Dear Beverly Cleary Community, 

This year PPS is extending Advisory Programs throughout all 6-8th grades in comprehensive middle schools and also K-8s. This is a school-wide time for teachers to thoughtfully and intentionally foster a sense of belonging, community and social-emotional well-being for students, staff, and families. Lessons will be centrally planned by the district and site-level teams may adapt and adjust as needed. 

Our team will be learning and growing this year as we bring Advisory Programming to our school using the newly adopted Social Emotional Curriculum. 

This past May, we engaged with our community in the selection of one of two options for the Social Emotional Learning curriculum. Both options foster a sense of belonging and community with explicit instruction and home connection. Our school will be using Wayfinder. 

This has been a two-year process of adopting a high-quality curriculum that will engage our students and increase their sense of belonging. The criteria for this selection can be found here. We will continue to evaluate the implementation of this curriculum in each school and make adjustments as needed. We are committed to continuous growth and improvement in this process. 

In order to best prepare our staff for Advisory Programs, we have identified two dates for additional professional learning and would like to make you aware for your planning purposes.

*Fall 2-hour Late Opening: 

• The fall 2-hour Late opening will be on Oct. 4th. 

*Winter 2-hour Late Opening:

• The winter 2-hour late opening will be on Jan. 25th.

*The entire K-8 school will participate in the late opening. 6-8th will receive training from the site-based trainers and K-5 educators will use the time to collaborate on SEL instruction.

If you would like to provide feedback to the district-level administrators, please do so on this form. 

Warm regards, 

Becky Presley

Proud Principal

(Beverly Cleary School

Today was disappointing – for us but, most importantly, for our students and families. The Portland Association of Teachers offered no counter proposals – and yet declared impasse.

Today, we offered compromises that would both reward our educators and further our students’ success. We were able to raise our compensation offer substantially. We are not there yet, but we are committed to the hard work of finding common ground.

Today, we started the state-led mediation process with one priority: our children’s success. We offered compromises that would keep that vision at the heart of our work – and maintained our position on proposals that would negatively impact students.

On behalf of the Board of Education and district leaders at PPS, our best wishes for a positive and joyful start to your school year!