2.7.25 Staff Blog
Thank you for your flexibility as we navigate through all this winter weather. Stay safe and warm out there!
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
Early Release 2.12
We will continue our learning on Writing in Response to Text and Social-Emotional Learning (SEL). Please bring your laptop and a text you plan to use in an upcoming lesson or unit.
Most job-alike specialist groups will meet on March 26, except for K-5 music teachers. More details on meeting locations for groups meeting in March will be shared as we get closer to that date.
Meeting locations are shown below:
SPRING CONFERENCES: HELPFUL
Teachers can make a family conference sign-up schedule that parents can use through Parent Square while keeping parents anonymous from each other. This tool also allows office staff to see conference schedules for all teachers in one location and even help facilitate sign-ups.
For Office Staff:
Doing sign-ups for partial classes will require some support from the school to set up specific spring conference groups for each teacher. School ParentSquare admin can create private groups for each teacher. Luckily, once these groups have been created, they can be used for the following years. Instructions on how to create conference groups.
For Teachers:
Once these groups are created teachers can add the families that they will conference with to their spring conference group. They then create a sign-up schedule and post it to their spring conference group. Directions to add parents to the Spring Conference Group
Copy from this message received from Mike VanOrden to the group post.
Conference sign-ups for teachers should be visible to site admins on the right information bar in the home screen of Parent Square as soon as teachers post the signups.
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.
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
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