Skip to content

Published on

DATE:    
August 14, 2025

TO:  
Principals
Administrative Assistants

FROM:
Michael Anderson, Associate Superintendent
Jordan School District Nurses

SUBJECT:  
Immunization Policy and Guidelines, Skyward and USIIS Inservice

Jordan School District Nurses will be conducting this inservice on:

Friday, September 19, 2025
9:00 – 11:00 a.m.
ASB (Auxiliary Services Building), PDC Room 101

This inservice is open to all office staff and administrators. If you are involved with new student registration this inservice will be of benefit to you.

Class size is limited. Please contact your school nurse if you are planning to attend. See attached nurse assignment list for 2025-26.

 

Forward this Memo

Published on

DATE:   
August 13, 2025

TO: 
All Principals

FROM:
Lisa Robinson, Administrator of Schools
Kim Lloyd, Director of Special Education
Brian King, Ph.D., Assistant Director of Special Education - Elementary
Mike Trimmell, Ed.D., Program Administrator, Special Education -Secondary

SUBJECT: 
Change in Achievement Testing – WIAT-4 Implementation and Training Schedule

The Woodcock-Johnson IV will be sunsetting at the end of this school year. After following our district RFP process, we are pleased to inform you that Jordan School District has purchased the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test-Fourth Edition (WIAT-4) as our district’s new achievement assessment tool. To ensure a smooth transition, all special education teachers will be required to participate in a full-day training session on the WIAT-4. Each teacher will receive a personal letter with their assigned training date. The training days are scheduled for:

  • August 29th
  • September 2nd
  • September 12th
  • September 19th

In addition to the scheduled training, teachers will need to complete some additional hours outside of the day-long session. During these hours, teachers will be required to pass the administration of all the tests to a non-special education student (family member/friend). It is an option that those being trained in the WIAT-4 may include these extra hours as part of their 32-hours of Educator-Directed Paid Professional Hours.

We appreciate your support in communicating this important update to your staff and assisting in facilitating their participation. You will receive a letter listing your teachers and their assigned day for training for your records.

Forward this Memo

Published on

TO:
All Administrators
All Admin Assistants

FROM:
Sarah Palmer, Director of Payroll

Regarding All Licensed and ESP Employees

  • Aug. 20-26 - Elementary Schools
  • Aug. 19-25 - Secondary Schools
  • Aug. 19-25 - District Offices & Auxiliary Services

Per District policy, annual or personal leave days may not be used during the first five days of school, unless the leave reason is listed in policy as an exception. If any of the exceptions do apply, you must provide both the leave reason and the policy exception in the time off description. If these exceptions are not applicable, yur annual or personal leave day will be changed to a no-pay day as per policy.

7. Annual leave shall not be taken during the first five (5) days that students are in school except under the following conditions:

  1. To attend the wedding of a near relative including child, father, mother, brother, sister, grandchild, grandparents or same or one's spouse or any other person who is a member of the same household as the employee.
  2. To attend to personal or business matters which require the employee's attendance and scheduling is beyond the employee's control.
  3. First year employees who notify their supervisor in writing that they are ill.

 

Forward this Memo

Published on

TO:
All Administrators
All Admin Assistants

FROM:
Sarah Palmer, Director of Payroll

Regarding All Licensed Employees
Aug. 11 - Aug. 18

Remember that teachers may not take annual/personal leave days during the six (6) days of contract time not involving students before school starts. However, they may, through correlation with the principal, arrange to exchange of of these days for another non-contract day.

Forward this Memo

Published on

DATE:   
Thursday, August 14, 2025

TO:  
All School Administrators

FROM:    
Carolyn Gough, Administrator of Teaching and Learning
Ben Jameson, Director of Assessment, Research and Accountability

SUBJECT:   
Record of August 12th Professional Learning Day Attendees

School administrators may access a Tableau dashboard that contains a record of all educators who signed in using the QR codes for the morning keynote sessions during the August 12th professional learning day. The dashboard may be accessed here. Administrators may also filter the list by conference location.

For questions about this dashboard, please refer to Ben Jameson in Assessment, Research & Accountability.

Forward this Memo

Published on

TO:
Elementary Principals

FROM:
Carolyn Gough, Administrator of Teaching & Learning
Amanda Bollinger, Associate Administrator, Teaching & Learning
Nathan Foster, Specialist, Health & PE

Principals,

It is mandatory for all Health and 4th-grade teachers to complete the Botvin Life Skills training. Please share this information with the applicable teachers at your school. See the attached document for upcoming training opportunities and requirements for this curriculum. Our new Health & PE Teacher Specialist, Nathan Foster (nate.foster@jordandistrict.org) will be emailing a list of employees that need to complete the training.

Forward this Memo

Published on

TO:
Building Adminstrators
K-3 Teachers
Instructional Coaches

FROM:
Michelle Lovell, Consultant in Teaching & Learning

There will be two in-person training opportunities available to schools that are using the Amira software program for literacy this year. A specialist from Amira will conduct this training to help schools understand the logistics of using the software and answer any questions you may have. Join the literacy team on September 5th from 2:00-4:00 or September 12th from 2:00 to 4:00 at the ASB PDC room 112 (enter at entrance D) for this training opportunity. It is recommended that instructional coaches attend the training. Building administrators and teachers in grades K-3 are also invited to attend. Please register at pd.jordandistrict.org.

Forward this Memo

Published on

TO:
Building Adminstrators
K-2 Teachers
Instructional Coaches

FROM:
Michelle Lovell, Consultant in Teaching & Learning

Parents, teachers, building coaches and administrators are invited to an open house to preview decodable books that have been selected for K-2 classrooms. The books are fully aligned to UFLI lessons and will provide opportunities for our youngest learners to practice their developing reading skills. The books will be available for preview at the ASB (7905 South Redwood Road - enter at entrance D) on August 14, 15, 18, and 22 from 7:00am to 6:00pm.

Forward this Memo

Published on

DATE: 
August 7, 2025

TO:  
All Assistant Principals

FROM: 
Michael Anderson, Associate Superintendent
Travis Hamblin, Director of Student Services
Sharon Jensen, Consultant, Student Support Services

SUBJECT: 
Safe School Hearing Committee Assignments

Please see the 25-26 Safe School Hearing Assignment Calendar for your assignment to serve on the Safe School Hearing Committee.

This Committee is chaired by Sharon Jensen, Consultant at Student Support Services. With a few exceptions, Safe School Hearings are held on Wednesdays.

Please plan on being at the District Office on your assigned day from 8:00 am to 3:00 pm. You will be notified the day before the hearings of how many hearings are scheduled.

If you have a conflict on your assigned date, please contact Janie Hyde at janie.hyde@jordandistrict.org or call 801-567-8326 as soon as possible so she can secure a replacement for you.

Thank you for your commitment to our students and the Safe School Hearing process.

 

Forward this Memo

Published on

TO:
Administrators

FROM:
Carolyn Gough, Administrator of Teaching & Learning
Jared Covili, Consultant in Teaching & Learning

In order to make the most of the available features in our Districtwide Canva deployment, we’re going to be migrating to a new Canva structure in the next two weeks. No content will be lost; as part of this migration you’ll be added to one or more new Canva teams, corresponding to the school(s) with which you’re associated (or a “Staff & Admin” team, for staff not based at a school).

There’s no action to take at this time. Once the migration occurs, we’ll contact you again with next steps.

Here’s what you need to know:
We’ll re-label our existing district team to “Archive: Jordan School District”. You’ll always be able to access this content by toggling between teams. You’ll also be able to access your new school-based team by toggling in the same way. See the attached guide for information on switching between teams.

We’ll recommend you copy your content from this Archive team over to your new school-based team. You’ll get the best Canva features in these new teams, and will best able to collaborate in your school team with the students and staff associated with that school. Click here for instructions on how to copy Canva content to your new team, but keep in mind you won’t be able to copy content to your new teams until after the migration.

If you have any questions, please contact Jared Covili, jared.covili@jordandistrict.org.

Forward this Memo

Published on

TO:
Building Administrators
Kindergarten Teachers
Instructional Coaches

FROM:
Michelle Lovell, Consultant in Teaching & Learning

As we move into the school year, we want to remind schools that the district has a kindergarten goal to have all students know all of their letter names and sounds by the end of the first quarter. We are asking teachers to input their data into Mastery Connect as a benchmark by November 7th. Meeting this goal will set students up for being able to meet the end of year goal of 20 Whole Words Read in Acadience Reading. Whole Words Read is an indication that students can blend closed syllable words proficiently. Acadience Reading is an indicator of risk and research shows that when students end the year as highly proficient (blue) they have a 90-99% chance of achieving subsequent early literacy benchmarks. If students end the year at benchmark (green) they have a 70-85% chance of meeting subsequent early literacy benchmarks.

Forward this Memo

Published on

DATE: 
Thursday, August 14, 2025

TO:     
Elementary School Administrators

FROM:  
Carolyn Gough, Administrator of Teaching and Learning
Ben Jameson, Director of Assessment, Research and Accountability

SUBJECT: 
BOY Acadience Reading and Math Testing Reminders

The beginning-of-year Acadience Reading and Math testing window opens on the third day of school and closes on Tuesday, September 30th. As we prepare for Acadience testing, there are a few friendly reminders that help the district testing teams be as efficient as possible while they are at your school testing students:

  • When possible, it is best to schedule Acadience testing in media centers where the space is large enough to mitigate the noise that comes from 10-11 testers/students all talking at once. Other areas, such as classrooms, kivas, or stages in the multicultural room/cafeteria can be very noisy. Excessive noise can make it hard for testers to hear student responses and be very distracting to students, which may affect the accuracy of their test.
  • Your school’s Acadience testing dates were communicated to you last spring. We recommend refraining from scheduling assemblies, field trips, or other events that may impact testing for the day.
  • Please avoid scheduling kindergarten and first grade classes back-to-back, when possible. They take longer because assessment assistants are administering both the reading and math measures. Staggering them between second and third grade classes helps the team stay on time.
  • Generally, assessment assistants will work to stick to the established testing schedule for the day. However, there may be times where they will need to accelerate their pacing. Please encourage your teachers to be flexible. They need to be prepared to come a little early or late to their allotted time.
  • Be sure to have an adult runner available who knows the school and can quickly get the next class to come to the testing area, distribute student cards, and help the testing run as efficiently as possible. If schools don’t have a runner available, a parent who knows where teacher classrooms are is a viable option. If there is no runner, one of our assessment assistants has to do it, which means she is testing less students.

Please contact Ben Jameson or Janice Sperry in Assessment, Research & Accountability with any questions or concerns about these reminders.

Forward this Memo

Published on

TO:
Elementary Principals

FROM:
Carolyn Gough, Administrator of Teaching & Learning
Amanda Bollinger, Associate Administrator, Teaching & Learning
Amy Lloyd, K-12 Math Consultant, Teaching & Learning

Principals,

Student manuals, center kits, and manipulative kits should have arrived at your school. We’ve noticed that some schools have received extra materials, while others may be missing items.

To help us resolve this, please open the attached document, locate your school’s tab, and record any materials that are missing or extra by Agust 29, 2025. Please note: yardsticks will be shipped separately and do not need to be included on the form.

Thank you! Our goal is to ensure every school has the resources you need for a successful year.

LINK to Material Needs

Forward this Memo

Published on

TO:
New Principals within Jordan District

FROM:
Michael Anderson, Associate Superintendent

The following has been sent by the State LAND Trust office. Please review the information.

School LAND Trust Training for NEW Principals

The School Children’s Trust (SCT) team has developed a new training resource specifically designed for principals in their first year of implementing the School LAND Trust (SLT) Program. The training covers the following topics:

  • Trust System Overview
  • School Community Council (SCC) Responsibilities
  • Council Membership Requirements
  • Council Election Requirements
  • Rules of Order & Procedure
  • General Program Timeline
  • SLT Reporting Website Account Setup

COURSE LINK

Forward this Memo

Published on

TO:
Administrative Assistants

FROM:
School Nurses

For the 2025-26 school year, all medication training and sign ups will be done through canvas. Everyone in the district has a canvas account through your district email. Attached are some simple instructions on how to sign up using the links below.

If you are a new staff member to giving medications in our district please register for the In-person Medication class.

If you are a returning staff member that has done in-person training in our district in the past you can sign up for the online medication training.

You must sign up using the links in this email. If you need help, contact your nurse.

As a note, we have added an additional section of this training that includes some reminders for the health room and treating common injuries/conditions seen in the health room. This part also has to be completed in order to receive your certificate. As a friendly reminder, be sure to view the video in its entirety before taking the quiz.

Please make sure to print your completion certificate for your school nurse to sign.

Please forward to any staff that need to complete the training.

 

Forward this Memo

Published on

DATE:   
August 1, 2025

TO:  
Principals
All Special Educators and Service Providers

FROM: 
Lisa Robinson, Administrator of Schools
Kim Lloyd, Director of Special Education

SUBJECT:     
SCRAM for 2025-26 School Year- October 1 Count

Special Education Team Leaders will be receiving a SCRAM report via District Mail of all students who should be receiving services through your school’s special education program(s) at the beginning of the 2025-26 school year. Please read this Memo carefully as several items have been modified/updated to include new procedures implemented with our new Embrace program. Once you have read through the memo, use the process you have in place at your school to include all service providers to share the report and make the necessary corrections. It is important to verify every student on the report. Each team member must initial the report confirming they reviewed it.

SCRAM reports with corrections are due no later than Friday, September 5, 2025.

Forward this Memo

Published on

TO:
Administrators

FROM:
Carolyn Gough, Administrator of Teaching & Learning
Amanda Bollinger, Associate Administrator, Teaching & Learning
Amy Lloyd, K-12 Math Consultant, Teaching & Learning

Administrators,

Teachers that chose to participate in the optional 3rd Planning Day as part of our Open Up Math Training series have until the August 22, 2025 to submit the form to receive their stipend.

Teachers will follow the directions provided in the attached Day 3 Planning Evidence Form and then upload the attached form into a Day 3 Stipend Google Form. The due date and forms were shared with teachers as well.

 

Forward this Memo

Published on

TO:
Elementary Schools

FROM:
Michelle Lovell, Teaching & Learning

The latest edition of the Literacy Matters Newsletter is now available on the literacy website. This edition contains important information including training dates for new teachers and literacy updates for elementary schools. Be sure to check it out!

Forward this Memo