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August 2023 Education Update

Oregon Achieves... Together!

A Message from Oregon Department of Education Director Dr. Charlene Williams

ODE Director Dr. Charlene Williams 

The start of a school year signifies new beginnings for students in all of Oregon’s 36 counties – an opportunity to start fresh with renewed energy and excitement. This is true for me as I reflect on how public education has shaped me as a learner, teacher, and administrator as I arrive as the Director of the Oregon Department of Education.

The last few years have deeply challenged students, educators and families. Suddenly classrooms became virtual, highlighting disparities in broadband connection around the state. Stress and uncertainty about living through a global pandemic reinforced the need for better mental health for students and staff in our schools. The impacts of the pandemic continue to echo through our schools, reshaping the way our system must serve our students.

The Anchors That Help Us Serve Students


It was a pleasure to meet with so many dedicated leaders at the Coalition of Oregon School Administrators conference in Eugene earlier this month. As I said in my address, here are the anchors that I believe make all the difference in a public education setting, to help set a tone of care and connection for every student in every school:

  1. Centering students and supporting them – not just as learners, but as leaders.
  2. Consciousness and care as we work to improve our education system.
  3. Community and coalition building to bring people together and design solutions that work.
  4. Confidence and conviction to accomplish great things together.
Centering Students

As Director, I’m deeply committed to the success of each and every student in every school in every community in Oregon, from Malheur County, where I recently met with school district leaders, to Multnomah County.

As a teacher, I’ve had the experience of students arriving in my classroom and disliking a subject, but leaving at the end of the year in love with that same subject. That is the power of a strong bond between students and educators that all children deserve.

I once heard a student of color say, “I did ok academically, I just didn’t think it was ok to be Brown.” I saw first hand how every student deserves to experience belonging at school, to be affirmed and celebrated for all of who they are. They deserve to be heard loud and clear, and to influence how decisions are made about their education. They come to school for foundational knowledge, but also to be fully supported in their dreams for the future — for themselves, and for all of us.

Consciousness and Care

It is just as important to take an honest, unfiltered look at Oregon’s education system to see how it’s been serving students, and then to use what we learn to collaborate on better policies and practices for students.

Over the years, my work has scaled up from the classroom to school level, and from school to district, and now to a state level. No matter the scale within the education system, it has always required knowing the system in order to transform it. We can best understand by listening carefully to the people who are involved on a daily basis, including students, families, staff, and other school community members.

Community and Coalition Building

People support what they are part of creating. That’s how schools and districts gain the momentum, trust, and creativity needed in order to improve outcomes and experiences for students. Closely involving parents and families helps build inclusive school environments that empower all children to grow and thrive. For example, our Early Literacy Success Initiative calls for increasing support to parents and guardians to enable them to be partners in the development of their children’s literacy skills and knowledge. More than belonging, students, families, and staff need to have a real say. Whether I was working at a small, under-resourced school or in a high performing school district, the same kind of listening and community engagement was needed to build trust among the community.

Confidence and Conviction to Accomplish Great Things Together

The time is now. We can and we must create even better experiences and outcomes for our students. Oregonians can already see examples of growth and promising practices. We’ve seen a climbing high school graduation rate, expanded resources to nurture student mental health and we have grown workforce preparation programs in high schools.

And there’s more to accomplish by building on the foundation of what many people share: a desire to see the young people of Oregon receive a quality education so they can reach their full potential. It is essential that every child in Oregon read and write with confidence and competence. One of my priorities is to support the Governor’s Early Literacy Success Initiative. Our hope is that each and every child from birth through 5th grade is set up for success in learning to read and reading to learn. This means partnering with families, schools and community partners to provide rich learning experiences in a culturally responsive way.

A new school year stirs up hope and possibility. The dreams we have for our students are within reach. Let us lean in and lean on each other to open doors and remove barriers so our students can experience success.


Early Literacy Success Initiative Launches

One of the core investments of the newly passed Early Literacy Success Initiative is the Early Literacy Success School District Grants. These grants will provide $90 million for school districts and eligible public charter schools.

A strong, shared understanding of the content in Oregon’s Early Literacy Framework is an important first step in planning for this grant. The framework serves as a primary resource for strengthening student belonging and literacy instruction.

ODE created an overview of the new legislation as it pertains to applying and reporting for the Early Literacy Success School District Grants as well as an accompanying FAQ. These resources were developed with language directly from the legislation and will be updated as additional interpretation and guidance is developed.

Preliminary allocations for the Early Literacy Success School District Grants are now available.

Please Note:These are preliminary allocations; the allocations may change as the state board adopts rules and considers additional weighting for students navigating poverty and other factors. They are provided to support your planning processes. The allocations contain minimum (floor) funding for the smallest school districts and eligible grantees at an amount of $85,000 for the biennium.

The School District Grants require a 25% match of funding (from any fund source) to advance literacy from any district fund sources. School districts and eligible charter schools at or below 50ADMw will be given a small district/schools accommodation to release the need for a match. All other applicants will be asked in their application to name what fund sources they are using to meet the match.

**Please note, this direction is put forward pending SBE approval of temporary and then permanent rules.**

To learn more about the overall Early Literacy Success Legislation, please visit our website. We will be adding important updates to this site as the Early Literacy Success implementation journey continues. In addition, this overview of the legislation provides a concise look of the Early Literacy Success Initiative.

Questions?

Prepare Now for National School Lunch Week!

The week of October 9-13 is National School Lunch Week. The Oregon Department of Education (ODE) and the Oregon School Boards Association (OSBA) are teaming up to raise awareness of the importance of child nutrition programs in schools.

Research shows that students who are adequately nourished at school:

  • perform better academically
  • behave better in the classroom

We invite school board members and superintendents to eat with students during that week to experience their local school lunches.

Encourage your board to participate by planning lunch with students that week. All they need to do is reach out to school nutrition staff and building administrators before their visit. Then they are encouraged to post to social media about their experience using the #NSLW23inOR hashtag and the ODE (@ORDeptEd) and OSBA (@OSBANews) handle.

Guest Column: CISA Helps Schools Reinforce Mental and Physical Safety

By: Patrick Massey, CISA Region 10 Regional Director, CISARegion10@cisa.dhs.gov

K-12 school communities increasingly contend with an evolving and unique set of threats, hazards, and security challenges, oftentimes with limited resources. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is dedicated to working alongside school districts to improve the physical security of our nation’s schools.

CISA is focused on helping schools build resiliency to outside threats. The K-12 School Security Guide Suite developed by CISA assists schools in conducting more robust vulnerability assessments and implementing layered physical security elements across K–12 districts and campuses.

The suite of products provides resources, tools and strategies to improve school physical security. It includes:

  • The CISA K-12 School Security Guide, 3rd Edition – This guide details safety and security planning for all types of K-12 schools across the U.S. and is applicable to schools from rural to urban, and schools at various levels of maturity in their security planning process. Additionally, the Guide demonstrates how schools can create safe and secure learning environments without asking staff members to become security experts.
  • The CISA School Security Assessment Tool (SSAT) – This tool incorporates a systems-based approach to evaluate your school’s safety posture. It’s a web-based assessment that walks users through a tailorable vulnerability analysis and provides results and recommendations.

This partnership with CISA and schools across our region is vital to hardening the security around schools, thereby protecting students from outside intruders intent on doing harm.

Fostering a safe and nurturing environment where students feel empowered to express their concerns when they experience an emotional threat is also important. Reporting programs are designed to provide students with a trusted avenue for seeking help and reporting concerns. These systems facilitate early intervention, thereby helping to prevent targeted violence and other negative outcomes. However, schools often face challenges because many students and adults are reluctant to report this activity.

In a combined effort to improve and encourage reporting, CISA’s School Safety Task Force, and the United States Secret Service (USSS) National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) have partnered to publish “Improving School Safety Through Bystander Reporting: A Toolkit for Strengthening K-12 Reporting Programs.” The toolkit offers simple strategies and guidance that K-12 schools and school districts can use to implement and enhance safety reporting programs and encourage bystander reporting among students and the greater school community. The toolkit is geared toward superintendents, district and school administrators, school boards, and state policymakers.

There is no more important institution to the future prosperity and strength of the United States than our K-12 education system. CISA stands ready to partner with schools to improve your security and resiliency.

For more information or assistance, please contact the Region 10 office for CISA at CISARegion10@cisa.dhs.gov.


Starting a New School Year With Care & Connection

Care, connection, and community are the heart of education. Since the launch of ODE’s Care and Connection effort in 2021, school and district leaders have prioritized creating welcoming, safe and inclusive school communities where students, families, and staff can thrive.

We encourage you to take the time and space you and your staff need to grow and sustain safe, inclusive, invitational spaces that allow each person to be where they are at any given moment and offer creative opportunities for self-exploration.

At the beginning of the school year, consider fun “getting to know you” exercises that are intentionally designed to create connections and build relationships. These might include greeting students at the classroom door each day, and using art, music, movement, nature and other opportunities for students and staff to express themselves.

Throughout the school year, we encourage you to continue to incorporate experiences that foster care and connection into teaching and learning in the classroom and beyond.

As you prepare for the coming school year, please re-review ODE’s Care & Connection Activities suggestions and other Care & Connection resources, and continue to dedicate time and space each school day to foster connection, care, and community.

This year, we have three related resources to share:

Contact Us

We’re excited to begin another school year with Care & Connection and are committed to supporting you in that effort. If you have any questions or feedback, please contact Dr. B Grace Bullock.

Guiding Principles and Best Practices in School Discipline

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE) and its Safe and Supportive Schools' technical assistance centers have recently released a series of informative fact sheets available in both English and Spanish. These fact sheets are designed to provide valuable guidance to school leaders and communities on supporting students' social, emotional, behavioral and academic well-being and success. Additionally, the technical assistance centers will be hosting a miniseries of webinars to further explore the resources and delve deeper into their practical implementation. The miniseries is scheduled as follows:

  • Strategies for School and District Leaders (August 23, 12:00 p.m.)
  • Strategies for Schools to Enhance Relationships with Families (September 20, 12:00 p.m.)
  • Strategies for Educators and School-Based Staff (October 4, 12:00 p.m.)
  • Strategies for Student and Teacher Support Teams (October 18, 12:00 p.m.)

Your support in sharing this information with your school community is greatly appreciated. Together, we can make a positive impact on our students' well-being and academic success.

Early Indicator and Intervention Systems Professional Learning

ODE is pleased to announce registration for two learning opportunities to support schools and districts with implementation and enhancement of their Early Indicator and Intervention Systems (EIIS). Two different learning series will be offered during the 2023-24 school year - Early Indicator and Intervention Systems: Foundations for Student Success and EIIS at Middle and High School. Each of these learning series will be offered at no cost to Oregon public schools and districts.

Designed and facilitated by Education Northwest and FHI360, these learning series will provide participants with resources and skills to expand and deepen EIIS best practices. Throughout the series, participants will explore the mindsets that align with a positive youth development approach to understanding students’ needs, understand and apply an equity lens to student data, reflect on the components of their current system, and develop plans for implementation. Effective use of an early indicator and intervention systems is a core-feature of strong 9th grade on track work and supports school and districts living into their Integrated Plan and Applications from Aligning for Student Success.

Both series include synchronous and asynchronous sessions, as well as optional consultation and collaboration with facilitators. All sessions are virtual. Districts and schools are encouraged to have four to six person teams of educators and leaders participate. Both learning series will be repeated several times during the 2023-24 school year and there may be more than one learning series group per session depending on the number of participants who register.

More information about the schedule for each learning series and registration links, as well as to register your team for the learning series for the 2023-24 school year is available on the Aligning for Student Success Professional Learning webpage.

Are you excited about EIIS but in a small school or not able to send a team to a learning series? ODE is offering a variety of learning opportunities and technical assistance to strengthen EIIS in your school/district that will be available in the 2023-24 school year, including EIIS Office Hours, presentations at regional and statewide conferences, and collaborative consultation with the EIIS Team. Please contact the EIIS Team with questions about the EIIS Learning Series and other opportunities.

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