Nightly News for September 12th

• We will be holding our first staff meeting  tomorrow from 3:35-5:00. K-5 teachers please be sure to grab your Wit & Wisdom supplies before hand (see below). 

• Snacks start tomorrow. Please send a student to pick up after 10:30. K-2 you may send two students. The kitchen has a supply of napkins, gloves, etc. Please forward requests to Nga @ nnguyen1@pps.net. 

• From Kenneth: Teachers! Hear me, Hear me now. You have the power to give your students temporary passwords so they can log in. Once they log in they will be prompted to set their own passwords themselves. Dr. Brenda Carpenter is working slides for next weeks Tech Tuesday with info in it as well (middle school).  Here is a link to instructions in case anyone needs this now. Enjoy the power of resetting students' passwords! This will allow you to address these needs as opposed to waiting for another staff member to get to it as they can. 

https://support.pps.net/support/solutions/articles/8000076144

Password requirements are 
16 Character minimum. 1 upper and lowercase letter. 
Cannot include "Password"
Phrase "correcthorsebatterystaple" is also blocked
No rising or falling sequences like "abc", "cba", "123", or "321"
No repeating patterns like "abababa"

Please note, numbers aren't actually part of the requirements.

• Homeroom teachers you should have received conference sigh ups in your mailboxes last week.  They were on orange paper.  Thank you to Sachi, from our PTA for helping get those together. In addition, we will share out a google sign up for all teachers tomorrow, or Wednesday. There has not been official word on conferences from the district level. We are planning for in person conferences at this time. I imagine some parents may make a request to hold some of them virtually. We are asking homeroom teachers to manage their schedules as much as possible. More on this in coming weeks. We are planning on doing arena style for 6th-8th teachers.     

•  Wit and Wisdom supply boxes are done for K-5. We are waiting on some 3x5 index cards and a couple items (we were short on quantities for a couple classes).  We are anticipating these supplies will be here Thursday.  Thanks to Sachi and Elihu for getting this all together.  Sachi is going to fill teacher boxes with their five tab dividers and pencil pouches tomorrow and then they will be ready to pick up on the tables back in the SUN area after school tomorrow prior to our staff meeting.  Shannon will be available from 3:22-3:35 to help facilitate pickup. 

• Leadership students started delivering district purchased science kits around to all K-5 classroom today.  If you didn't get yours today they will deliver tomorrow. 

• Thank you to Alyssa Eldridge, our new middle school EA, for delivering middle school Schoolhouse Supply kits to classrooms today. At this point in time we do not have any additional supplies. Students joining us from here on out will not receive supplies when they enroll. I will be reaching out to Schoolhouse Supplies to see if we can get a little buffer for this purpose. 



• We included this information in our PD slides prior to the start of school, but it bears repeating. If you are feeling unwell we are asking you to fill out the SCIF form. Linked here: 
  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScxt2bAW4PIVwGY5jwttSUZdGyes2wCpnUWJEDZp6YpGTx7dA/viewform. 

From there this is the procedure we will follow:

1. A Student/ Staff Communicable Disease Form (SCIF) will be completed for individuals with a restrictable, communicable disease.

1. Staff, Volunteers, and Contractors may complete their own SCIF. 

2. School Nurse will complete SCIF with the student’s Parent/ Guardian. 

3. Questions about communicable disease should be sent to the MESD CD Team at cdsupport@mesd.k12.or.us. 

2. The MESD Communicable Disease (CD) Team receives SCIF information and indicates a return to school/work date (as applicable) for the reported individual using the School’s Communicable Disease Sheet (CDS). 

3. Building Administrator, Supervisor, or Nurse communicates to the ill individual their return to school/work date.  

1. BESC or non-school staff will receive MESD debrief with the public health guidance about isolation and return to work dates. Supervisor should initiate the appropriate leave process.

We will be reviewing the the spreadsheet from the county 1-2 times a day and looking for spikes of illness, etc. and will report out to families, staff, etc.. Please note I will communicate out more than what is the district based decision which is as follows:

Central Office’s Research Assessment and Accountability Department will provide school-specific reports to the Building Administrator when one or more of the following groups meets/exceeds 20% absence threshold: 

1. In an Elementary School classroom or the entire school. 

2. At the Middle School 6th, 7th, or 8th grade level or the entire school.  

3. In a High School based on school-wide attendance.

Please feel free to bring up questions or concerns to me.