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Category: School Leadership

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Dear Principals,

We have enjoyed observing the progress you are making in your schools around PLCs. Many of you are establishing mission and vision statements, focusing on priority standards, or developing PLC leadership teams. We feel the conversations around the Learning by Doing readings have been productive and informative, and we have seen regular referrals to our district's tight PLC expectations.

As we are midway through the school year, our area director PLC would like to examine, calibrate, and discuss evidence of PLC implementation at all of our schools. Here is the assignment:

We've created a PLC Implementation folder embedded in your SIP folder (to reduce the number of folders). The link is below. Please upload the following artifacts to this folder:

  • One artifact from a PLC that is high functioning (you determine what high functioning means).
  • One artifact from a PLC that is on track at a basic but sufficient level (per our district's PLC phase timeline).
  • One artifact from a PLC that is struggling with an explanation (comment on doc or even separate Word doc) of how you are supporting this group and/or holding them accountable.

Artifacts may include agendas, minutes, placemats, common formative assessments, etc. 
 
Please upload all three documents to your PLC Implementation folder by 5pm on February 12, 2025. Thank you! We look forward to seeing samples of your teachers' work.

Please put PLC artifacts in the "PLC Implementation" folder:

School Folder to submit PLC Implementation artifacts

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As part of our ongoing dedication to ensuring the safety and well-being of our students and school communities, we are reaching out to gauge interest from teachers and administrators in serving as School Guardians. This role directly supports the implementation of the HB 84 Utah School Safety Act, a key initiative aimed at enhancing safety protocols across our schools.

We are seeking committed volunteers to join this important effort. Your involvement would play a crucial role in fostering a secure and supportive environment for all. If you are interested in volunteering, we kindly ask you to complete the survey linked below.

Safety Survey Link

https://forms.office.com/r/QSRakuEzbx

Thank you for your continued dedication to the safety and success of our students.

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Setting the Next School/Next Grade/Graduation Year Indicators During Enrollment

When enrolling students in your school, it is important to ensure that the ‘Next Year Grade’, ‘Next School Indicator’, and ‘Year of Graduation’ indicators are set.  To enter these settings, follow these steps in PowerSchool:

  1. Find the student in PowerSchool.
  2. Select ‘Courses and Programs’ in the left side menu.
  1. Select ‘Scheduling Settings’ from the Registration sub-menu.
  1. Enter the settings in the highlighted field and click ‘Submit’.

Finding Students Missing These Indicators:

  1. Use the following search on PowerSchool’s Start Page:
    1. Next_School  
    2. Sched_NextYearGrade=
  1. Once you find the students, go to Scheduling Settings and add the missing information.

Updating Indicators for Another School’s Request:

If another school calls requesting the Next School/Next Grade/Graduation Year Indicators to be updated for a student, please follow these steps:

  1. Find the student in PowerSchool.
  2. Click on ‘Student Profile’ in the left side menu.
  3. Select ‘Addresses’ in the Student Details sub menu.
  1. Click the Validate button under the student’s address.
  1. Verify if the student lives in the requesting school’s boundary.
  1. OR verify that the student has been accepted through Open Enrollment or is part of a district placed program (ELP, SPED, etc.)
  1. If Open Enrollment is not complete, don’t change the Next School indicator.

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CSTAG (Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines) is a critical component of school safety. Every school has at least one trained administrator, but we encourage everyone to get trained. If you have not yet been to CSTAG training or if it's been more than 3 years since you attended a training, please consider joining our next training session on February 21. For more information or to register, please use this link: https://forms.office.com/r/0ZxQfKMMQX

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We want to ensure that you are aware of the expectations for the chilly time of the school year.   Please reach out to your community and communicate to parents that students should be dressed and prepared for the cold weather with the following items: warm coats, sweaters/ hoodies, boots, hats, scarves, mittens/gloves, etc. Please ensure that these items are marked in case they are misplaced or lost. Students should come prepared to go outside, get some fresh air, and exercise outdoors daily.  The exceptions to going out daily are listed below:

Morning:

  • Inside morning in the gym, IF there is significant rainfall or snowfall. (IF students will be getting wet outside.)
  • Inside morning in the gym, IF the temperature is below 20 degrees.
  • Students sitting on their pockets, not running around, playing sports, etc.
  • Inside mornings are from (List the time for your school)________ to ensure our outside-duty teachers are in the gym to help supervise.

Recess:

  • Teacher/Grade Level Discretion
  • Inside recess IF the temperature is below 20 degrees. Recess time is held inside the classroom.

Lunch Recess:

  • Admin/Office Discretion
  • Inside lunch recess, IF there is significant rainfall or snowfall (If students will be getting wet outside), recess time is held inside the classroom.
  • Inside lunch recess, IF the temperature is below 20 degrees, recess time is held inside the classroom.

Please reach out if you have any questions or need further information.  Thank you for all that you do for the children of our district.

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Good morning, School Improvement Leaders or Designees,

This email is only going out to LEA leaders on our School Improvement Listserv. Please feel free to share this information with your schools.

The Utah State Board of Education (USBE) School Improvement Team, in partnership with WestEd, is excited to invite school leaders and their LEA supervisor to apply for personalized, customized change leadership coaching. LEA's and principals are encouraged to include assistant principals, interns, instructional coaches and anyone else they deem interested to attend. The program is optional and will provide individual coaching for leaders that will enhance your leadership as well as impact the growth, proficiency and achievement of students.

The program is from March 2025 to December 2025 and will include a mutually agreed upon on site, virtual, and on demand instruction, modeling, mentoring, feedback, and support to assist the school (principal and LEA supervisor are required and may also include assistant principals, instructional coach, intern) with change leadership.

Priority will be given to Comprehensive Support and Improvement (CSI) Low Performing Student Group schools followed by CSI-Low Graduation Rate and CSI-Low Performance schools and then by schools with ATSI and TSI designation. The only schools not eligible for this program are Elevate schools.

The objectives of the program are to build leadership capacity to lead change to improve student outcomes through one or more of the following areas of leadership:

  • Data-Informed Teaching
  • Collaborative Teams with a Focus on Efficacy
  • High Leverage Strategies for Instruction
  • Fearless Assessment: Meaningful Assessments as the Heart of Feedback and Instruction
  • Fearless Classrooms
  • Effective Use of Time and Schedules
  • Culturally Responsive, yes! But Whose Culture are We Responding To
  • High Quality Student Data and Effective Analysis

The selected participants will collaboratively build and plan a personalized coaching plan with a WestEd coach.

If interested or you would like to find out more information about this opportunity, please register to attend a virtual informational kickoff meeting on January 27th (3:45 - 5:30 PM) and January 28th (9:30-11:30 AM) that will be facilitated by WestED. 

Participants will need to register to attend and should plan to attend both sessions. To register, please click on this link.

Please do not hesitate to reach out to Dr. Gregory Firn (gregory.firn@schools.utah.gov) if you have any questions.

Krista Hotelling

School Improvement Specialist

Utah State Board of Education

801-538-7932

krista.hotelling@schools.utah.gov

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