TechBytes

• i-Ready Diagnostic: The current Diagnostic period has been suspended to allow students to continue with personalized instruction.
• Secondary Grades: The grading window is open and will remain open during this time. Any final timeframe for entering will be established and communicated once school is able to be resumed.

Multiple law enforcement officials are warning of bad actors scheming to take advantage of people who are victims or who want to be charitable towards victims of fires.

Scams include:

• False Job Solicitation Scams
• Fake City, County, or Federal Employees
• Phone and Text Message Scams
• Unsolicited In-Person Solicitations
• Gift Card or Payment Scams
• Fraudulent Donations

For details, please see the Community Alert sent out by the Los Angeles Police Department. If you receive any concerning communications, please contact the PUSD Help Desk at 626-396-3699 immediately.

Due to our recent tragic events, a number of companies have offered free access or additional resources for PUSD educators. Please see information below and reach out to edtech@pusd.us with any questions.

Newsela is providing access for free for the entire spring semester. This includes:

• ELA, social Studies, & science content
• NEW! Newsela Writing: AI-powered writing assistant
• Pre-built resources aligned to popular ELA curricula, like Amplify ELA and Wonders
• Text sets for spring highlights like Black History Month, Women’s History Month, and Earth Day

To take advantage of this offer:

1. Create your free Newsela Account
2. Then, click this link to get spring semester access*

*This link is special! To get semester-long access turned on, you must use this link.

Paper's Achieve 365 initiative offers educators a month's worth of ready-to-use personalized support assignments, along with specific examples of how to effectively use our new teacher assign tools. Embedded in the lessons are also opportunities for students to work with a tutor so they can always rely on adult support. This might be extremely useful as parents/guardians are focused on other essential matters.

Please see the attached sample of the lessons (gr. 6-8) and teachers can also download the calendars from the site for their grade level.

Character Strong is giving PUSD staff access to their SEL program.

• username: pasadena
• password: character2025

This will give you full access to elementary, middle, and high Tier 1 as well as LoHi Toolkit and On-Demand PD.

At hand2mind our goal is to support teachers, inspire students, engage parents, and champion learning by doing. That’s why we’ve created downloadable, teacher-developed lessons to add to your curriculum.

• Grade PreK – https://www.hand2mind.com/lessons/lessons-by-grade/prek-lessons
• Grade K – https://www.hand2mind.com/lessons/lessons-by-grade/kindergarten-lessons
• Grade 1 – https://www.hand2mind.com/lessons/lessons-by-grade/first-grade-lessons
• Grade 2 – https://www.hand2mind.com/lessons/lessons-by-grade/second-grade-lessons
• Grade 3 – https://www.hand2mind.com/lessons/lessons-by-grade/third-grade-lessons
• Grade 4 – https://www.hand2mind.com/lessons/lessons-by-grade/fourth-grade-lessons
• Grade 5 – https://www.hand2mind.com/lessons/lessons-by-grade/fifth-grade-lessons
• Here is the main link for the free lessons and worksheets – https://www.hand2mind.com/lessons

Information coming soon. Please check back on this TechBytes later in the week for info.