HeART of Portland, the annual celebration of local student artists, is returning to the Portland Art Museum (PAM) beginning April 16.

The two-week fine arts showcase features work by students from across Portland Public Schools and is made possible by the Arts Access Fund, which also supports elementary visual and performing arts educators.

2025 HeART of Portland kicks off with an opening reception at PAM on April 16 at 6:30 p.m. and concludes with the Miller Family Free Day on April 27. The opening reception will include musical and theatrical performances, as well as a set from the elementary school honor choir – made up of two singers from each PPS elementary – and the debut of the honor dance collective. 

In addition, the showcase will feature more than 100 works of student visual art, handpicked by PPS arts educators, and a collaborative art project for K-12 students that embraces the rebellious spirit of the current PAM exhibition, Psychedelic Rock Posters and Fashion of the 1960s. 

The reception and HeART of Portland exhibits are free and open to everyone. Please join us in lifting up our student artists!

Portland Public Schools is continuing to host a series of events aimed at starting productive conversations about what is possible in the systems we create for our children with disabilities.

As part of this series, we are excited to welcome you to a free screening of The Ride Ahead on Thursday March 20 at McMenamins Kennedy School. Doors open at 6 p.m. and the movie begins at 7:00.

The Ride Ahead is a film about adult life with disabilities by a man with disabilities. It is the debut of 21-year-old Samuel Habib who, struggling to find his place in the world, decides to make a film that charts how a group of disabled adults navigate challenges and forge their own unique paths. The film serves as a roadmap for himself and others and illustrates the compelling power of one person truly determined to live life on his own terms.

In documenting his journey, Samuel is following in the footsteps of his father, the filmmaker Dan Habib. You can learn more about their work here.

Staff, families, and community members are all invited. Parking is free and McMenamins' full menu is available for ordering. We hope to see you there!

In meteorological terms, Portland’s first big weather event of 2024 was the definition of a perfect storm. Frigid temperatures and high winds combined with snow and ice to bring down tree limbs, close roads, scramble traffic, freeze pipes, and knock out power for tens of thousands of residents.

It was a metaphorical perfect storm for Portland Public Schools as well. Fallen trees cut power to multiple schools and others have suffered water damage from broken pipes. Lack of heat was also a problem, and impassable roads, paired with snowed-in and icy parking lots, made it impossible for buses to run safely. Those same conditions limited how the district’s facilities and operations teams can even assess the scope of the issues, let alone begin working on solutions. And icy sidewalks meant walkers have no safe route to school.

This week could bring similar conditions to the Portland area, and PPS’s School Closure Team is ready to meet the challenge. The team convenes regularly during inclement weather to take all of the above into careful consideration. By now, families are quite familiar with how the district communicates these decisions. What’s perhaps less known is how district leaders arrive at such decisions in the first place. 

As part of our district's focus on events that center belonging, equity, and inclusion, we have been screening a series of films that we hope will challenge our perceptions about what is possible in the systems we create for our children with disabilities.

The next film in the series is “Champions,” which will screen on Saturday February 8th at 2:00 PM at Lincoln High School. This event will also include first-hand testimonials from PPS students.

This movie highlights the journey of a basketball coach who leads a team of players with intellectual disabilities. Through humor and heartfelt moments, the movie emphasizes the strengths, individuality, and value each player brings to the team and how inclusion enriches communities and creates positive, supportive environments.

Staff, families, and community members are all invited. Parking is free and light refreshment will be provided. We hope to see you there!

On behalf of all Arleta Staff, we love our Arleta community! Thank you so much for all your thoughtfulness, generosity and care always, and for making us feel so valued this week especially. The commitment and care our families pour into our community is such a special part of Arleta, and makes such a difference in everyone’s days. Thank you, thank you, thank you for all the lovely staff appreciation on all the levels.

Skimming through this week’s Dolphin Digest, my heart fills with gratitude for all the ways our community comes together for our students. Make sure to scroll down to the SSJ65 Arleta News Channel brought to us by our wonderful SUN School! Speaking of SUN School, things are looking good! The mayor's budget website talks about supporting SUN (under parks). Our district RESJ SUN Manager, Marco Matias, is hoping for a final, final decision any day.

A quick note on the classroom placement process for next year: the main thing to know is you don’t need to do anything. Our teacher teams work together to create balanced learning environments, with input from specialists and support staff. We consider academic achievement, race, age (the number of younger students vs. older students within a grade), ELD and Special Education services, learning styles, gender, students who are new to our school, and more. I assign teachers to sections over the summer, and staff finalize class lists during the days teachers are working before school for students begins. For more detail, see the Classroom Placement section in our Arleta Family Handbook.

Warmly,

Lisa

Incoming Kindergarten and Prospective Students Open House this afternoon! This afternoon, 4th and 5th grade volunteers will lead school tours or demonstrate what music, PE and Library look like with our “Specials” teachers. Thank you to our student leaders and if you see any incoming kindergartners or prospective students today, please mention our Open House! It begins at 2:30.

Ms. Raina and I are excited to bring a screening of a really wonderful math documentary called “Counted Out” to all in our community in our auditorium on Saturday, May 31, mid-day (exact time TBA soon). Please hold the date! Here’s the trailer: Counted Out. The film is so engaging and inspiring; it’s about reducing math anxiety and making math feel accessible and relevant to all students. You can invite anyone to attend with you. Free Popcorn will be served! Raina and I will host a post-discussion with snacks after in Room 4 for all interested, too.

Thank you wonderful Arleta Parents, Family and Community Volunteers! There’s a little note of appreciation for you on our office counter along with a Kind bar (Thank you for your Kindness and Generosity!) but how can words and Kind bars convey the incredible positive impact you all have on our school, in and out of classrooms? Please know it’s deeply felt in my heart, and the hearts of all our staff. The ways you support our teaching, our school grounds, our school climate and culture, each other, new families, outgoing families, the way you support and show up for important priorities when they emerge (SUN!), and the programs, events, and affinity spaces you create and support have so much to do with Arleta being the amazing school it is. I’m so grateful and constantly touched and inspired by you all, and also I learn so much from you.

On that note, an Arleta mom reminded me just yesterday of utilizing our Family-Student-School Compact when we need to work with children on following school expectations. You could keep it handy to use with your children as all work to follow expectations and keep focused on learning and playing (safely!). Every child, teacher, family and I signed it..

Reminder from our Arleta Family Handbook: SUN and YMCA use of the playground after school. YMCA and SUN School programs have Civic Use of Building (CUB) permits for our building and grounds after school. Our goal is to co-mingle our programs with students / families who like to hang out to talk and play, while also ensuring no one has come on the property who shouldn’t be there. Arleta students must have adult supervision in order to play on the school grounds after school. Students should not bring personal toys onto the school grounds after school during our SUN and YMCA programming, as other students would also need to be included, and YMCA and SUN staff need to be able to gather their students according to their program schedules. Thank you for your support!

Warmly,

Lisa

What a fun and vibrant Art & Literacy Night last week! Even if you weren’t able to attend this year, your child’s beautiful art and work is displayed and was part of the experience. It felt so good to meet and connect with each other in the shared love for our students… just being together, and also all the help. Thank you! From finding black fabric and stapling it to display boards, mounting and hanging, fantastic flyers, maps and Bingo cards, providing food, our iLumiDance performance, Maya Ceramics and author Aron Steinke, cleaning up, setting up, leading… And! Our amazing Ms. Meyer and Classroom Teachers who led students to share themselves in such beautiful, meaningful ways. Next up is SUN Bingo Night! ~Arleta Cafeteria, 5-7, Friday Night.

I’m thrilled to announce a wonderful partnership Arleta has begun with Black Excellence Group, a play-based modular program and PPS community partner. BE serves over 500 PPS students in Black Excellence cohorts each week across 9 schools, Arleta being the 9th! Our BE students meet in two cohorts (K-3 and 4-5) for 30 minutes weekly. The focus is on accelerating belonging and trajectories for children… for children to hear they belong and are loved, valued, able and excellent.

Our staff also gets to learn from our Black Excellence Leaders, and as your honored lead learner, here is a tip Mr. Matt, BE Educational Programming Lead, shared with me recently, for use when encouraging children to do something we want or need them to do: acknowledge 4 strengths before we re-direct. For example:

• You are such a good thinker, you’re clever, you ask good questions and I love how curious you are. Please use your skills to make Grandma a birthday card!

• You are ___, ___, ___, ___. Yesterday I saw you do___. Right now, what would it take to see that again?

• I see you working hard, you’re a hard working person.”

The idea is that reserving our no’s for when we need them, changes our heart position and our mindset. We feel a change in children’s response to us when we acknowledge the strengths they have. As Mr. Matt put it, we call them in instead of calling them out. Here’s a link to four helpful ways to help ourselves give this 4:1 positive reinforcement and shape the behavior we want to see. I’m so grateful for our new partnership with Black Excellence… for our Black Excellence students and for our whole community.

ICE Action Preparedness: Last week, the PPS legal team learned of letters sent out to families in the metropolitan area telling them that their parole status was being terminated and directing them to leave the U.S. immediately. Here is an FAQ on this issue. According to staff from Innovation Law Lab, the most important takeaway is- people with pending applications (like applications for asylum) are permitted to remain in the country while that application is pending. People who do not have pending applications should consult with an immigration attorney as soon as possible; Equity Corps is a great free resource for that. The phone number for the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition Hotline (PIRC) is (888) 622-1510. It’s important to have: observers may be able to respond quickly to these types of situations.

Warmly,

Lisa

Our 3rd annual all-community Arleta Art & Literacy Night is next Thursday evening from 5:30-7! We hope to see your family. It will be a fun opportunity to celebrate our Arleta students’ beautiful art and writing on our wall displays, to enjoy displays across all classes and parts of our school, do some fun art and literacy activities led by our staff and community, and learn ways to practice and enjoy reading and writing at home. Our Art & Literacy Team has contracted an author (graphic novelist), a clay artist, and a dance troupe: two back-to-back dance performances taking place in the auditorium- paid for with funds raised by previous “runs for the arts” all-school fundraisers. And, there will be free food (thank you, wonderful Arleta PTA!) for all in the cafeteria. Please come! Every family and child’s participation will help make it the most fabulous evening for all that it can be.

Our Arleta *Site Council is hosting a table during dinner in the cafeteria: while waiting for your child to finish eating 😀you can learn how to download the free library app Libby. We hope you’ll also do a short paper survey to help us understand what our families go through and/or might need to get your child to school regularly and on time. Site council is striving to support attendance and on time arrival to help families and teachers be able to teach so students have strong learning outcomes. (When some students miss the start of the day or whole days, teachers have to figure out how to catch those students up, or how to support those students separately, which has challenging impacts for all.) Please look for our table in the cafeteria during dinner, and then after dinner, in the main building near the book exchange.

Another awesome thing our community is doing currently! As I shared a few weeks ago, our projected enrollment for 1st grade next year is not high enough for us to be staffed with two teachers (yet). To help boost awareness of the great school Arleta is, and hopefully inspire families who live in our boundary but are not sending their children to Arleta (yet), a parent created these wonderful 5 different Enrollment Flyers to post all around our school boundary (see this Google map for our boundary and locations of posted flyers). If you know people whose elementary aged children go to a different school you could look for and point the flyers out or even come to the school office to pick a few up to post on wooden utility poles anywhere in our boundary that you think they’d be visible to the right people. The number of teachers we have at Arleta is based on the number of students enrolled at each grade level, and we currently need more rising first graders to join our school community in order to keep two first grade teachers!

See you next Thursday at Art / Literacy Night! Our event begins at 5:30 (dinner will be in the cafeteria).

*Site Council is a group of staff, family, school partners, and the principal working together to increase student learning and enact our school mission. Arleta Mission Statement: At Arleta we are lifelong learners. We learn how to think critically, communicate clearly, and solve problems collaboratively. We learn how to be mindful, empathetic, and resilient community members.

Warmly,

Lisa