Special EDge
November 13th, 2025
March 5, 2026
A Short Note
To our incredible Educational Assistants, thank you for the care, skill, and dedication you bring to our students every single day. You create spaces where students feel safe, valued, and confident enough to take risks and grow new skills. Your patience, consistency, and belief in each learner make a lasting difference—not only in helping build skills, but in students’ sense of belonging. You are integral members of our school teams, and our work simply would not be possible without your expertise, compassion, and commitment. Thank you for the work you do each day! We appreciate you!
Communication Guidance
We know email is easy, but here are some things to think about when communicating in an email format. Be mindful to consider how this would feel if the information in the email was about your child or relative.
BLS Student Information Guidance
Use the Right Communication Method: For sensitive student, family, or workplace matters, prioritize in-person or phone conversations over email.
Be Cautious with Email: District email should be used mainly for updates, clarification, and record-keeping, and should always be assumed to be public.
Protect Student Information: Personally identifiable information (PII) may only be shared when the recipient is authorized and has a legitimate educational need.
You may use student full names in the message. For efficiency in email communications, please do not use SSID or student initials. Email signature disclaimers about confidentiality are not necessary.
Avoid Texting About Students: Do not include student or family information in text messages due to security and record-retention concerns. For schools that use texting as form of communication during the day, you can use Teams app. Questions about alternatives to using personal devices.
School Social Work and Classified Appreciation Week
In honor of School Social Work Week and Classified Appreciation Week (March 2 -6th), we want to take a moment to specifically honor our Student Success Coordinators, Clinicians, Instructors, and Educational Assistants.
The ongoing need for specialized and compassionate support for students makes the Student Success team a central role in bridging the gap between home and school, ensuring that social, emotional, and mental health needs are met with expertise and empathy.
Whether they are providing intensive care coordination, fostering family engagement, or offering a steady hand during a mental health crisis, they work to bridge between a student “getting by” and truly thriving. The effort they put into building safe, trusting relationships that extend from the classroom to the home with students is essential.
Thank you for all that you do for our students, families and the Bend-La Pine community!
ESY emails have started going out!
Emails for students who qualify for ESY, based on their IEP, have been getting an email to sign up for ESY! Please encourage families you work with to fill this out. The new workflow is below. Thank you!
✨ ESY case managers, we have an exciting new workflow for ESY, which will require LESS work from you! Yay!
📝 If a student qualifies for ESY, per their IEP, their parent or guardian will receive a Smartsheet link to complete, that allows them to indicate whether they will be attending ESY or not and whether they would like transportation to the site.
✅ If email will be a barrier for a family, you can help them, by entering what they tell you verbally - you will also be emailed the link. 🙂
⭐ Based on what is listed in the IEP, it will automatically be marked if they will be offered the short or long session of ESY or GRO/EXCEL and that will be communicated to the family when they receive their link.
❗You will NO LONGER have to print forms, collect signatures from families, and send them back to me! Hurray!
👍 If ESY times are not currently listed on the student's IEP, you will be getting an email from me (Sara), asking you to fix this, so we can ensure that families receive the correct information.
📆 DATES for ESY: July 13-30 (Monday-Thursday ONLY)
🏫 FYI - We do not have solidified locations for ESY, yet. Locations will be finalized when we find out who will be attending ESY. The location will be chosen based on student equipment need.
HDESD Learning Labs!
Did you know that HDESD offers this Learning Lab website? It has many, many printable resources and even a video library!
Take a look at these awesome transition supports!
Welcome back to Campus Kudos, where we will be celebrating ways that a school’s Student Services team has been working to promote inclusion, belonging for students, and working as a team to support each other. Stay tuned each week to see which school is highlighted and what kinds of amazing work they are doing to support students.
This week we are celebrating WE Miller and Westside Village!
WE MILLER
The team at Miller has worked together to support each other through a stressful year. The recent fire and some hard circumstances for staff members have given this staff the opportunity to wrap around one another in a way that has really been amazing. The staff comes together to care for each other, provides words of encouragement and kindness during difficult times. The staff has experienced hardship over the last few months that displaced some teachers and disrupted typical day to day functions of the school. Staff worked together to support each other in ways that helped each other cope. The adults kept their humor, showed patience and kindness which truly helped get through.
Kristen Bradshaw has been supporting at Miller this year, and shared a story that made a difference for HER: “One of our students is well known in our school. He loves walking in and out of classrooms in search of fun toys and connection. The kids at Miller all know him and extend hellos to him as he comes and goes. They understand he has unique needs and the kids at Miller embrace him. One day during lunch, he started shooting hoops. I wasn’t paying much attention to it until I started hearing cheers. I noticed that each time this boy made a basket kids began erupting into cheer for him. To be honest I don’t know if the boy even noticed. But what I witnessed made me tear up. An entire cafeteria was showing this boy they SAW him. They were loving him in that moment through cheers, clapping and validation. Did it matter in that moment that he was doing something unexpected in the cafe? Absolutely not. Because the joy it brought that whole cafe of kids and the sense of belonging and dignity they were extending to one student who otherwise might experience isolation far outweighed what was “expected” behavior in the cafe. Community was built in that moment of time. That was a moment I will never forget.”
Go Miller!
WESTSIDE VILLAGE
The staff at Westside Village is always seeking ways for students to be included. They go to great lengths to ensure students can participate in their classrooms, go on field trips, and go on longer experiential learning opportunities. It is evident that the team at Westside deeply cares about one another. They collaborate often and it is rare that everyone on the team is not fully up to speed about a certain student or case so that they can seamlessly jump in and support one another. You will often find the whole team working together on something that will help support students!
The team at Westside LOVE their jobs and care so much about each other and the students they support. Go Westside!
Student Services Launchpad
Have you ever wanted all of the most important Student Services links all in one place?? You’re in luck! Look at our new Student Services Launchpad for tons of helpful links. We recommend that you bookmark this page or add a shortcut to your Drive for easy access!
Important Dates and Upcoming Events
- March 4: Educator Network Day
- March 10: CPI Refresher Training
- March 11: Teacher Directed SIW
- March 18: High School Building Directed SIW/Elementary+Middle Teacher Directed SIW
- March 19+20: Conferences - No Students Elementary + Middle School
- March 23-27: Spring Break
- April 1: Building Directed SIW
- April 13: Teacher Directed SIW
- April 15: Educator Network Day
- April 22: Building Directed SIW
- April 29: Teacher Directed SIW
- May 12: CPI Refresher Training
*CPI Registration: Click HERE
Action Items
- Review the Communication Guidance
- Plan for ESY - Links have started going out!
- Check out the Learning Labs
- Check out the incredible work of teams in Campus Kudos!
- Utilize the Student Services Launchpad
- Save the Date for upcoming events
Contributions to the Blog
Do you have something you'd like added to the blog? Please reach out to Sara Young at sara.young@bend.k12.or.us if you'd like to share something!
Previous Blogs
Previous Special EDge Student Services Blogs: