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| BCSD Staff Newsletter | December 2015 |
Superintendent Letter to Staff
When thinking about learning and teaching, I almost always think about what I would want for my own children. They are both grown now and making their way in the world, but I still think about them as my standard for what we should be doing as educators. There has been a good deal of debate about the new standards, both nationally and at the state level. I sometimes wonder in these debates how many folks have really looked at what the new standards are asking. Let's look at one math sample to compare what we might have asked our children to understand under the old Idaho standards and what we expect them to understand now under the new Idaho Core Standards.
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Assessment
The Interim Assessments for students in grades 3 - 10 can be viewed in the new Assessment Viewing Application at the Idaho Portal; username is your BCSD email. More information is available at the Staff section of the BCSD Assessment website, including the sign-up sheet for your grade-level team. Please call Marcia Grabow, x5411, with any questions.
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Buildings and Grounds
The Buildings and Grounds Department has implemented a new Google sheet shared with the custodians to help make sure the emergency lights, exit lights, and fire extinguishers are addressed monthly in each facility. A number of the maintenance group came in over the Thanksgiving holiday to remove snow and ice from the sidewalks, and to respond to alarm calls. Thanks to them for giving up some of their time with family and friends. A Risk Control Survey will be performed on December 17 at Carey Elementary and at the Wood River Middle School. This survey is part of a risk assessment performed by our insurance company every few years, with different schools being asked to participate.
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Communications
Sometimes we feel like "survey" should be our middle name. Why all of the surveys? And where does the information go? Surveys provide two-way communication that is critical to our continuous improvement. Imagine a conversation with only two people in the room talking about the school calendar or the budget. That can be valuable, but what about the rest of our staff or community? What is their opinion? Surveys invite many people to offer their opinion on a topic and be part of the conversation at a convenient time and place that works for them.
Who creates the surveys? District surveys are written by multiple people. The Staff Engagement survey was written with input from both the BCEA, teachers, and administrators. The School Calendar survey was written by a committee of teachers, administrators and parents. The upcoming Budget survey was written by district administrators with input from teachers on two areas.
What is K12 Insight? The district works with K12 Insight on most survey projects. The company provides the survey platform, research, reporting, and an independent filter for survey questions and responses. K12 Insight was originally hired when the Board of Trustees wanted to create a survey for the Superintendent's evaluation in 2012.
What surveys are occurring this year? We just completed the School Calendar survey. Over 700 community members and over 200 staff members participated.
Upcoming surveys include a Budget survey (starting next week), the School Climate survey for parents, the Staff Engagement survey, and a Student Engagement survey to support the new mission of inspiring, engaging, educating and empowering every student. Board Chair Shawn Bennion also stated in his email to staff that the Board plans to send a survey to staff as part of the Superintendent's evaluation. We try to space these surveys out so that staff, parents, students and community members are not surveyed multiple times during the same time period.
Where do I find the survey results? You can review past survey results here.
What about other surveys? Your school may decide to conduct other surveys throughout the school year. Check with your principal for the results for those surveys.
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Do The Right Thing
Congratulations to the following students who were in the top five of this quarter's nominations for Do The Right Thing:
Emma Madsen - outstanding for this cycle
Korbin Heitzman
Ashley Carnduff
Devin Karst
Walter Kriesien
Thanks to Jenica Alexander for taking the time to nominate a student, Korbin Heitzman. The rest of the nominations came from community members. Students will be recognized at each of their schools over the course of the next few weeks. The next nomination deadline is February 2, 2016. You can nominate a student here. At the end of the year, one overall winner is selected from the outstanding winners from each quarter, and all students who were nominated are recognized at banquet. Thanks to Hailey Police and Fire Departments for sponsoring this program.
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Curriculum
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The Idaho STEM Action Center is offering a new PK12 STEM Grant for up to $2,500 for innovative STEM projects. To apply go here. Grant applications are due Dec 18, 2015. Winners will be selected and monies made available by January 22, 2016 with projects to be completed by June 30, 2016. For full details, please follow the link.
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The Idaho Humanities Council invites proposals for Teacher Incentive Grants from organizations and individuals for consideration at the Council's spring grant round. The deadline for grant proposals is January 15, 2016. Prospective applicants are strongly encouraged to review the guidelines and contact IHC staff well in advance of the deadline to discuss project ideas before beginning a proposal. Teacher Incentive Grants, limited to $1,000, and are awarded to K-12 teachers to enhance their teaching of the humanities in the classroom. Grant guidelines and the online application are available on the IHC website: idahohumanities.org under "Grants." The website also includes a listing of recent grant awards and other general information.
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Finance
The Finance Department has developed a new Professional Development Travel Pre-Approval Request From. The new form will require signatures by the employee, the employee's Supervisor, and the Superintendent. The form will identify how much money the employee is paying using their own funds or their Personal Professional Development funds through the District. The form will also identify funds to be allocated by the building or department. Any residual amount that is requested from the District must be pre-approved by the Superintendent's cabinet team. If more than Personal Professional Development money is being used, travel arrangements will need to go through Susie Reese. This approval process will take extra time so please plan accordingly. If you are making arrangements personally prior to getting the travel approved you run the risk of the request being denied and/or the building or district not contributing to the professional development.
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Safety and Security
Please make sure that you take your time while walking outside this time of year. With snow and ice on our sidewalks and parking lots we want to make sure that all of our employees and students are safe.
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Student Services
In July 2015, Dr. Evelyn Johnson from Boise State University received a federal grant from the US Department of Education to develop a special education teacher observation system. This system, called Recognizing Effective Special Education Teachers (RESET), focuses special education teachers' ability to implement evidence-based practices for students with high incidence disabilities. These high incidence disabilities include disabilities such as learning disabilities, autism, behavior disorders and attention deficit disorder. This is year 1 of a three year project in which Dr. Johnson has recruited 40 special education teacher statewide to be part of a video data collection system. Eventually, it is Dr. Johnson's hope that RESET will be a great visual tool for principals and teachers alike to better understand practices that are proven effective with students. Last spring, Dr. Johnson spoke with BCSD Director of Student Services, Debi Gutknecht, about the possibility of one of our very own teachers to join the project. As a result of that conversation, Sarah Polk is part of the project and will be video-taped each week delivering a lesson to her students. The district is proud that Sarah is eager to be included in this project which could impact special education teachers across the nation.
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Technology
 Want to take students to the Great Wall of China? Want to scuba dive right in your classroom? Google is now offering educational virtual reality to teachers! Take a few minutes and sign up here to bring Google Cardboard Expeditions to Blaine County!
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Schools
SCHS Cooking Competition
By Nick Domke
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Cooking Matters Students with their fresh certificates
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We had a cooking competition on November 4th in Cooking Matters. Unfortunately it's the last day of this class. I've really enjoyed cooking food every week, and learning different ways to prepare things. We've also learned a lot about nutritional values. Sky, Payton, and I were Team Cheezin, and I suppose you could guess what we were assigned to make. We started off with a rue, and we had vegetable rotini noodles. We used three different cheeses; Monterey Jack, Cheddar, and Cream cheese (in the rue). As well as red peppers, jalapenos, and a chive topping. We presented it to three judges, two of them actually owned a restaurant, and the other was Ashton. He has us walk his dog Griswold occasionally. Anyways, we ended up winning two awards with our Mac n' Cheese creation, we won best creativity, as well as best taste!
For more SCHS student news, check out the Silver Creek Student Newsletter- Up The Creek
Wood River Middle School
PTA held a meeting on December 2 with Darrel Harris from the Advocates and Tod Gunter who shared information on the latest trends in social media and how to keep kids safe. This informative presentation is always well-received by parents who want to be in-the-know with social media. For more WRMS news, check out the Principal's Newsletter.
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