The Pulse
September 2015
Welcome to this Issue!
Welcome to the September addition of The Pulse! We hope that you all had a successful start to the new school year. In this issue, we will focus on important reminders to begin preparing semester transition.
Contribute to Upcoming Issues: If your school is holding a charity drive, student engagement function, or other school-wide event, we would love to hear about it! We are also looking for pictures to feature in upcoming issues. If you have a great picture from your local area, please email Skye Roemer (sroemer@k12.com).
Spotlight: Lauren Johnson-McElroy
In her spare time, Lauren loves being with her 9-year old daughter. She also enjoys watching movies and spending some down time playing video games.
Featured Report:
Each year the K12 Operations team performs a grademark set and credit value audit to help schools prepare for SET. A ticket has been assigned in Service Now, which includes a report of the grademarks and credit values assigned to every course in your school's pick list. Each school will need to review this information and provide updates as necessary.
Once the updates are complete, schools can request a new Grademark report to ensure that all changes are accurate.
Upcoming Events:
Open Office Hours: Every Wednesday, 2-3pm ET | Join Link: https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?password=M.0BB6008749DEB0CC4E4609A89EF72A&sid=559
SharePoint Admin Training (Restoring a Previously Published Page): Friday October 16th, 2-3pm ET | Join Link: https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?password=M.0BB6008749DEB0CC4E4609A89EF72A&sid=559
Engrade Shared Practices: Wednesday October 28th, 3-4pm ET | Join Link: https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?password=M.0BB6008749DEB0CC4E4609A89EF72A&sid=559
Recipe of the Month:
Ingredients:
- 8oz block cream cheese
- 8oz shredded cheddar cheese
- 1/3 cup sour cream
- 8 oz diced ham
- 1/3 cup diced jalapenos
Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 350.
- Mix all ingredients.
- Spray baking dish with cooking spray and add the mixture.
- Bake uncovered for 60 min.
- Enjoy with pita chips, tortilla chips, or French bread.
September Reminders:
- Complete all required trainings on K12Training.com.
- Set-up new staff meeting rooms in Blackboard Collaborate SAS; extend existing rooms.
- Update your Contact List in Service Now.
- Ensure students are placed in courses/homeroom classrooms.
- Use the Student Course Report to verify official course start dates are assigned correctly for Fall courses.
- Monitor course reports to ensure the appropriate number of courses are assigned to each student. Avoid partial course assignments.
- Complete Grademark Set and Credit Value Audit in Service Now by October 2nd.
- Establish internal self-audit for student files.
- Monthly validation for student count.
- Review Scantron and SI participation.
- Plan for state submissions (reports) for next 3 months to ensure data is available/clean.
- Make sure block schedule classrooms are correctly identified in TVS.
- Ensure that A+ attendance only courses are assigned to all students using the A+ system.
- 45 day screenings/Health screenings due, if applicable.
- Ensure your students are assigned to your school in the state system so you can get the state info you need on them (e.g. prior test scores).
- Update transcript tool graduation requirements, credit values, weighting if using the TV Transcript Tool.
- Ensure that all new Ops admin staff have k12.training.com login credentials, and that all required trainings have been assigned.
- Audit student files for compliancy on a weekly basis.
- Share revised student withdraw codes with appropriate staff.
- Continue to monitor Special Programs compliancy, including: IEPs, RTI, McKinney Vento, and Title I.
- Confirm plan for collecting state testing attendance with stakeholders to meet state reporting requirements.
- Identify state testing venue(s).
- Continue working on your school's operations manual and upload it to your Ops Manual Service Now ticket.
- Review Omnibus report for duplicate student records.
- Send enrollment numbers out weekly to instructional and administrative staff.
Training Reminders:
Raffle Participation:
Participate and earn entries into a drawing! The prize and winner will be announced on the Ops Call at the end of each month.
Want to earn an entry today?
- Read the newsletter: email Kristin Jarvis the secret phrase (located somewhere in this newsletter) kjarvis@k12.com
- Complete a training
- Attend a best practices session
- Participate in the quiz bowl
- Bring a question to open office hours
- Complete a morning mind bender survey
Earn double entries:
- Earn a point for your region in the weekly quiz bowl
- Win the quarterly quiz bowl
- complete all morning mind bender surveys in a calendar month
Raffle Winner:
The raffle for June, July, and August was combined into one big drawing. This summer’s raffle winner is Phil Burleson from ISOR! Phil participated regularly in the Morning Mindbender and completed operations training. Congratulations Phil!