OSP Connected
December 2021-Office for School Performance-Volume 54
Message from Dayle
December is a great month for so many reasons. We are officially into winter and the possibility of snow is ever present. The festive lights and decorations of the season are everywhere you turn. Many in our community celebrate one of many important holidays at this time of year. And, we also get a nice break from school at the end of the month! It’s a good month.
For many of us - colleagues, students, families - it is also a challenging month and this year that feels more true than in the past. Some have had financial impacts; resources, including food and basic necessities, do not meet needs. Others have lost family members or have experienced other losses of relationships. Returning to “school as normal” when it feels anything but normal has also been a challenge. And for some, that break at the end of the month is not as positive as it is for others.
From a scientific perspective a person can only handle so many changes - good or not so good. When the changes are too much each person makes choices to bring themselves into balance and sometimes those behaviors are harmful to others or to themselves. Since we already know there are so many changes occurring and ahead during December, let’s make school predictable and full of routines. This may include:
- The teacher greeting each student at the door each day.
- Morning meetings or advisory with talking sticks and the option to “pass”.
- A weekly “entrance ticket” and “exit ticket” where students are asked to rate how they are feeling.
- Posted objectives and learning scaffolds in the same place daily.
- Familiar lesson structures that include science labs, simulations, poetry slams and other fun stuff.
- Read alouds with great characters and events and free of topics that may be about challenges outside of school.
When there are many things outside of one’s control, routines becomes a gift. This month help your students by allowing them to know that school can be that predictable place to be seen, be engaged, and experience consistency
Building Language of Advocacy
While asking for help or advocating for themselves can be easy for some of our students, many lack the language or confidence to effectively communicate their needs with their teachers. As educators, we want all of our students to ask for support when they need it, but too often we find out about students’ academic struggles after it’s too late and the due date is long past. On the heels of conferences, what information did you learn about your students and their families that can help you build in support for self advocacy in a proactive manner rather than a reactive manner?
Help students by building their language of self-advocacy. Part of building academic language in the classroom is not only supporting content specific language, but language to effectively communicate with peers and adults both inside and outside of the classroom. Provide language frames of self-advocacy and practice using them with students.
Resources for Teaching Language to Access Learning
Language Central
Three Ways to Scaffold Language for Access to Learning
Academic Vocabulary
Language Objectives
Generate Custom Language Objectives
Use the Language Objective Generator Google form to create a custom language objective & receive scaffolds that match the form and function in your objective. Watch the demonstration video below to see how this works.
Once you hit submit you should receive your custom language objective slide deck via email!
Teacher Resources: Teaching & Learning 2.0
Link to site: Teaching & Learning 2.0
Climate & Culture: Positive School Climate
It is important that we build positive cultures in our schools that are based on trust, collaboration, and commitment rather than fear, competition, and compliance. Sometimes the tensions between how we have done things in the past and how we might do it now can stagnate a culture. When this happens new possibilities for teaching and learning and promoting positive school experiences rest on the sidelines. Schools that are committed to providing safety, trustworthiness, empowerment, choice, and collaboration offer the potential for greatness. What are you doing in your classroom and in your school to build this foundation? Check out this article from Education Weekly for a deeper dive.
Leading Change in HSD
5 Keys to Challenging Implicit Bias
Challenge implicit biases by identifying your own, teaching colleagues about them, observing gap-closing teachers, stopping "tone policing," and tuning into such biases at your school.
Implicit biases often stand in opposition to a person's stated beliefs. We can't afford to ignore the far-reaching effects of implicit bias in schools, including:
Disproportionality in discipline
Disproportionality in special education
Teacher mindsets and beliefs
Tracking
Dominant discourse
Challenging Implicit Bias:
How can we listen, lead, and teach for equity in the face of implicit bias?
Here are five keys:
1. Become aware of your biases so that you can interrupt them.
2. Study and teach colleagues about implicit bias.
3. Pay attention to gap-closing teachers.
4. Stop tone policing.
5. Tune into implicit bias in your school.
Video: Verna Myers
Implicit Bias Strategies
HSD: Implicit Bias Resources
Commemorations:
The Commemorations Project continues! We have new resources for the month of Dec/Jan which focuses on winter holidays and festivities around the world. In order to help make the entire Commemorations Project content more streamlined and easily accessible to teachers, we have packaged them into a simple calendar format. Commemorations Calendar
Please keep in mind that while they are organized this way, diversity and inclusion happens year round and these lessons can and should be used whenever you can integrate it into your instruction. The Commemorations Calendar is also posted in the Elementary Social Studies site at: Elementary Social Studies Site
Coffee Conversations
In this month’s Coffee Conversation, SLP Shelley Mitchell talks about the role of speech and language pathologists in HSD.
You can see all our past Coffee Conversations here.
CAREER & COLLEGE READY: Secondary
Naviance is a web based resource for middle and high school staff, students, and families that encourages and supports post high school career and college planning. Naviance has resources such as college match search tools, a comprehensive career video archive through Roadtrip Nation and a large extensive list of local, state and national scholarships. Students have access to their Naviance account starting the second semester of 6th grade. Also, staff can have accounts at any time; please contact Brooke Nova if you are interested.
For students to access Naviance they must be logged on using their HSD student account and go to their school’s Naviance site-specific account (see below) or they can go to www.naviance.com to find their building site. Naviance uses SSO (single sign on). Students click on SSO and it will sign them onto their student account. Staff can share information with students using their account or through using the Student Demo feature.
There are scholarships for students to explore as early as 5th grade on the Naviance site! When students or staff enter the site, they will click on the College tab, then click on Scholarships and Money. There students and staff will find four different ways to look for scholarships, including a national site developed by Naviance and the Sallie Mae Foundation. Also, by clicking on Scholarship List, students will find an HSD-developed list of local and state scholarships with hyperlinks that will take them to their direct scholarship site. December is the time to start researching and applying for scholarships. Naviance is a great way to organize and get started!
HS CTE Updates:
November has been a busy month for our CTE teachers. Our Industry Advisory Committees are all coming together for their fall meetings. It has been inspiring to see our partners re-engage with this work and the energy generated in hosting students back in classrooms. CTE teachers are also in the process of completing their ODE program updates, due by December 15, as well as submitting their requests for Pathway Incentive Funding from the State.
CAREER & COLLEGE READY: Elementary- Getting Started
Want to know where to start with Career and College Pathways?
Start with a quick look at the HSD CCP website!
Helpful links on the website:
K-12 Roadmap Learn what college and career readiness looks like through the grades.
Career Learning Areas Six Career Learning areas and sub clusters.
Elementary One Pagers Each One Pager matches a program in your feeder’s high school! This is a great resource to start using with students.
Virtual Field Trips:
There are some great virtual field trips you can connect with CLAs. One great local virtual field trip idea is Oregon Agriculture in the Classroom. Many of their virtual field trips pair well with the Agriculture, Food & Natural Resource Systems CLA. If you sign up for updates, opportunities will be emailed to you.
Support:
For Elementary CCP Questions, or if you would like to participate in the Elementary CCP Advisory Committee, please contact Amanda Bethune, Elementary Career & College Pathways Integration TOSA - bethunea@hsd.k12.or.us
Dual Language: Family Newsletter
We are thrilled to share the Fall edition of the first Dual Language Family Newsletter with our HSD community. In this issue we can: read about tips for parents to support bilingualism and biliteracy at home, celebrate our Dual Language Educators and Students who were nominated for the November Spotlight and learn more about the elementary bilingual curriculum for Literacy. Thank you to Maricruz Acuña, Angela Admiza and Alfonso Lule for contributing to this issue. We are thankful for our Dual Language community! It truly takes a village!
Tech Teach Grow Team
OUR PURPOSE
Support educators with digital curriculum and technology integration in the classroom. Our hope is to provide HSD staff with tech integration ideas, info and updates via quick digital media that is easily accessible at your convenience. Everything we share works with current HSD tech. #TechForward>>
WANT A DIFFERENT RESULT? TRY SOMETHING NEW!
Tech Tips of the Week: #4-7
Tech Tip of the Week: The Tech Teach Grow team will be providing quick tech tips for staff each week through Monday Notes. The tips include updates and integration ideas that relate to the work educators do. Each tip has a brief written description, video/GIF and a way to access the tech integration TOSA team for support on digital curriculum or tech tool/app integration. We will also collect the tech tips for each week and post them here in OSP Connected.
We have begun a series of professional development after school sessions based on teacher feedback. Thank you to those that have attended the sessions. Please see the playlists below to learn more about them. We encourage you to attend! Extended contract is available for those engaging live in the PD.
Mental Health: Suicide Awareness
As part of the HSD suicide prevention plan, the Care Coordinator team will be offering live, virtual recorded Suicide Awareness presentation for all HSD staff on Tuesday, 12/7 @ 4:00 pm. All administrators, licensed AND classified staff are encouraged to attend, whether new to HSD or as a refresher.
The presentation will feature the following information:
Data and facts about suicide
Warning signs and risk factors for suicide
Steps to take if you suspect a student is having thoughts of suicide
Who the Suicide Screeners are in your building
Details: Live, virtual recorded Suicide Awareness presentation for all HSD staff