From Julie: 2nd draft of the DIBELS schedule. We had a couple of changes.
Thank you to our Elementary Leaders for helping to make yesterday a great day of learning for our teachers. Thank you for lending a hand for tech support and supporting our presenters. YOU ARE THE BEST!
Wayfinder Update: We are getting lots of questions in our trainings around teachers not having the correct Wayfinder digital tools and workbooks associated with their name. Below are several common questions and answers.
Q: A teacher has the wrong grade level materials, what do I do?
A: Digital Tools- Please make sure that the teacher is loaded into Synergy correctly. In theory, Clever will synch with Synergy each night and assign the correct digital tools. If you do this and they continue to have the incorrect tool, please refer to the “Request new tool” feature listed below.
A: Workbooks- Your administrator should collect numbers for workbooks needed for the school. Then, they can USE THIS FORM to do a curriculum request which comes to Julie and Stephanie.
Q: A teacher is teaching a blend and needs both grade levels, what should they do?
A: For Digital Tools-the teacher should have the lower grade level materials. If they need another grade level to explore, please ask that they use the “Request new tool” feature listed below.
A: For the Workbooks- See above
Q: I have teachers who should have access to all grade levels (Counselors/PE teachers, Music teachers, etc.) How do we go about getting them access?
A: For Digital Tools- Make sure they are loaded into synergy correctly and then ask that they request the tools using the feature below.
Instructional Tech and Information Technology partnered to build an application where teachers can see what tools have been deployed to each of their classes. At the top of this page there is a feature where they can request a new tool.
This can be requests to add, change, or remove tools.
From Kinsey:
DEI and ICCLs: Last spring Kinsey asked principals to be thinking about identifying someone to have the role of DEI rep from their ICCL team. Kinsey provided more details in the last blog and asked for names of those reps by today. Here is the link.
Bias Incident Student Lesson for this year: All students should participate in this learning (except those whose families opt them out, as required by policy). Plan for your teachers to complete this lesson by October 27th.
This year, the lesson is actually a series of four lessons:
- Required (by Oct 27): the revised-but-similar version of last year’s single lesson.
- Highly recommended: The other three lessons in the series are Wayfinder activities that our equity coaches have carefully selected and sequenced, to facilitate classroom climates conducive to dialogue around identity and bias. Feel free to require the whole four-part series in your building! 🙂
Our LEAD/Equity Coaches are available to launch, preview, and/or rehearse this lesson with your staff at an upcoming SIW or staff meeting in Sept-Oct. They can also come co-teach the lesson with specific teachers when it is delivered to students.
These coaches will soon share the lesson sequence and updated materials with you and the ICCL member who is your liaison to our district DEI/LEAD efforts (details about that here). If you haven’t submitted the name of that person yet, please share it asap.
Ask of you as admin colleagues:
- Be familiar with the lesson content, in particular the one required lesson;
- Contact the Equity Coaches for any support your staff needs;
- Send the family letter a week-ish prior to your school’s lesson delivery;
- Be visible and participate in classrooms when teachers teach this;
- Ensure the Bias Reporting tool is posted around your school for student, staff, and family access;
- Send any other questions, overly-concerned community members, or feedback my way!
PE/Music/Specialist PLC Dates: HERE is the calendar showing our PLC Times for our PE and Music teachers. When planning for Building Discretion SIWs, please consider when these specialists will not be in the building. It is also linked and marked via an asterisk on our Admin Calendar.
SIW Questions with Part-time staff: Article 15, section B of the CBA states that members have the obligation to attend SIW’s consistent with their FTE. So, yes, .5 certified who work in the morning ARE required to attend half the scheduled SIW’s. The contract is silent on “split shifts,” so that’s not at issue. Here are a couple of important caveats:
- The 90 minutes twice a month need to be built into their schedule. This means that the .5 employee’s work day should be approximately 3 hours and 50 minutes, which would provide 100 minutes every two weeks to attend SIW’s.
- The administrator chooses which SIW’s the certified employee attends each month, in consultation with the employee, keeping in mind that for a .5 certified employee, one SIW every two months should be teacher-directed prep time.
Part-time Schedule Guidance: You may be at a stage where you want to finalize schedules for part-time staff. Please use THESE GUIDELINES when making decisions.
PE Minutes Reminder: Please make sure that your 150 weekly PE minutes are clearly identified within your school schedule. When your schedule is ready, please share a copy with us.
Safety Reminders: Please ensure all of your staff are familiar with the BLS Culture of Safety document on our staff portal. This is the document we discussed during Leadership Launch and outlines our key safety policies and procedures.
- All staff that are visiting schools or facilities outside of their primary duty location (i.e. attending training at a school other than their own), need to sign in and out with their staff ID badge at the visitor management kiosk in the front of the school during duty hours.
- All staff need to visibly wear their staff ID badges at all times during duty hours.
- Please remember to complete your first fire drill within the first ten days of school and to complete your Lockdown drill within the first 30 days of school. You can find the drill guidelines handbook and the drill completion tracking sheet on the Safety Resources Google Drive.
August 30th Elementary TLC Update: The update for this week includes: The Connection, Belonging, and Community Building presentation, math updates regarding Dreambox and Forefront, Welcome Back iPad Checkup presentation, and more!
Instructional Technology – starting the year off right: As we begin the year the instructional technology team wants to make sure you know we are here to help your teachers start the year off on the right foot. The focus this first month should be to solidify those Tier 1 instructional technology practices. This would include reviewing the AUP with students and what it means, teaching and establishing systems and routines for proper care, handling and use of iPads, initiating the use of Lexia, Dreambox, and Seesaw, and ensuring teachers know how to effectively use Apple Classroom. Technology plays an important role in our classrooms and our instruction but it’s important its use is always purposeful and appropriate. Starting the year off by establishing solid systems routines, and agreements will help lead to a successful year of technology integration. If you, or any of your teachers, need help or guidance please reach out to Robbie Faith or Tracy Howk and they will be happy to assist.
- When to use the Webhelpdesk support ticket system.
- There are several ways to communicate with your Bend-La Pine Schools IT support staff. The most effective of which is the webhelpdesk ticket. If you have a quick question, call the help desk or shoot an email to your client service representative. But if you have an expectation, or a request that will require action, you should ONLY use the webhelpdesk ticket system. Why?
- a web help desk ticket will direct your request to one of 30 IT staff that is best suited to answer your question.
- It is the only communication method that will alert IT support if it remains unanswered. (1 day happy and green 3 days yellow and SCARY RED at day 5!)It tracks common issues that could be addressed to benefit all BLS users.
- Your IT team looks forward to serving you during the 23-24 school year!
- Today is Skip Offenhauser’s last day with BLS. Thank you Skip for your “visionary leadership”. We will miss you.
From Tami Pike: Health Services Support: Our district student support needs have shifted over the summer. We have seen increasing numbers of type 1 diabetes diagnoses along with an increasing number of students with complex medical needs starting school. With these increased needs, I wanted to send out a reminder to schools about how best they can support their student population.
- Health Room Responsibilities
- A (non-nurse) staff person and a backup staff member, (designated by the school administrator) are responsible for the health room duties. This includes medication intake and administration, first aid, students presenting with rashes, supporting ill students, etc. Staff should follow the Communicable Disease Guidance for Schools to help determine if a student should be excluded from school. (Pages 9-10 in the CD guidance specifically address symptoms that are criteria for school exclusion.)
- Administrators, please remind your designated staff about their role in health room management. The school nurse can be notified for an urgent/emergent situation such as: broken bone, breathing difficulty, profuse bleeding, loss of consciousness, etc.
- Student support
- Due to the increased number of students with type 1 diabetes attending sites throughout the district, a (non-nurse) staff person and a backup staff member, (designated by the school administrator) should be identified to support diabetic matters in the absence of a school nurse following the student’s health management plan. The school nurse (or designated substitute nurse) is available by phone for guidance. Nurses will do their best to assist with direct care diabetes support. However, most nurses have more than 1 site they are responsible for and unfortunately cannot be at multiple places at once.
School Nurse Responsibilities: School nurses are responsible for developing, maintaining, and/or updating health management plans for students with chronic illnesses and disabilities (including obtaining health care provider orders for care), staff trainings (health plans general and student specific, delegation and follow up of specific health service tasks, scheduled and emergent medication administration), direct care support, concussion management, care coordination between school teams and community health partners, suicide screening, IEP/504 participation, communicable disease prevention/management, etc.
Thank you for your understanding and continued support!
KN95 Needs: If you or a staff member is in need of any KN95 masks due to needs arising from smoke, please contact your office manager and they can get some (if they don’t already have them) from Tami Pike/Michelle Spetic.
From Doug re: Indoor/Outdoor Air: Summer and fall can mean smoky air in Central Oregon. The amount of smoke in the air will vary across our 1,700 square mile District, so recommended strategies to keep the smoke outside will also vary. You can find the DEQ operated air quality station nearest you at: Oregon DEQ Air Quality Index Map
Indoor Mitigation Strategies:
- First, please keep your doors and windows closed during smoke events. I know this seems simple, but our facilities have lots of doors and windows, so it’s best to walk the building and check. If you have smoke in the building, opening doors and windows will not help the smoke leave the building.
- Second, let the filters do their job. The filters in our air handlers will filter interior air 4 to 6 times per hour. The units will also pull a small amount of outside air 4-6 times per hour, which is filtered as it enters the building. Please do not shut off the air handler units!
- Third, use the air scrubbers provided to each school by our Custodial Department (541-355-6601). This added filtration can help in areas that may be smokier than others (ie entryways). If the smoke in the facility appears to be excessive, please call our Maintenance team at 541-355-4700 and they will evaluate the system. They may ask you to shut down the air handler system with the shut-off button at that time.
Education Foundation Classroom Grant Application: Here is a flyer from the Education Foundation with the information. Stay tuned for a video and more information to come! Who can say no to free money! Get those creative juices flowing!
Tower Theatre Opportunities: We are excited to announce The Tower Theatre’s LessonPLAN Education Series for the 2023-24 school year. Since 2011, our award-winning education and outreach program has connected over 40,000 students to performing arts in Central Oregon. We believe that the key to creating a vibrant future for the arts is passing the love of it on to the next generation.
HERE is the season, locations, and costs. We have 5 performances held at the Theatre, an amazing, diverse, and sensory friendly mix, and 6 in school performances that would love a host school. To make reservations, please email Becca Swain, Education Coordinator, at [email protected]. Please include your school’s name, grade, how many students, and chaperones/teachers you estimate bringing. Reservations are taken on a first come first serve basis, and often get reserved quickly, so please let us know as soon as you can if you want to sign up.
Growing Together Teams & Horizontal Administrator Team (HAT): HERE is a list of our Growing Together Elementary Admin Teams. The person listed in bold is your team lead and will also be part of HAT (schedule to come). As a reminder, we ask that these teams meet at least three times per year and that you treat this as a mandatory meeting, although the agenda is up to you. If you’d like to let us know when you have a get-together, we can help with some funds for common snacks. Excited to Grow Together this year!
Discipline Entry Staff and Training: Each school will need to add the names of your disciplinary entry staff to THIS DOC. Jason will be in contact regarding trainings to be able to appropriately enter discipline into the system. Please enter these names by the first day of school.
Seesaw Training: On Sept 26th we will be having a half day Seesaw training for teachers from each school. On this spreadsheet please indicate the two teachers you will be sending to the Seesaw training on 9/26. Ideally you will send one primary and one intermediate teacher. These teachers don’t have to be a current super user of Seesaw but should be enthusiastic to learn more about the program and be willing to train others back at your site. The training will focus mainly on parent engagement and will take place in the board room at the Ed Center. The actual training will run from 8-11 to allow teachers time to return to their building.
What are secondary schools doing about cell phones? Take a moment to review this document, outlining the expectations of personal electronic devices in our middle and high schools this year. Knowing our secondary schools are implementing this tight of protocols, the expectations are that elementary schools are as well. Rule of thumb in elementary schools are personal electronic devices are off and away all day. Please communicate and emphasize that parents must contact the office to arrange afterschool plans for students.
Important Dates!
- September 6, first day of school! It is a full Wednesday.
- September 11-15, first round of Director site visits will happen. We will share schedules soon but plan to see your director for about an hour one morning this week at your school.
- September 13, First School Improvement Wednesday (SIW). Early release at 12:45.
- September 18-29, first round of partnered site visits will happen these two weeks. Scheduling will come later, but you can expect they will be sometime between 8:00-11:30.
and finally….
It has been so fun talking with everyone about their launches. Thanks Buckingham for sharing this video on how the broncos will Grow and Ride Together this year.
