BESTeam Tidbits
August 12, 2018
Create Bravely
If the school year is anything like the first two days with the entire staff, our Texans are in for an incredible 2018-2019! Thank you for taking risks, mixing and mingling with friends new and returning, and readying your heads and hearts for a new school year! Looking forward to creating bravely with each of you!
BES Leadership Team
Celebrations!
- Welcome back to each of you!!!! We are so glad you are part of the Texan Team!
- Great first two days back!
- Our staff has dynamic dance moves!
- Thank you Abel for moving everyone's furniture and taking care of each of us!
- Thank you Abbey, Angela, and Laurie for working the @GCISD back to school fair on Saturday!
- Thank you to Amanda Hayes and the Trend Shop for creating earrings for each of our staff members to wear to convocation! They will be coming with your shirts this week!
Big Rocks
Convocation: On Wednesday, we will celebrate the start of the new school year as a district! From Dr. Ryan: We are excited about this year's convocation program. Our theme is "We Are GCISD". As a reminder, please ask your staff to wear their purple GCISD wristband with their campus convocation shirt.
NEW Administration Regulation - Electronic Communication with Students
Please review the NEW administrative regulation related to electronic communication with students and present this to your staff members before school starts.
Staff iPads: Starting the second week of August, we will begin to enforce iPad passcodes for staff iPads. Several staff members already have passcodes set however we have not made that a requirement in the past. The passcode setup should be a painless and straightforward process. If you have not setup a passcode or lock screen already, the iPad will ask you to set one up.
Please let us know if you have any issues with this process. Thank you for helping us continue to secure our GCISD technology.
Staff Handbook: Thank you to each of you for engaging in our Goose Chase to spotlight some important aspects of the staff handbook. Please take time to read the ENTIRE handbook before the start of school.
Small Rocks
It's always a good time to change your password: If you happen to be one of the over 45% of staff members that are still using that original password given to you at new hire on-boarding ... well now is the time to change that. Changing your password often is a good practice, please take a moment to change your password and start off fresh for the new year. Remember passwords are like underwear - Change them often, Keep them out of sight and most of all don't share with your friends.
Campus Staff Access to Student Logins and Passwords
Historically several campus and district staff members had access to a database that housed all students logins as well as passwords k-12. The past thoughts on this were to allow a teacher to log in a student if they needed to or assist a student in remembering their password.
As you can imagine this is not the best practice especially in data security and logins overall. Along with the changes in technology more and more students are now accustomed to logins and passwords in their daily lives. The need is no longer present for our older students.
For the 18-19 school year access to this system will be limited to campus techs, liaisons, and Principals for grades k-2 only. We will work towards the complete removal of this system in the coming years.
UPDATE - regarding password management in Google: GCISD will no longer allow for password syncing within GCISD Google accounts to other services or sites. For many, this will be no impact however for some staff members that use their district google account for personal items ( we strongly recommend this not be the case) they will notice a difference. This change is to protect any personal login information and passwords from being stored on district accounts. For example, in the past, you could have your personal banking information (login) synced with your district google login. In a sense all this did was store your personal banking information inside your district google account. We are eliminating the ability for this to occur to protect users and GCISD. If you have used this method in the past to log in to other sites you may be asked to log in with your original account information and not the GCISD google account. Thanks for your understanding as we continue to ensure your data and that of our students is secure.
- FLEX Site: The new GCISD FLEX website is ready for 2018-2019 with the exception of a couple of modules. Teachers may begin working on the Flex requirements beginning June 2. Teachers must complete the Flex requirements off contract time by October 5, 2018. All other staff may use contract time to complete the modules.
Instructional Technology Updates
- Blogs you may have missed
- Classroom Screen: https://goo.gl/ZRTJrC
- Discovery Education: https://goo.gl/PaaFVr
- Using the app list for Meraki: https://goo.gl/fTBGNk
- Prodigy Online Math: https://goo.gl/8sMAUU
- DyKnow: https://goo.gl/y3Jx8u
- Math Slides apps are back!
Week at a Glance
What's going on around BES this week?
See August schedule for more specifics!
Monday
Jennifer Unger with us all day in the library
Lunch of a build your own sandwich bar provided by the Halliburton family in the cafeteria
Sometime in the morning piano's are being delivered!!!!!
3:00 p.m. backstage tour of the piano lab and small reception in front of the library
5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Sunshine and Lauren host a back to school fiesta!
Tuesday
- Role alike day (see August schedule). If you are not sure where you are going, ask Jamie, Angela, or Cathy
Wednesday
- Staff pictures at 8:00 a.m.
- Convocation, bus leaves at 8:30 a.m.
- Meet the teacher from 5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Thursday
PTA luncheon at 11:30 a.m. Bring your $10 to join PTA
Friday
- Campus open until 5:00 p.m. for staff
Be Proactive: A look ahead!
2018-2019 Planning & Information
- Click HERE for the 2018-2019 GCISD student calendar.
Jamie Halliburton
Email: jamie.halliburton@gcisd.net
Phone: 806-441-6518
Twitter: @BESHalliburton