TechBytes

• August 31 - October 2:
• STEMscopes beginning of year assessment, grades 2-5
• Science beginning of year assessment, grades 9-12
• September 8-22: Amira Progress Monitoring for 1st-2nd grade
• September 15: Secondary Grading Window Opens
• September 22-29: Fat Bear Week! Information Classroom Resources
• September 24: Secondary Grading Window Closes
• September 28-October 23: Epic Reading Challenge! (Elementary)
• September 28-October 30: Kindergarten Beginning of Year Diagnostic
• September 30: Student Account Storage Limits enforced
• October 13 - November 13: Middle School Science Benchmark 1

Get ready for an epic, district-wide adventure that will turn daily reading into a thrilling habit! From September 28 through October 23, elementary classes implementing Epic School Plus are invited to join Cat Ninja’s October Reading Challenge.

Over these 4 weeks (20 school days), the mission is simple: build a powerful, consistent daily reading routine together as a team!

🎯 How It Works

• The Goal: Read for 20 minutes on Epic School Plus each school day (Mon–Fri).

• Qualifying Days: Earn a Qualifying Day whenever 80%+ of your class hits the 20-minute target.

• Weekly Perks: Classes with 4+ Qualifying Days in a single week earn Consistent Crawler status—perfect for unlocking class rewards like extra recess or reading parties!

• How to Win: The class with the most Qualifying Days over the 4-week challenge wins. (Weekend reading counts as a tiebreaker!)

🏆 The Grand Prize

The winning class will get an exclusive in-person visit from Cat Ninja at their school on October 30, plus official certificates and prize packs for students and the teacher! Track your class's daily progress on your Educator Dashboard and let the reading begin! 📚✨

When a teacher takes attendance, Aeries shows an "Attendance submitted" message but still flags the class as missing attendance. In period-based schools the class stays on the Missing Attendance report even though attendance was taken; in daily schools the "missing" warning remains on screen after submitting.

Aeries is aware of the issue and is working on resolving it.

Amira headphones are instructional materials and should be used only for Amira-related instruction and assessment.

It is highly recommended that Amira be administered in a small-group setting to support an appropriate testing and instructional environment.

Please do not use these headphones for other programs or activities. If a pair is damaged or stops working, do not throw it away. Return the headphones to your MTSS Coach or your Main Office so they can be processed under warranty and replaced, if eligible.

Due to limited supply, we are no longer providing class sets. You are encouraged to use Amira in a small group setting.

The STEMscopes Beginning of Year (BOY) Assessment window opens for grades 2-5 as of August 31st and concludes October 2nd. Grades K-1 will test from November 16th - December 18th. The assessment must be administered through STEMscopes.

The Beginning of Year Assessment does not automatically appear for students -- you will need to assign it. For complete directions, please see the Smore linked below.

Elementary Classroom Application:

Elementary classrooms rely heavily on centers and small group rotations. You can create groups in Hāpara (e.g., "Red Reading Group" or "Math Circle") to easily push out differentiated links or monitor just the students working on Chromebooks while you teach a small group.

Secondary Classroom Application:

Facilitate project-based learning effortlessly. Create groups for different student project teams so you can monitor their collaborative progress or push out resources specifically tailored to a team's research topic.

Resources

▶️ Creating and Using Groups Video

📖 Creating and Using Groups in Highlights Article

📖 Using Class Groups in Highlights Article

We are currently having an issue with Hapara classes dropping students after they have changed sections/periods. We are working on a solution with Hapara and hope to have the issue resolved by the end of the week.

Storage Limit for Middle & High School Accounts: 10GB

Storage Limit for Elementary Accounts: 5GB

What happens if a student is over the limit?

Currently, any accounts over 20GB are locked from saving new files or receiving larger attachments. After September 30th, accounts over 10GB will be locked from saving new files or receiving larger attachments. Students can still access existing emails and files, but they won't be able to edit or add anything new.

If a student cannot save files in their Drive, being over the storage limit is most likely the culprit. These students (and parent email addresses on file) all have received two emails around cleaning up their storage. To confirm this is the issue, have the student login to their Drive. If they are over the limit, there will be a message along the top of their Drive. For more information, see the Smore linked below.

• Student Password Resets: Students can see the Office Manager/Secretary, Librarian, or Site Administrator for password resets.

• Student Chromebooks: We are actively processing requests and delivering devices weekly. Please do not direct parents to ITS. A teacher, librarian, or staff member should submit a ticket on the student's behalf for elementary grades and middle/high school students can submit their own ticket. A ticket must be submitted for the Chromebook issue so it gets tracked in our queue. Your site technician will deliver Chromebooks as soon as they are able to.

• Student Lost/Stolen Chromebooks: Lost/Stolen Chromebooks must be reported through the ticket system.