You have probably been noticing the slow but sure improvement of our field over the school year.  This is the result of efforts throughout the school year, a collaboration between PPS and a local landscape company.  Bald spots are beginning to fill in with patches of healthy grass.  We've also noticed more students playing on the field and a greater number of parents have been sitting on the field enjoying some conversation while watching the kids play.  To keep the field moving in this direction we met with Principal Raddy Lurie and Gary Hunter from PPS Grounds Maintenance.  What follows is the plan for continuation of the Field Improvement Project throughout the summer.

By now most of you have likely seen the great work that was done this past weekend, on Earth Day, at the Spring Alameda Grounds Clean Up.  Read more about this in a letter from parent organizer Dana M. Peterson.

In case you missed it in your inbox, we are providing a copy of the letter principal Lurie sent to our community today.

Our new online Alameda School Family Directory makes finding your student(s) a play date easy and convenient, and saves trees and ink. Join the PTA and you can access the directory using any device with an Internet connection, including any smartphone with the MySchoolAnywhere app installed.

Check your common perceptions of summer school at the door.  Because at Benson High School, the site of PPS’s Summer Scholars program, the sheer numbers, structure and atmosphere is not what you’d expect.

Dear PPS staff and families,

The search and recruitment for our new superintendent is well underway.

The community, board and search firm recommended more than 40 educational leaders for consideration. The search firm and the Board reviewed the prospects and candidates and the Board selected a diverse group with deep educational experience to interview. They included individuals from within and outside Oregon, current superintendents as well as senior education leaders from large districts.

From a remote town in Jordan to leading Oregon’s biggest school district

At the age of 5, Yousef Awwad joined his older brothers in the streets of Ghweria, Jordan, a small city outside Zarqa, to sell sesame candies and balloons to keep food on his family’s table.

Yousef’s dad was serving in the Jordan military and was stationed in an area of the desert so remote that he wasn’t able to send money home while he was deployed.

Today, Yousef is serving as the new interim superintendent of the largest school district in Oregon. How did a boy living in poverty in a remote town in Jordan wind up here?

The new PPS Board of Education held its first regular meeting Tuesday to discuss the search for a permanent superintendent and hear from a community group about the future of Tubman Middle School.