• Principal's Weekly Message

    2/17/2023

    Hello Families & Partners -

    A couple weeks ago, you received a Community Budget Message from PPS.  As shared in that message, PPS, as well as districts across the State of Oregon, continue to experience a decline in enrollment.  Subsequently, PPS is planning for a leaner budget next year.  At Ockley Green this means that we had to make reductions in our staff for the 2023-24 school year.  These are never easy decisions to make.  Our staff is a highly collaborative, supportive and student-centered team, so it is difficult for all of us to know that some of our colleagues will work in a different setting for the next school year.  In making our staffing decisions, the administrative team prioritized the following areas:

    • Maintain a robust student support team to support our ongoing Climate work focused on increasing students’ Sense of Belonging;
    • Continue to provide embedded Intervention classes to support students significantly below grade level; and 
    • Reduce electives to improve the class sizes for our Math, LA, Social Studies and Science classes.

    To meet our staffing requirements, we will have some reduction in the first two areas listed above, but we worked to minimize any decrease to ensure we could still offer all areas of support and maintain some Intervention classes.  Some specific changes to programming next year that will support the third area listed above are: 1) elimination of Drama, but to continue to provide a full offering of Band, Dance and Art; 2) a return to offering the District minimum requirement of a Quarter each of PE and Health as opposed to a full year offering, thus reducing from 3 Health/PE teachers to 2 Health/PE teachers; and 3) reduction of our library staff, while also maintaining the ability to have our library open for the entire school day. These decisions, along with some shifts of classroom spaces, will also provide relief to the ongoing challenge of finding appropriate classroom spaces in the main building. 

    Please see below for some important updates!

    Substance Use Awareness  NEW

    Our Counselors are working on a trauma-informed presentation to provide during class on Substance Use Awareness, with a focus on the rise of opiates and the uniquely dangerous nature of fentanyl.  PPS has a number of in-district resources on substance use for students and their families.  These include: 

    McDaniel High School is hosting a Substance Use Awareness night on February 23rd.  Interpretation will be available.  Principal Skyles has shared that it is open to all PPS families.  For more information, click here.

     

    Successful School Survey  NEW

    We are currently at 91 family responses, which is close to 20% of our families, on the Successful School Survey.  We hope to hear from at least 50% of our families.  

    We are offering 2 in-building sessions to support families in completing the survey.  There will be treats, coffee & tea and families will have access to a computer and Spanish support.  Please join us for either of the sessions below.

    • Tuesday February 21st 3:45 - 4:30 in the Library
    • Wednesday February 22nd 9:00 - 9:45 (Spanish supported) in Room 203

    To take on your own, then, if viewing this via email, click here:  Successful Schools Survey (English)  or Successful Schools Survey (Spanish). If you need a language other than English or Spanish, start with the English survey and select your language of preference. You can also access either the English or Spanish version via the QR code below.

     

    Direct Link to English Survey

     

     

    Código QR para Encuesta en Español

     

    The Successful Schools Survey window is January 23rd - February 28th.  More information coming soon for supported sessions at Ockley Green with computer access to complete.

     

    Working On It   NEW

    This is a new section that will be included moving forward to communicate what we are working on.  These are areas that, when our team is ready to provide additional information, I will provide an update in the section above.

    • Reconfiguration of spaces for the 23-24 school year with a goal of no large classes meeting in the Portable classrooms;
    • Ongoing advocacy of replacement of our Portables;
    • Updated Cell Phone Policy and Impact of Technology & Social Media lessons during Advisory for immediate implementation (more soon on this).

    Important Dates

    • February 20th: NO SCHOOL - Presidents’ Day
    • February 24th: Black History Month Assembly
    • February 28th: Black Honor Roll Luncheon
    • March 6th: 5th Grade Open House 
    • March 22nd:  Spring Music Concert
    • March 27th - 31st: Spring Break

     

    In Partnership,

    --

    Julie Rierson

    Pronouns: she/her

    Principal

    Ockley Green Middle School