1.17.25 Staff Blog
Thank you for all the work you have already put in towards our service projects. I know Wednesday (1.22) will come up quickly. Please make sure you let me know if you have questions regarding the assembly and reward afternoon on 1.22. As promised, here are the few slides I will share before moving into our service projects. I look forward to a fun week together next week!
Quick Look:
*for more information, see below
COMMUNITY MEETING SIGN UP: ACTION
If you are interested in presenting a mini lesson (or a summary of a lesson you are currently working on with students) at a community meeting, please sign up here. Please complete an ELO form if you decide to present!
This is an opportunity to highlight for families the powerful instruction I get to see every day here at Cascade K-8.
BLACK LIVES MATTER IN SCHOOLS WEEK TOOLKIT:ACTION
A huge thank you and appreciation to our Equity Leads for their work in helping to update our BLM at Schools Week Tool Kit. We greatly appreciate our administrators partnering with our Equity Leads in leading our staff in affirming and honoring our Black students, families, and staff during BLM at Schools Week. We hope that this effort is one piece in a comprehensive approach in how all schools and the whole school district are working to affirm and honor our Black students, families and staff.
Mike and I plan to continue adding lessons and resources to the Tool Kit this spring with a group of teachers.
Below is a link to the updated Tool Kit:
In partnership,
Chhoun and Mike
EMAIL CHANGEOVER- FINAL PUSH: ACTION
IT has been continuing to redirect @shorelineschoolsorg emails to @ssd412.org even though the stated cut-off was June of 2023. To ensure district security we will finally end access and redirection to the old shorelineschools address in June of this year. Please do a final check of your contacts or any services that still use the old address and change to @ssd412.org.
If you are getting mail to the old address. I would suggest that you do two things to help.
Add a short message to the bottom of your email signature asking contacts that have not changed to @ssd412.org to do so now.
Add a rule in gmail that filters any incoming mail to @shorelineschools.org to a folder (label in gmail) called shorelineshools.org or similar. You can then contact any mail in that folder to let them know about changing your email address to @ssd412.org. Directions on filtering can be found here.
K-5 MID-YEAR DIBELS RECOMMENDATION: ACTION
For the winter benchmark, 1st and 2nd grade teachers may choose to assess all of their students on DIBELS. However, when reviewing DIBELS scores to determine if a student must be assessed mid-year, teachers may want to consider that we typically see 5-8% of students falling below benchmark between the first and second assessment windows. That is to say, there are students who were at benchmark/meeting standard during the fall window who will not be at benchmark/meeting standard at the winter window.
An analysis of these students’ scores over the past few years shows that fall Composite scores at or around the benchmark (+5) are more likely to fall below the benchmark in the winter. In addition to students below the benchmark, consider assessing 1st and 2nd grade students whose Fall Composite was between the benchmark and 335.
K-5 SPRING CONFERENCE GUIDANCE:ACTION
We have updated our elementary conference guides for 2024-25. They can be found using the links below.
Additionally, we’ve updated the communication for staff and families about spring conferences being specifically for students who are not meeting standard or who may need additional support. This is the last year of that agreement with SEA.
K-5 REPORT CARD GUIDANCE: HELPFUL
The latest versions of our report card guidance for teachers and families are linked below.
K-5 Grading Practice Resource Guide
Family Guide: Elementary Report Card and Standards-Based Grading
REPORT CARDS: HELPFUL
Report card timeline for this year is as follows:
End of semester: Jan. 17, 2025
Window to complete grades: Jan. 17 - Jan. 30, 2025
Non-student grading day: Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025
Report cards sent home: Friday, Jan. 31, 2025
BOOK STUDY DATES: ACTION
Team Meeting 1 - Thursday, December 12th from 8:05-9:00 a.m.
Come prepared by reading section 1 of Braiding Sweetgrass and completing your pre-meeting questions.
Team Meeting 2 - Thursday, March 6th from 8:05-9:00 a.m.
Come prepared by reading section 2 & 3 of Braiding Sweetgrass and completing your pre-meeting questions.
Team Meeting 3 - Thursday, April 17th from 8:05-9:00 a.m.
Come prepared by reading section 4 & 5 of Braiding Sweetgrass and completing your pre-meeting questions.
LANGUAGE LINE UPDATE: HELPFUL
Alternative to Language Line - Coming in January 2025 - Shoreline’s subscription to Lingolet (which is currently being used for interpretation in our school offices) includes phone interpretation similar to that provided by Language Line at a much reduced cost. Beginning in January, district staff can use Lingolet in place of Language Line. The process will be identical to Language Line, just a different phone number and account code. Details will be coming in January. Language Line will also remain available through June 2025.
New Platform for Requesting In-House Interpreters - Beginning in January 2025 we will be utilizing a new scheduling platform for making interpretation requests with our In-House Interpreters called Propio. Propio is a scheduling system to create and manage interpretation requests at each school. Casey Baldner, Language Access Coordinator, will be reaching out to staff who schedule interpreters to provide zoom training opportunities on the Propio Scheduling Platform in the coming weeks
HICAP TESTING: HELPFUL
For students in Grades 1, 3 & 5, universal screening has been completed and further testing for eligible students will be held during Jan. 22- Feb. 14, 2025 24-25 School Rosters of Student Qualifiers for Further Testing
GRADES 6-8 EMAIL UPDATE: HELPFUL
IT has enforced a limit to the number of people students can send a single email to. Currently the cap is 40. If students send an email to more than 40 people it will be denied. There are two primary reasons for this change - 1) Google will suspend a student’s gmail account if they send email to too many recipients in one message. This is one of their efforts to curb spam emails. 2) Students have been using long email chains to simulate unmonitored chat that has become problematic to supervise.
Unfortunately this impacts legitimate student emails sent to clubs, sports teams and other activity groups. We recommend that emails sent to large groups of students for this purpose be sent by a staff member so they will not be blocked.
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