Blaine County School District Staff Connection Logo
BCSD Staff Newsletter January 2018
Superintendent Letter to Staff
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January 2018

The Power of Teamwork: Reflection on Lessons Learned from Our Students

Dear Colleagues,

At the conclusion of the fall sports season, BCSD was home to two state champion teams: Carey Football and WRHS Boys Soccer.  While attending award ceremonies for both, it was interesting to me how both groups credited their ability to work as a team and work as a family, to their success.  They talked about how they didn't always have the most skilled player on the field or the biggest line, but they worked together as a well honed unit.  The individuals on both teams held each other accountable for being the best they could be: strength training over the summer, consistency in practices, keeping their grades up, and encouraging each other at all times. They had the belief that together they could make it happen.  

In the world of education research , collective efficacy is one of the most powerful ways to impact student achievement.  What is that?  Collective efficacy is the belief of educators that as a faculty, working together, they can help even the most at-risk students overcome adversity and ensure that their students achieve the desired outcomes. Our ability to improve graduation rates while also increasing student participation in advanced opportunities is an example of collective efficacy.  It is not one teacher alone, but rather a whole team of educators that is making it happen. That is you!  If each one of you believe you can make it happen and work together, you are unstoppable.

As I watched the Holiday Greeting of BCSD elementary students reading from The Mitten , I once again thought of the collective efficacy of our educators at our elementary schools; from Carey to Bellevue, to Alturas, to Hailey, and to Hemingway all working together to explicitly teach reading with an intense focus to ensure our students leave elementary school reading on or above grade level.  Ensuring academic success for every student, including students who come to us significantly below proficiency, requires collective efficacy: the belief in the ability of each educator on the team working together to do their part.

Together we can make a difference.  Thank you for being part of the BCSD team. Thank you for working together to ensure all our students meet or exceed the Idaho Content Standards.

With gratitude,

GwenCarol

Goddard, R.D., Hoy, W.K., & Hoy, A.W. (2000) Collective teacher efficacy: Its meaning, measure, and impact on student achievement. American Educational Research Journal, 37(2), 479-507.
Community Campus

The Community Campus is open about 358 days a year.  Most days our doors open at 5:30 AM and close at 10:00 PM.  The Community Campus is home to the Blaine County Recreation District Offices, Gym, FitWorks and HUB After School and Summer Youth Programs; College of Southern Idaho Blaine Campus; Footlight Dance Centre; SVSS School of Music; The Blaine County Drug Coalition; Blaine County Education Foundation; Lee Pesky Learning Center; Chartwells Cafe and Wood River High School Construction Academy, Medical Technology, WRHS Performing Arts Theater, Drama Program, VOICES and VOICES 2 Programs.

We also rent meeting rooms and theater space for community events, activities and performances.  We have computer kiosks for public use,  The CC is a great place to walk indoors during the winter time. Either ten laps around our central building core or 14 laps of the gym are one mile.
Communications

Did you know? In one month, our websites had 39,876 vis its or page views.  

Website Accessibility - Did you know that all information on our website needs to be accessible for people with hearing, vision, cognitive, or physical impairments?  The Board of Trustees will consider a new policy at the January meeting which, if approved, will require that the district takes steps to ensure accessibility for all documents and information on the nine websites maintained by the district and schools.  Our web coordinators, school secretaries, departments, and others who post information to the website will be invited to a training on Friday, February 16.   If you post information on the website, you need to be aware of website accessibility.  Look for more information soon.


We Love Our Community Partners
Help Us Celebrate Our Partners

On Wednesday, February 14, we will invite our community partners to join us for coffee to celebrate their contributions to our students and honor the work they do in our schools.  If you would like to ensure that a community partner is invited, please send Heather Crocker an email.  If you have something you would like to say about one of our partners as we honor them, send Heather an email and we will share your words and thoughts.  Thanks for helping us show our partners some love on Valentine's Day!

Educator for a Day - Back by Popular Demand and Scheduled for February 23
 
It was such a success that we are doing it again!  Friday, February 23.  Do you want to help?  Sign up here to host a guest in your classroom.  Special thanks to the following educators who helped in December:
 
Tim Richards, Tim Rierden, Alan Olsen, Betty Ervin, Chris Cey, Lindee Williams, Sara Shafer, Tish Short, Lydia Flynn, Heidi Husbands, Daniela Anguita, Stephanie Snider, Maritt Wolfrom, John Peck, Brad Henson, Thad Biggers, John Pearce, and Fritz Peters.


Levy Proposal  Follow-up from All-Staff Meeting
You asked, we answered.
 
Staff Question:   Another question I have is how much money have we received from the field and facility use fees that have been put in place this year? Where is that money going? A lot of community organizations were upset about those fees so I think the district will have to show where that money is in order for more taxpayer support.

Great Question!  During the spring of 2017 district administration held meetings for all BCSD field and facility users to discuss upcoming changes to our fee schedule and to gather community input.  With input from facility and field users, a new fee schedule was developed and passed by the Board of Trustees in the fall of 2017.  The rental fees collected from field and facility use are returned into the general budget  to help maintain our fields and facilities. The Board of Trustees identified   three user groups : school groups, nonprofits and government, and all other individuals and groups.  Please click on the link above to see our new fee schedule.  This schedule was developed by researching the fee schedules of school districts throughout Idaho.

Did you know that the Blaine County School District shares the cost of running the Community Campus? In past years, the District has contributed $250,000 annually in cost sharing with other groups who lease space at the Community Campus, including CSI, BCRD, Footlight Dance and the Drug Coalition.  This year, the District budgeted the cost-sharing to be $180,000.  In February, 2016, there were $10,885 in fees collected and an estimated $172,410 in costs absorbed by the district.  To date for this year, $9,997 has been collected.  The majority of this is under the older fee structure.  This amount does not include the partners who lease space from the District in the Community Campus.  Without those partners, the cost of running the Community Campus would be even larger.  By working together, we are able to provide a community service enjoyed by thousands of people every year.

Thanks to the 27 staff who responded to the follow-up form from the all-staff meeting.  (In Dr. Holmes' all-staff email).  Look for more answers in future staff newsletters and feel free to share these with your colleagues, neighbors and friends.
Teaching & Learning

BCSD staff started the new year with professional learning and collective growth that supports student learning. The educational staff was excited to see one another again after the winter break - murmurs of joy from the holiday hummed as they gathered.   What professional learning welcomed staff back?
  • Engagement!
    • Engagement Facilitators PK-12 from across the district gathered to delve more deeply build a shared understanding of clarity and its value in effective instruction. They looked at the role of student voice in the Aspirations Framework and took a first look at the results of the Student Voice Survey.
  • Reading!
    • K-2 staff worked together with Gloria Wieand to advance student engagement during ELA instruction. The workshop included the use of Kahoot as an instructional tool and  shared  instructional practices from across the district that have proven to improve student performance.  Practices were shared in explicitly  building foundational reading, comprehension and vocabulary skills, as well as  how to differentiate foundational reading instruction to meet the diverse needs of students in the classroom.
    • 3-5 staff worked together with Carrie Cole from Side-by-Side Educational Consulting, engaging with staff in the fundamentals of comprehension, academic vocabulary, explicit connections to the standards and Reading Wonders/Maravillas. Participants walked away with strategies for action.
  • Academic Language!
    • Secondary math teachers worked together with Meg Rowe from the Boise School District, author of the blog, Arithmetalk: Where Math and Language Meet . The session focused on strategies to help engage students in mathematical thinking and conversations by looking  at their lessons for opportunities to apply specific strategies that intentionally  develop the academic language of math during instruction.
  • Instructional Technology!
    • The HACK_R workshop,presented by the DOCEO Center, deepened the understanding of the HACK Model for Instructional Technology Specialists. They debriefed what has gone well, areas in need of continued growth and planned their next steps since their summer Bootcamp with additional focus on coding and makerspaces.
  • Big Picture Learning - Silver Creek High School!
    • SCHS staff worked on their curriculum by learning how to use LiFT (a personalized learning, proficiency-based software learning management platform)  to document mastery of student learning competencies through  their project-based learning structure. They also discussed the need to build a collaborative process for meaningful grading based on growth.
  • Taking Care of Self!
Special Education Teachers and Social Workers gathered with Traci Glover and Leena Weaver from Healing Children  to learn how to set boundaries, understand the nature of stress and find ways to build a healthy self.

Buildings and Grounds
construction students smiling

The Buildings and Grounds Department is hoping to partner with the BCSD Residential Academy programs at Wood River High School and Carey High School this spring by providing instructional resources for their current house project.  Our department has a diverse group of credentialed tradesmen.  Buddy Wendel is a journeyman electrician, Jim Chatterton is a journeyman plumber, Jose Hernandez is an HVAC journeyman, and Tony Brown carries both a plumbing and HVAC credential.  Buddy has taught in a similar program in Alaska, Jim and Tony are instructors for the local CSI apprenticeship program, and Jose was recently solicited by IBOA (Intermountain Building Operators Association) to be a guest instructor for their program.  In addition to trade skills, they each have instructional skills and experience, creating a unique opportunity for our students.

Our intent is to allow the students to be exposed to additional construction components that may spark an interest going forward in their career path.  The students will receive hands-on experience with system design, layout and installation.  There will also be a heavy emphasis on code applications, relationships with our local/state inspectors and site safety.  

We are fortunate to have this qualified group within our District, to help maintain our infrastructure, but also wanting to share their knowledge and expertise with students to help them have an enhanced learning opportunity.
Finance
Valerie Seamons_ Karen Hoffman_ Susan Kniffen and Bryan Fletcher
Joni Cashman
Joni Cashman

Congratulations to Joni Cashman for being drawn as the winner after successfully answering the questions posed in the previous Newsletter edition.  Well done Joni!!  The Amazon gift card is on the way.  Please look for questions in the next edition of the Newsletter.    

The Finance Handbook is complete and ready for your perusal.  Please take some time to review this material as some of the procedures have changed, and may impact how you apply for reimbursements and travel.  The procedures are the updated versions and are applicable as of 9/1/17.

Many of the forms that we use in Finance have also been modified.  As of 11/1/17 we will only be accepting the most recent version of these forms.  Most of the forms have been modified to be interactive allowing the user to type in the data rather than having to write it.  We hope you will find this to be easier.  A link to each form is below.

You can access the Finance Handbook via the Employee Staff Portal
  • Click Sign In on the top right hand corner and enter your user name and password
  • Staff Portal will appear on the blue menu bar at the top of the page once you are signed in.  Click.
  • Go to Guidelines to Finance on the left hand grey menu
  • You can now access the Guidelines to Finance document and related Finance Forms from this page
    • The Finance Forms are interactive PDF's - to access this feature, download the form to your computer and you are then able to complete electronically
Finance Handbook Shortcut

Finance Forms Shortcut:

Upcoming Pay Dates
With the holiday season upon us we wanted to provide you with the upcoming pay dates for each month from December through March.  Please note that there is a larger than typical gap between the December and January pay dates.

Jan - Thurs 1/25
Feb - Fri 2/23
Mar - Fri 3/23

Reimbursement info
Receipts must be ITEMIZED and include a listing of all food and beverage items purchased. The credit card signature receipt must also be included. NO ALCOHOL WILL BE REIMBURSED. Meal reimbursements that do not include an itemized receipt will not be reimbursed due to our inability to demonstrate to auditors the traveler's adherence to allowable food purchase procedures.

Reimbursements will be made up to 90 days from the date of the purchase/transaction. After the
expiration of this time period, the employee will forfeit their reimbursement from the District.

*  All receipts must be legible.
* All receipts must be itemized by listing each individual item purchased with an individual charge associated with each line item. Auditor restrictions preclude our ability to accept any receipt that does not meet the criteria.
* Receipts that include reimbursable purchases that are commingled with personal purchases can no longer be processed for reimbursement. Please keep purchases that you intend to submit for reimbursement separate from purchases that are not reimbursable. The receipt that you submit to the Finance Department for reimbursement may only include items that will be reimbursed; no other purchases.
* Purchases from L.L. Greens may no longer be submitted for reimbursement. This is due to Idaho Statute that limits a Public Entity's ability to transact business with a company who may have a conflict of interest (perceived or otherwise) due to a sitting Trustee.

Mileage
Please note that in-district mileage will be paid at a fixed distance.  You can find the miles on the mileage matrix (link is above).

Technology
Bad computer

Recently, the Jerome School District was the victim of a cybercrime known as ransomware.  The attack encrypted all their files and affected every computer in the district. Their anti-virus software was not an effective deterrent. This is a grim reminder of our vulnerability as we rely more and more on electronic tools for teaching and learning.

How does this happen?  Often a program disguised as a legitimate file is installed on a computer. It may come as an attachment in email or as a link on a webpage. Some malicious software uses security flaws in the computer's operating system. Once one computer is infected, the virus can spread like wildfire to all the other computers on the network.

What can we do to protect ourselves?  Here are several recommendations:
  1. Backup your files on a regular routine. Maybe every Friday before you leave, water the plants, feed the fish and copy your critical files to Google Drive, DropBox, external hard drive, USB drive or other medium. Two backups are best practice.
  2. Keep Windows and Macintosh operating systems up to date. Upgrade to Windows 10. Remove Windows XP computers from the network.
  3. Confirm with the sender of all email attachments before opening even if it is from someone you know. A quick reply such as "Hey, did you just send me a file?" might be enough.
  4. Don't assume you are protected by anti-virus programs.
  5. Don't assume the school district has a backup. Ransomware can infect backup files too!
Thank you for taking time to consider these steps. Be safe.
Grant Opportunities for Educators
 
Sun Valley Center for the Arts announces that applications are currently available for professional development opportunities for Blaine County teachers.