAS state testing season is quickly approaching. Here is a very detailed summary document I put together to help get you started. Please share this with your school test coordinators (STC). Let me know if you want to meet in person about OSAS logistics. I am happy to come out to your school and support you with this.

From Kinsey in Policy, Advocacy, and Equity:

Policies (follow-up from Wednesday’s admin meeting):  Thank you for your attention and engagement with the policies that govern our work and decision-making.  Reach out with questions, ideas, or if you’d like training/PD for your team:

Here is the policy revision cycle we discussed at the admin meeting.  Here is a direct link to the input form if you have identified a particular policy issue that needs attention.  Please share as applicable (particularly with staff members or student groups who have an interest in advocacy).  Here is the link to the policies currently in the ‘consult’ stage of review/feedback (e-bikes, diploma types, religion, etc), so you can monitor upcoming changes and/or give feedback.  Here is where you can search within any of our current policies.  

Action Requested re: Bias Incidents: As this semester closes, please look back through emails/calls from me to be sure you have closed out the investigation and response on each bias incident report.  This includes replying to those messages (if we weren’t partnering on response) with the consequences and outcomes.  

Reporting each alleged incident and documenting all response steps takes a bit of effort up front, but is well worth the investment (compared to the hassle when concerns arise from incomplete processes or records).  If your team would like to discuss bias incident reporting, response, or prevention with Kinsey and/or the equity coaches, please reach out.  Thank you!

Asian Family Night/Lunar New Year Event: Flyer invitations English and Chinese versions​—thanks for sharing with your staff and families!

Racial Equity Professional Learning: Our school district is committed to sending all administrators and supervisors to CFEE. CFEE stands for Coaching for Educational Equity.  This is a four-day intensive workshop focused on racial equity and the impact of Oregon’s unique history on our current education systems. Sending all leaders to this workshop aligns our shared understandings, common language, and core values as a cohesive leadership team.  This alignment supports our strategic priorities, equity stance, and decision-making across the district.

A large portion of our team has already attended!  If you aren’t yet a graduate of this workshop, please register for one of the upcoming sessions, or reach out to Kinsey if you have further questions.   Level leaders and department supervisors will share additional level-specific guidance with their teams, and Kinsey will be in touch with your registration confirmation or wait-list status.

Emerging Student Needs: The Office of DEI is closely tracking some actively-shifting trends we know you are experiencing regarding populations of extremely vulnerable students in your schools: unhoused, immigrant, unaccompanied, and other vulnerable youth.  While these students often do not manifest externalizing behavior challenges, we recognize they have highly specialized needs impacting your school.  We recognize, too, that these students require and deserve immediate care and resources that may be unfamiliar or less accessible to your teams.  

We will be dedicating time at an upcoming Admin PD to address this topic together.  In the meantime, please remember (and remind staff) to feel free to slow down, learn about each student individually, and build relationships.  A great leadership move you could do right now would be to shadow a student for a couple periods or ask a few content teachers how they’re feeling with supporting these vulnerable students in their classes.  As always, if you have an overwhelming need or unique case that needs immediate support, please reach out to relevant support staff (family liaisons, language specialists, FAN, McKinney-Vento coordinator, counselors, equity coaches, etc).  .

From Tammy and Lisa:

Most of you have now had your Winter DIBELS assessments. Now is the time to dig into that data! Do you have your mid-year Core Effectiveness (100%) meetings scheduled yet? Need some help? Let Lisa, Tammy, and Julie know! We would be happy to support.

Heads Up! We will be reaching out to schools soon, as we need your help to pull off 4 days of principal interviews. Like we did last year, we will be asking 1 principal and 1 assistant principal to support the schools who have all day interviews, as both admin and office staff will be out at the schools where interviews will be happening that day. Many of you supported this last year and said you thoroughly enjoyed spending the day in a colleague’s school! Between some of you being on the Assistant Superintendent’s hiring panel, being on the panel of each principal interview, or being asked to cover another school, most of your schools will be pitching in to help in one way or another. Gooo Team!

Quick reminder: Please remember to give KIDS Inc a 2 week notice prior to asking that they move spaces within the building. We know that things come up and space is at a premium. Just a reminder that our current contract is outlined with the expectation above. Thanks!

Important Dates

  • Feb 2: Groundhog Day! and report card work day from home or at school!
  • Feb 8: Deputy Superintendent Hiring Day
  • Feb. 8: Lunar New Year celebration/AAPI Family Night–Pilot Butte Middle School, 5:30
  • Feb 9: SRO appreciation due to Kayla today!
  • Feb 13: ICCL/Admin training 3:00-5:00—will be in your building with your team only. You will receive the information to unpack with your team for this.
  • Feb 13: Elk Meadow Principal Hiring Day
  • Feb 14: North Star Principal Hiring Day
  • Feb. 15: School Resource Officer Appreciation Day
  • Feb 15: Jewell Principal Hiring Day
  • Feb 16: Bear Creek Principal Hiring Day
  • Feb 19: President’s Day—This is not a paid holiday, so use non-contract if you don’t work
  • Feb 21: Admin PD at Perseverance Hall at BSH–3:00-4:30
  • Feb 27: 3:00-5:00. Elementary Leadership, at North Star Elementary
  • Mar. 1: Education Foundation Grants are due: www.blpedfoundation.org

And finally…the February Drawing Challenge! Can you take a couple of mindful minutes each day to draw the daily item? Go for it!

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