Pam's Pages
May 22 - End of Year
From the Operations Department
Our Operations Department has rolled out a night crew called the sweep team. The concept of this team was to have them work 1:30pm-10:00pm as a swing shift group as a way to more quickly and efficiently respond to after-hours emergency calls, while completing outstanding work orders on a campus during non-emergency times.
After the school year has ended, three additional sweep teams will be created that will continue to work the day shift. The original sweep team will continue to work the evening shift. The district will be divided into quadrants and each crew will have roughly 11-12 schools each. They will then select a school to focus their efforts on and complete all outstanding work during that time. Again, as they look at the overall condition of the campus through each of their areas of expertise, they will go over and above to leave the campus in excellent condition. This comprehensive approach should allow our facilities to perform better over time and result in fewer system failures across the system.
In previous years we have looked at various ways to vet campus requests for large summer projects.
We feel that the majority of items will be completed over summer to bring all campuses up to a better standard. If there is a specific summer project that you would like us to consider, please send an email request outlining the project directly to David Vesling and myself. We will then evaluate the scope, cost and timing and respond back regarding the viability of the request.
As we continue our efforts to provide excellent customer service and an enhanced learning environment, we hope that you will see the positive outcomes of this new program.
SBISD Benefits Enrollment
Open Enrollment for the 2017-2018 Plan Year begins Monday, July 17!
IMPORTANT: Your current benefits will not roll over to the new plan year.
You must complete the benefit elections process even if you:
· want to keep your benefits the same as they are now, or
· want to decline all benefits.
Open Enrollment Dates: Monday, July 17 - Friday, August 18.
Enrolling by August 16 will ensure your 2017-2018 deductions will begin on your September 1 paycheck. Any changes made after that date may be reflected on your September 16 paycheck and will require a double deduction for premiums.
Important Benefit Changes:
SBISD will have a new vendor for the Health Savings and Flexible Spending Accounts for the 2017-2018 insurance plan year. Discovery Benefits will be the new FSA and HSA vendor.
SBISD will have a new vendor for the cancer coverage. Humana will be the new cancer coverage vendor.
Benefits Information Meetings:
Thursday, July 13 and Tuesday, July 18
10:00 am
Both meetings will be held in the SBISD Board Room (Wayne F. Schaper Leadership Center aka SBISD Administration Building)
Please plan to attend one of these sessions to gain valuable information about your health insurance benefits.
Please check your district email and SBISD website benefits page (Click Here) in July for more details and information.
Questions?
Contact the Benefits Department at 713-464-1511 or benefits@springbranchisd.com.
From the Technology Department
In light of recent news reports and actions of other districts regarding malicious viruses, the IT Department created a new email box for users to forward suspicious emails: spam@springbranchisd.com. If you receive a suspicious email, please forward it to this email. The Technology Help Desk is available to answer any questions and can be reached at 713-251-TECH (8324).
Remember to follow these Best Practices:
- Be wary of free apps; they tend to be free so they can harvest personal information!
- Don’t open attachments or click links, even from someone you may know, if the embedded information doesn’t seem like it should be coming from the sender.
- Do not reveal or respond to requests for personal, student or financial information in email.
- Scrutinize URLs for characters that don’t belong or misspellings.
Also, the IT Department would like you to know the best practice processes used to keep district systems and data safe:
- Updated firewall (i.e. virtual fence) to prevent external threats and content filtering
- Email scanning on the way into & out of our district email system
- Antivirus software on servers and end user devices
- Updated and continual patching on hourly, daily, weekly or monthly basis based on classification
- Routine system maintenance on Fridays (5pm-5am)
- Ongoing contracting and evaluation of our IT security partners to ensure best practices
- Automated monitoring and alerting tools
Additional information can be found on the Tech Services website (click button below to be directed to the website).
If you have any additional questions, please contact the Technology Help Desk by email, 251tech@springbranchisd.com, or phone 713-251-TECH (8324), Monday – Friday 7:00am to 10:00pm and Saturday – Sunday 8:00am – 10:00pm.
Texas Education Agency Certification Audits
Texas Education Agency (TEA) has begun to conduct audits on teaching certificates. They will randomly select 10 educators each month from the entire state to audit. Please be aware that our educators could be randomly selected, so please let your staff know to keep very detailed record of the Professional Development hours they are completing.
Please contact Jennifer Maynard at 713-251- 2359 if you have any questions.
GT Certification and Update
The School and Community Engagement survey deadline will be earlier for the 2017-2018. In turn, since GT training pertains to 3 questions of Factor 8 on the Survey, the need for teachers to complete their GT update hours will be earlier.
All teachers will need to have their GT updates completed by February 15th. This is considerably sooner than deadlines in the past.
To be eligible to teach GT students in the State of Texas a teacher must complete 30 hours of GT training prior to being assigned or within the first semester if hired late (TAC §89.2). Six hours of training in each of the 5 GT strands must be completed; nature and needs, social/emotional needs, identification and assessment, differentiated curriculum, and creativity/instructional strategies.
After the initial training, each year a teacher teaches GT students he/she must complete 6 hours of update training in gifted education. The hours may be in any strand. The update calendar runs from June 1 – May 31. If there are questions about a course receiving GT credit, teachers should check with the Advanced Academic Studies Department (AAS). Teachers with GT students this year must have their 30 hours completed and on file by the end of the first semester.
All 5 required classes are will be offered at least twice during the summer for free and are available online for a fee.
Information with the courses offered will be sent to you via email.
August Staff Development
Please remember to sign up for the August staff development. Each professional staff member and classroom assistant will need to sign up for:
2017 DSDD Campus Days - this is registration for all campus based staff development.
2017 DSDD Curriculum Days (Elementary or Secondary) - Curriculum training is not being held all on one day this year. Note: Curriculum training may be on a different day than usual.
Special Education staff should scroll to the bottom of the Campus and/or Curriculum documents to see a detailed schedule of all SPED professional development happening during the August staff development days.
The August Staff Development document will be sent to you via email. It will have live links for you to sign up for courses.