June 9, 2020: A Message from the Principal

Dear Chapman Families,

On Friday, March 13th, when we were asked to vacate our school and plan for sheltering-in-place, we had no idea that we would be ending our year like this. Many of us naively thought we would be back at Chapman within a couple of weeks and so we didn’t think to say a proper goodbye or give one last hug. And now, between that day almost three months ago and today, with so many questions about our future still unanswered, current events preceded by a long history of oppression for our BIPOC community demand that we prepare with at least some knowledge that with whatever education looks like in the fall, we prioritize becoming anti-racist educators and uplifting the voices of our black and brown students. 

As we head into the summer, I will be taking these action steps to prepare for this work. I will be starting with going through the Social Justice Standards from Teaching Tolerance and using these with our school leadership teams to plan instruction for our students. I also know that much of the work we as a staff need to continue engaging in is examining how institutional racism is perpetuated in our educational system and at Chapman. To that end, I will be re-engaging our school equity team to focus on the development of our staff.  

I know that I will see many of you this week either during our 5th grade promotion activity or during our students belongings pick-up. While this isn’t the end of the year that we had hoped for or imagined, I hope that our students and families know that I will miss you all over the summer and that I look forward to working together to make the 2020-2021 school year an amazing year, whether we are back in a brick and mortar setting, continuing a distance-learning model, or doing a hybrid of both. Because state and district plans are still in flux, I will be holding Principal’s Coffees during the summer. The first will be on June 25th at 10:00 am. A meeting code will be sent out prior to that time. 

Summer Resources 

Because Chapman has its own contracts with Reflex Math and Lexia, these resources will continue to be available through most of the summer. Khan Academy is a free resource and is available to all students at any time. 

From Nutrition Services

We are pleased to announce that the meal service we have provided for students since the closure of school on March 16 will continue during the summer. Although we will lose two sites, Harrison Park and Rigler, due to construction, we are adding a new site, Faubion, to bring our total to 14 schools where students can receive breakfast and lunch Monday to Thursday, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.  Please note the start time has shifted from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.  Faubion will start Monday, June 15.  Breakfast and lunch will continue to be free for all PPS students and all children in the community ages 1-18 years.  Children do not need to be present to receive a meal.  Pantry services in partnership with Oregon Food Bank and SUN will also continue into the summer, along with the food boxes with Pacific Coast Fruit Company.

PPS also is partnering again with Portland Parks & Recreation to provide meals at 13 additional parks throughout the city starting June 22. 

See PPS and Parks meal sites and times
 
Register for Kindergarten Online!

If you have a child who will be 5 years old by September 1, please register for kindergarten! To register, go to pps.net/kinderenroll. The process takes 20-30 minutes and school staff will follow up with you later in the summer. With schools closed, online registration is the easiest option, but paper options will be available soon. You don’t need to register if your child attends a PPS Head Start or Pre-Kindergarten program.

Report Cards

Students will not be receiving traditional report cards for the 4th quarter. Instead the district will be mailing out a report of participation with comments from your teacher.

Principal Van Der Wolf

May 26th, 2020: A Message from Principal

Dear Chapman Families,

     I hope this message finds you well.  We have 10 days left of school.  The staff at Chapman is busy teaching, preparing end of year celebrations and planning for next school year. Although we are ending a year that we never had imagined a mere two months ago, I hope that through our class meetings and celebration activities that we are able to provide some closure and fun for your children and for families. As we look to the summer, several parents have asked if students will still be able to access activities, platforms, and applications.  We are compiling details about this and will have more information out to you before June 10th.  For now, we know that students will still be able to access Seesaw and Google Classroom throughout the summer.

Also during the summer, I will continue to offer monthly Principal’s Coffees (my next one will be next week, Wednesday, June 3 at 12:00--code: swiftcoffee) and send out letters to the community to keep you informed about our planning for next school year.  The last work day for all Chapman teaching and support staff is June 11th but I will continue to be accessible throughout the summer.

Families will have an opportunity to pick up any materials left behind  and return any school materials on June 10th and 11th. (Only students who are moving out of the district need to return Chromebooks at this time.) Families will not be allowed in the building, but we will have a pick up station outside and a schedule for when to come by. I know this is not ideal and may be challenging for some, but we need to comply with district protocols for the health and safety of staff. Please be on the lookout next week for that schedule.

I know that there are many questions about the summer and next year and still many unknowns. I’ve attached a couple of links from recent news reports that give some indication about possibilities.

Here is some reporting on when we can expect to know what the fall will look like.
Here is some reporting on what summer camps will look like this year.

I hope to see all of you soon!

Principal Van Der Wolf

Principal's Message: April 11, 2020

Dear Chapman Families,

As we launch the PPS Home-based Distance Learning program next week, I want to share with you some of what we’ve learned this week about what distance learning will look like for Chapman students. As you know, Governor Brown announced earlier this week that our school buildings will remain closed for the remainder of the school year, making distance learning our only option. I want to acknowledge that this news brought up a sense of grief for our staff, knowing that we will be missing out on the important face-to-face contact with your children, the special performances and community celebrations that bring us all so much joy, and just the daily feeling of life that exudes in our halls. While I miss seeing our students, witnessing their joyful curiosity in classrooms, and their exuberant energy on the playground, I am inspired by the creative ways our teachers are finding to connect with students and the tremendous learning they themselves are doing to bring engaging lessons to your children. 

PPS shared expectations this week for implementing Distance Learning, to begin April 13th. (The original date shared was April 6th, but then the Oregon Department of Education asked school districts to start on 4/13.)  The expectations offer different options for teachers to choose from and clarify the kinds of learning to offer students. For the first two weeks, the only requirement for teacher led-instruction is for Math and Language Arts. Other content areas are optional. Teacher-led instruction may be synchronous (students learning together at the same time) or asynchronous (teacher has curated lessons and activities that students can complete on their own time). These could look like assignments posted in Seesaw or Google Classrooms, expectations to complete work in the variety of online programs we now have access to, a video the teacher has chosen for students to watch and respond to, etc. In addition, teachers will ask students and families to engage in supplemental learning, and will share ideas for activities that students and families can choose from to encourage continued learning outside of the teacher-led instruction. 

The district has provided teachers guidelines for how much time students should be spending in each area (see table below). Over the next 5 weeks, these daily time expectations will increase gradually. We understand that every family’s situation is unique, and that people are experiencing all kinds of different hardships. I also want to acknowledge that we have families with limited access to technology and we will be working throughout the week to provide devices to students in need. Nevertheless, I want to stress that all classes and activities are optional for students and families to engage in through the coming weeks. Our greatest priority is making sure that students are staying connected with our Chapman community in whatever way that works for you and your family. Please reach out to your teacher or to me if you have any questions or concerns.

Daily Time Expectations for Weeks 1 & 2 

I hope that you and your family are staying healthy and finding ways to enjoy this beautiful weekend.

Thank you,

Pamela Van Der Wolf

Principal

Chapman E.S.

Principal's Message: April 4, 2020

Good Afternoon Chapman Families,

I hope that you are all staying healthy and safe. I’m sure that many of you are feeling anxious about what next week will look like as the district unveils our new Home-Based Distance Learning format. Our teachers have all been working really hard to learn brand new programs and skills. We are practicing with technology that we never dreamed we would ever be using with young children. Nevertheless, Chapman teachers are rising to the challenge! I am so impressed with how our professional educators are helping each other out with sharing valuable resources they’ve discovered, and with being willing to be vulnerable with each other by sharing mistakes they’ve made and asking for help.

As the district finalizes plans and shares more resources, our plan is to treat next week as a “soft start” with students. Our primary focus will be to check in on students, make sure that they are set with technology, and let them know that first and foremost, we care about them. As you know, we have done a great deal of work around creating caring communities in our classrooms, and teachers will spend next week building community with students in this new era of distance learning focusing on the emotional health of our students. Please be patient with us as we navigate this uncharted territory together. We will all certainly make mistakes along the way, but as I tell students everyday, mistakes make for new learning. Now, more than ever, we are all learning new things every day and there will be plenty of mistakes made along the way.

Assistance with Technology

Many of our students are still without the needed technology. Staff will be communicating directly with anyone teachers have not yet heard from to verify they have both a device and internet service. Paper request forms are now available at all of the food location sites. 

If you have technology, but your child has had trouble logging in with their PPS password, please do the following:

1. Make sure you have the correct login info. Students usernames are first initial, last name, last four digits of their student ID.

• IE: Stacey Willis with an ID of 123456 would be swillis3456@student.pps.net

• K-5 student default password is four characters, two-digit month and two-digit day of their birthdate (MMDD). Most of our k-2 students have not changed their passwords.

2. If you have tried the above and not had success. Please fill out this Login Assistance Form

More info about Home-Based Distance Learning

Superintendent Guerrero addressed all students, families and staff this week. You can watch the video at www.pps.net. If you look closely, you can catch a glimpse of the Chapman staff in a Google meeting!

More detailed information of what is to come can be found here: PPS H-D. One of the questions that has been coming up is about student grades. That question is addressed here and explains that for K-8 students we will not be assigning grades