Superintendent's Update
March 1, 2021
Centennial Colleagues and Community ~
As we begin the month of March, this newsletter will provide you with some timely updates.
Classified Appreciation Week
Our classified staff’s diligence keeps our schools functioning smoothly, which is essential for students and staff to achieve at the highest level. During the pandemic, our classified staff have been the driving force behind providing meals, access to technology, and supporting students and district operations in a variety of ways.
I want to thank and express my genuine admiration for the dedication, care, and commitment that our classified staff members exhibit on a daily basis!
If there is a classified employee who you think is doing a great job, please reach out to them to let them know that you appreciate them.
Let’s all take a moment this week to thank our classified staff for the work they do. Our District, staff, and students could not be successful without everything our classified staff members provide.
Expanding On-Site Support for Students through LIPI
Over the past ten days the Multnomah County metrics have moved from Extreme Risk to High Risk. It is great to see that the COVID-19 cases in our area are slowly reducing and trending in the right direction. We are pleased to announce the start of Limited In-Person Instruction (LIPI) on March 29, 2021. We will introduce and open LIPI across the district K-12 in three phases.
If you are not familiar with the term “LIPI”, it is an on-campus support under the Comprehensive Distance Learning model supported by the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) and designed to meet the needs of small groups of students based on needed educational, relational, social-emotional, curricular, instructional, and/or assessment supports. Participation, including by educators, is on a voluntary basis.
Here are a few other LIPI facts:
• LIPI cohorts will consist of no more than 20 students;
• Participating students are limited to two cohorts per week per site (transportation counts as a cohort);
• All students and educators must observe mask, physical distancing requirements and follow our safety operating procedures;
• Each LIPI session will run for about two hours;
• LIPI does not replace Comprehensive Distance Learning (CDL); students will still continue working virtually (CDL) outside of LIPI hours.
LIPI Phase 1 will begin after spring break at all levels, starting with small groups. A district team of over 70 partners have come together to create a plan that is safe, robust, focused on educational equity, and student-centered. The team consists of Educators, Health Professionals, Community Partners, Union Leadership both certified and classified, and representatives from all schools. This team is charged with ensuring that the district’s LIPI plans meet all of the ODE required safety guidelines and protocols.
School Teams will be identifying LIPI participation by prioritizing student populations with the highest needs. Families of students identified to participate in Phase 1 will be contacted to determine their interest and to discuss specifics.
If metrics hold consistently at the High-Risk metric we will move to Phase 2, which allows us to expand student participation in LIPI and provide more on-site support.
When the county meets the Moderate metric and we can begin Phase 3, we will have more students return on-site and re-evaluate the allowable cohort size and expand the level of support being offered to students.
For more information here is the Updated ODE Guidance for Limited In-Person Instruction During CDL.
We are grateful to our LIPI workgroup, as well as the many educators and support staff who plan to volunteer to participate in our LIPI offering as we are working to launch our efforts as quickly and safely as possible. Thank you all for your continued focus on students, their families, our staff, and the broader community.
CSD’s “Grow Your Own” Efforts
We are participating in a Grow Your Own collaborative coordinated through Multnomah Educational Service District (MESD), focused on our support staff, with a key focus on staff of color, interested in exploring teaching careers by identifying and eliminating barriers that may interfere with this aspiration.
Our district team submitted 13 nominations for participation, we've had eight (8) responses, seven (7) of which have expressed interest. An informational session with Portland Community College, hosted by MESD, was held on Thursday, February 25, 2021, where interested support staff learned about the program and were also able to ask district-specific questions. This collaborative serves to help us increase the teacher pipeline, helps us diversify the educator workforce, and retain our staff. More updates will be provided as the program and opportunities for support staff become further developed.