OSP Connected
May, 2018-Office for School Performance-Volume 19
Message from Dayle
I recently ran into a staff member who had left our district for another to be closer to home and then had moved right back this year. She told me what she noticed about HSD that she hadn’t honored like she should have is the “family feel”. I agreed wholeheartedly- indeed it’s why I stay- but it certainly made me think about what that means for our work.
Like family we care for each other in the work we do for our kids. I am continually awed at the support given in PLCs, at trainings,school events and daily for colleagues down the hall. People pitch in and fill in where there are gaps or needs and always with kids at the center.
Like family we push each other on our core values. In HSD we are working to know every child by name, strength and need. We are also committed to closing opportunity and achievement gaps and we know to do that it has to look and feel differently. New results means change and we are willing to take those risks. There is no other way.
Like family we disagree. In schools and in our committees we have disagreements. It’s healthy to disagree as long as we don’t seek to hurt one another. I am thankful for the healthy disagreements that are moving us forward.
Like family we stick together. Our K-12 system is becoming more aligned and more clear about what we are creating for our students’ educational experience. As we head into graduation season we know our students’ success is a joint effort- including teachers of kindergarten, music, math, 4th grade, AP Gov and everything in between. Together we take care of our kids!HSD Focus 2017-2018
INSTRUCTION: Language Supports
BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS: Keeping Options Open
While the school-to-prison pipeline topic is likely not new to many of us in education, as the school year begins to come to an end, I thought about the impacts this has on our own community. Knowing that one in every ten young males without a high school diploma is in jail or juvenile detention, what are we doing to prevent this statistic in Hillsboro? The good news is our high school graduation rate is higher than this state average and increased by 2.4 percent between 2016 and 2017. Over 84 percent of our students graduate within four years, however what about the 16 percent?
I was reminded of this article the other week about the correlation between discipline practices in our nation’s schools and incarceration rates. Part of our strategic plan commitment of knowing every student by name, strength, and need has been opening the discussion around discipline practices and reevaluating our systems of support. Instead of consequences that might result in students missing instructional time, how can we provide systems of support for students to learn about their actions and the inevitable consequences it can have on their relationships with peers, adults, and school? This works is already being done in HSD. We now have Wellness Centers in 13 of our elementary schools, one middle school, and one high school and we continue to strengthen our professional development around trauma informed care, PAX, and student support systems.
Each Monday, principals in our district receive a report of every high school student in HSD who has been 10 day dropped (meaning they have not attended school for 10 days in a row). The goal of this report is to encourage our administrators to connect with students they see on this list and encourage them to re-engage in education. Ask your principal about this report. We have had examples of 2nd grade teachers reaching out to students they knew nine years ago and supporting them with getting connected to programs that better support their needs. Kids remember you and your connection matters. Be the difference in supporting 100 percent of students completing high school in HSD.
Safety Reminder
CAREER & COLLEGE READY:
As part of the CTE Revitalization Grant awarded to Hillsboro School District in December 2017, Hillsboro High School will be hosting a bilingual CTE Innovation Camp this summer. Students will rotate through activities and sessions where they learn about the CTE programs offered at Hillsboro High School. The CTE Summer Innovation camp is a project-based learning experience that includes designing a product, developing a business plan, prototyping and executing the product design, testing it, and presenting to the larger community. The camp will last for a total of eight days: Monday through Thursday over the course of two weeks. The camp aims to serve Latino students and other historically underserved students and is designed to harness the strengths and assets, such as bilingualism, that students bring to the table. Camp instructors, who will be both licensed CTE teachers and staff who are experienced in serving families in the Latino community, will work directly with high school interns to develop the lesson plans and presentations.
CTE Innovation Camp
When: July 23-26, July 30 - August 2nd
Who: Current 6th - 10th grade students in the Hillsboro High School feeder. Preference given to historically underserved student groups.
What: This is a bilingual camp in Spanish and English
Monday, Jul 23, 2018, 08:00 AM
Hillsboro High School, Southeast Rood Bridge Road, Hillsboro, OR, USA
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: What Drives It?
Recently some good questions have surfaced about professional development and specifically how staff can have input in the development of PD offerings. Ultimately our work in our district is to meet our five year strategic plan goal: All kids graduate career and college ready. Our strategic plan was created based on feedback from multiple sources including our School Board, our Accreditation Process and directly from over 1,000 students and staff members from our schools. This district plan guides the professional development offered at both the district and site based level. Site based school improvement plans are created in order to support the unique needs of every building and they students they serve. These improvement plans then help drive the professional development designed by school leadership teams. Another layer of input used to guide our professional development is through session feedback forms. We make it a practice of collecting staff feedback after every professional development session in order to get information on what went well, what might need to be adjusted for the future, and what additional supports might be needed. All of this information - strategic plan goals, site based school improvement plans, feedback from building leadership teams, feedback from staff professional development sessions - is used to design our professional development offering each school year. With limited funds we must be frugal in our offerings and make sure we stay focused on the PD that will help our students’ experiences the most.