Quote to consider:

‘We can, whenever we choose, successfully teach all children whose schooling is of interest to us. We already know more than we need to do that. Whether or not we do it must finally depend on how we feel about that fact that we haven’t so far.’ ~Ron Edmonds (p.13 from Whatever It Takes)

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To Dos:

EXIT TICKET: Here is the survey from Wednesday’s PD, please make sure your voice is heard.

CALENDAR: Make sure to check the HDMS calender of events. Update, we will have a staff meeting next Tuesday April 5th at 8.30 in Wendy’s WebEx room.

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STAFFING UPDATE: For the rest of this year I’d like to welcome Chris and Bruno! Chris Ruff will be supporting the Media Center 8.30-1.40 (in the afternoons he supports Math and teaches French). The afternoons in the Media Center will be covered by Tracy Howk, Christie Boen and myself. Bruno Cappelletti will be supporting in the Den 8.30-noon daily. Welcome to HDMS!

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PLAN FOR SPRING CONFERENCES:  Staff voted in the fall to adjust the district conference schedule.  Below is how conferences will look this spring.  Conferences will be in person, drop in style.  There will be a school-wide scavenger hunt to support families to become familiar with our building (⅔ of our families haven’t been in the building yet!).  It may feel more like Open House.  Spanish interpreters will be on site to support individual conversations.  I strongly encourage you to set up student-led conferences as these are a great way for students to ‘own their learning’ as well as support teachers not having to be multiple places at the same time.  It also shares the responsibility of the learning and knowledge, instead of the teacher being the only one who can share academic progress with parents.  Several departments are having students do “take home” conferences as a way to have students share what they have learned with families prior to coming to the school.

This note is directly from our district office:  As you know and you have probably communicated, our conferences will be in person with the parents having the option to request a virtual conference.  I have had a couple teachers reach out about doing fully virtual conferences because of health concerns.  An ADA accommodation will need to be requested in order for this to be approved.  To initiate this, the teacher needs to email HR Benefits ([email protected]) with his or her request.  It would also be helpful in this email to include any note from a doctor.  They are probably going to ask for that anyway so this will just reduce the emails going back and forth.

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GRADES:  The end of the 3^rd quarter is approaching. Make sure that you check grades on synergy and see that they match your grades on Canvas. Remember, you will be posting your grades and starting fresh for quarter 4. Any assignments with due dates for quarter 4 will only affect the 4^th quarter grades. 

Unless you teach quarterly classes, the only edit you’ll need to make is to change the previous weeks button so that it links to the ‘Previous Weeks Quarter 4’ page’.

Please reach out to your friendly neighborhood Canvas coach if you need any assistance. The end of 3^rd quarter is April 14^th and teachers will need to post grades by 4:30pm on April 15th.

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WEEKLY AVID & ELL TIP:  Although these tips are in the blog weekly, please don’t just scroll past them! Both teams work hard on putting these resources together, and we know that staff utilizing these strategies in their lessons supports positive student outcomes. The AVID tip of the week is found here and the ELL tip of the week is found here. 

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Bits and Bobs:

STATE TESTING OPT OUT FORMS:  If a student brings one of these forms to you, please route to Karina. 

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FIELD TRIPS:  This note is directly from our district office:  We are actively looking for the best way to support teachers who are looking to take field trips during a time of limited subs and limited transportation.  We keep working to find the way to make it as simple and effective that we can.  Submitting a transportation request does not mean the field trip is approved.  There are three steps to having a field trip approved

• Teachers submit a field trip request form to their principal (approval pending)
• Submit a transportation request to Transportation (approval pending)
• TLC will cross reference with any substitute needs for that day via Absence Management System in Frontline
• Level leads will meet once a week (Thursdays) to approve the field trip and communicate approval.  (Approved!)

Transportation will need to begin routing buses at least 3 weeks ahead of time.  We recommend that you get any transportation requests at least 4 weeks before the field trip. Please communicate to your teachers that they should anticipate a month lead time when requesting a field trip

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RESPONDING TO BIAS INCIDENTS:  (from the DEI Department): Thank you for the recent and ongoing conversation around bias incidents, and for ensuring that all staff in your building have access to the reporting tool.   

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SECONDARY INSTRUCTIONAL BLOG:  This week’s blog is from Culture of Care Coach (and former Bend High School Psychologist) Amy Yillik. She shares strategies to help us make the final push.

10 Tips for Getting to the Finish Line

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MAC SURVEY:  will be the week of April 11th. Please complete the training by Friday April 8th, 2022.  You can stop and restart the training if you do not complete it all at one time. You may have activities that you perform as part of your job that are claimable for reimbursement on MAC Survey Day, and if not, just by being a part of our trained employee base, your salary and benefits contribute to our reimbursement dollars dedicated to FAN. It will take approximately 22 minutes to complete. There is an optional MAC Training Video that will assist you with your MAC Training. You can minimize the MAC Training Video and listen to it in the background while clicking through your MAC Training slides.  Please let me know if you have any questions or if I can help in any way. Thank you so much for completing your MAC Training and supporting the FAN program!

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Reminders:

SUMMER SCHOOL:  Programming for summer programs is off and rolling.  Kevin Milner is taking the lead on this, with summer learning options looking similar to last year.  Programming (Jump Start (Gr. 1-5) and Spark (Gr. 6-8) will target learning and enrichment opportunities for our district’s traditionally underserved student populations (gr.1-8) and help these students to get an early start on learning classroom/school routines, along with strategies that will help them to be successful learners in the year ahead.  In addition, we will offer participating students with enrichment opportunities that they normally would not experience during their time when they are outside of school.

The process to select students for Jump Start and Spark will be coming up in April.

Dates: August 1-19, Monday-Friday 

Times: SPARK 6-8 GRADES – (9:00-1:00) Day will include academic, with enrichment built into the  schedule.

Middle School Sites:           

Pilot Butte (Students from PBMS, Realms)

Cascade: (Students from Pacific Crest and Cascade)

Sky View: (Students from High Desert and Sky View)

LaPine Middle School 

Postings for Spark Deans of Students will be coming out soon, with postings for classroom teachers, enrichment teachers, educational assistants, office managers, food service, nurses and other positions to follow in April.  Kevin Milner is the lead contact if you have further questions.

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High Desert Highlights: