Today's OEA - February 2012

A publication for members Of the oregon education association

Today’s

OEA

Special Section OEA Board Candidates page 36

Help for the Homeless Innovative programs in Oregon's public schools provide relief and support to students in crisis Also in this issue

» Virtual (Public) education goes live » What's so funny? Eagle Point's Organizing! » OEIB's tour around Oregon

february 2012 | Volume 86 : Number 3

A fresh pAir of eyeglAsses.

New school clothes.

A workiNg heAriNg Aid. wArm wiNter coAts. AN iNcredible educAtioN. All becAuse of you.

OEA mEmbErs impAct thE livEs Of OrEgOn students in profound ways – in the classroom, on school grounds, and at home. Through the OEA Foundation, you can contribute to the wellbeing of students whose basic needs – like clothing and medical expenses – are unmet by our state’s social service programs.

This year, and particularly in this economy, consider making a tax-deductible donation to the OEA Foundation to ensure all public education students have the resources they need to succeed in school. The Foundation is unique in that 100 percent of all donations go directly back to our students – no overhead cost involved.

Make an online donation today (or sign up for monthly payroll deductions if you’re able) at www.oregoned.org/oeafoundation.

In their own unique way – Oregon’s students thank you.

do you kNow A studeNt iN Need?

Apply for a grant from the OEA Foundation. Call 800.858.5505 to request an application, or download one at www.oregoned.org.

Contents / 02.12 Volume 86 . Issue No. 3

Features

Departments President’s Column

05 / MAKING YOUR MARK

By Gail Rasmussen, OEA President

Upcoming

06 / Events for OEA Members Newsflash

18 Cover Story

18 / THAT PLACE CALLED HOME

As the homeless youth population continues to climb, more students find the resources they need through Oregon's public schools.

By Meg Krugel

07 / PPS Grad rates soar 09 / New Documentary on the realities of teaching » Licensure

10 / Tests, Tests, & More Tests!

Eye on Equity

11 / Taking the road less traveled Teaching & Learning

Feature

12 / The future of proficiency Education

24 / A revolution in the making »

Politics & You

A new virtual education model - run by and for public school educators goes live.

By Laurie Wimmer and Meg krugel

Association in Action

30 / Beards, donuts and Bug Zappers

In the midst of bitter contract negotiations, Eagle Point educators arm themselves with a new organizing tool ­— humor.

By Brian Hall

14 / Re-shaping Public education with OEIB 16 / A Look at the 2012 February session Opinion

33 / The Downside of PBTL in Our schools Sources + Resources

34 / Books and Opportunities Special Section

36 / OEA Board Candidates On the Web

42 / Tracking oeib online

This page, top: Mel Parker, Bend-LaPine School District's homeless liaison, also works at a residential living facility for unaccompanied youth in the community.

ON THE COVER: Kathi Gonzales brings years of experience working with homeless students to her role as high school counselor. PhotOs by Tom Patterson

Today’s OEA | february 2012

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IT’S YOUR DECISION.

IT’S YOUR VOICE.

Who will lead the way for public education in Oregon?

THE CHOICE IS UP TO YOU.

OEA-PIE Convention 2012 OEA-PIE works to elect pro-education candidates to public office. Register to attend the 2012 OEA-PIE convention and help decide Oregon’s future leaders — and the direction of public education. Among the candidate recommendations to be determined: FEDERAL ★ U.S. House of Representatives (all five districts) STATEWIDE ★ Oregon Attorney General ★ Oregon Labor and Industries Commissioner ★ Oregon Secretary of State ★ Oregon State Treasurer

March 9 & 10, 2012 Friday: 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Saturday: 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

DoubleTree by Hilton Portland 1000 NE Multnomah St. Portland, OR 97232

www.oregoned.org/pie2012

President’s Message / 02.12 Gail Rasmussen OEA President

A

s I write this column today, my heart is heavy with the unexpected loss of my good friend, colleague, and Eagle Point Education Association President Brian Hall. Brian was a gifted young man who touched the lives of both students and adults. He was a visionary leader who motivated us to be better educators and union leaders.

For this issue of Today’s OEA, Brian prepared a wonderful article about the effective (and very funny) organizing strategies that his local has been using this year in bargaining. In light of his passing, we struggled with whether or not to publish his story, but in the end, decided to go forward because it reflects his one-of-a-kind humor and passion for this work. I hope you will read his story (page 30) and be equally as inspired by his words of wisdom as I am.

There are amazing leaders like Brian across our great state.

Union leaders, classroom leaders, political leaders, community leaders — you each come into education for different reasons and you each make your mark on this profession in different ways. I’m inspired by the stories of people like Brian, who work so hard for

Gail Rasmussen, far right, joins members of OEA's executive committee in Washington D.C. to welcome Oregon's newest member of congress, Suzanne Bonamici, to office.

their union, their students, and the rights of our members; like the educators featured in this issue’s cover story about homeless students, who help turn around the lives of kids who are deeply in need. This month, several OEA members took the “plunge” and testified in front of the state Legislature in support of effective education policy that works best for all students. It’s no easy task to do these tough jobs, but time and again, our members rise to the occasion. That’s incredible.

Next week, just as this magazine arrives in your mailbox, OEA members from across Oregon will gather on the steps of our State Capitol to raise our voice to the hopes and dreams we have for public education. We’ll use our collective power as education leaders to speak up for the services our students and families rely on. We’ll join as one with labor partners from across the state — because we believe, collectively, that tomorrow can be a better day.

I dedicate this issue of Today's OEA in memory of my Eagle Point Education Association president, Brian Hall. He is gone too soon, but will never be forgotten. n

Union leaders, classroom leaders, political leaders, community leaders — You EACH COME into education for different reasons and YOU EACH make your mark on this profession in different ways.

Photo provided by: Gail Rasmussen

Today’s OEA | february 2012

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UpComing / 02.12 Feb. 20, 2012

OEA’s Day of Action for “Strong Schools — Strong Oregon” n What: Join your colleagues and other public education advocates for a day of action to sup-

port “Strong Schools—Strong Oregon.” Make your own appointment with your legislator, and pick up talking points inside the Capitol, in room 38. n where: State Capitol, Salem, Ore. n how: Find more information and commit to attend at: www.oregoned.org/DayofAction.

Mar. 2, 2012

NEA’s Read Across America n What: NEA provides all the resources and tools you’ll need to plan and implement a reading celebration in your school, classroom or community on March 2. n how: For more information and resources, go to www.nea.org/readacross.

Mar. 9-10, 2012

OEA-PIE Convention n What: More than 300 OEA-PIE delegates will gather to recommend candidates for statewide and federal offices. The convention is filled with activities, candidate speeches, question and answer sessions, caucuses, and floor debates. n where: Doubletree Inn - Lloyd Center in Portland, Ore. n how: For more information on registration, go to www.oregoned.org/pie2012. Must be a contributing member of OEA-PIE in order to attend.

MAR. 9-11, 2012

2012 NEA ESP Conference n What:

Provide professional development opportunities to build stronger locals, organizing members, and enhancing NEA ESP members’ ability to influence student achievement. n where: Marriott Memphis Downtown Hotel, Memphis, Tenn. n how: For more information and to register, go to www.nea.org/grants/31430.htm.

Mar. 26, 2012

"Eye on Equity" Education Symposium n What: What are the critical challenges facing students and educators in a time of rising demands and declining resources in our public schools? What are the professional practices, institutional resources and community assets that serve as the foundation for better outcomes for our students? Join keynote speaker Linda Darling-Hammond, educators, parents, education scholars and political leaders for a conversation about helping students succeed. n where: Holiday Inn., Wilsonville, Ore. n how: For more information and to register, go to www.oregoned.org/edusymposium.

SAVE THIS DATe! APR. 20-21, 2012

OEA Representative Assembly n What: OEA member-delegates from across Oregon gather at OEA’s annual Representa-

tive Assembly (RA) to elect new leaders, review OEA programs, reform bylaws and policies, propose new business items, attend caucus meetings, and celebrate member achievements. n where: Red Lion Inn at Jantzen Beach, 909 N Hayden Island Dr., Portland, Ore. n how: To learn more about OEA Representative Assembly, visit www.oregoned.org/ra.

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Today’s OEA | february 2012

Today’s

OEA

Official Publication of the Oregon Education Association February 2012 Volume 86 : Issue No. 3 Office Headquarters 6900 SW Atlanta Street Portland, OR 97223 Phone: 503.684.3300 FAX: 503.684.8063 www.oregoned.org Publishers Gail Rasmussen, President Richard Sanders, Executive Director Editor Meg Krugel Production Assistant Janine Leggett Contributors Erin Whitlock, Becca Uherbelau, Laurie Wimmer, Bruce Scherer, Teresa Ferrer, Lindsey Capps, Tami Miller To submit a story idea for publication in Today’s OEA magazine, email editor Meg Krugel at meg.krugel@oregoned.org Printer Morel Ink, Portland, OR TODAY’S OEA (ISSN #0030-4689) is published five times a year (October, January, February, April and June) as a benefit of membership ($6.50 of dues) by the Oregon Education Association, 6900 SW Atlanta Street, Portland OR 97223-2513. Non-member subscription rate is $10 per year. Periodicals postage paid at Portland, OR. Postmaster Send address corrections to: Oregon Education Association Attn: Becky Nelson Membership Processing 6900 SW Atlanta Street Portland, OR 97223-2513 Design and Production Francesca Genovese-Finch

Newsflash Testing Biases in the Classroom

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very day, educators make dozens of judgments and decisions about students. Who needs closer supervision? Will she be able to complete this assignment? Will he benefit from more group work? If I offer extra help after school, will they even show up?

Educators work hard to be fair when making decisions that affect students’ school lives, but sometimes we’re influenced in ways we don’t recognize. Teaching Tolerance has just launched the Teacher Perception Tool.

It’s intended to enable teachers and educators to reflect on the judgments that they make every day in school settings.

Developed by a team of scholars led by educational psychologist Melanie Killen, the tool takes less than 10 minutes to complete. Find it online at: www.tolerance.org/teacherperception.

36% The percentage of general purpose funds spent on public education in 2010.

No state spent closer to the national average rate of 35.8 percent than Oregon.

– U.S. Census Bureau

Credit: iStockphoto.com

Portland's Graduation Rate Increases by 5 Points

P

ortland Public Schools’ overall ontime graduation rate rose 5 points from the previous year to 59 percent in 2011, according to data released Jan. 27 by the Oregon Department of Education.

The overall rate accounts for nearly 800 students in charter schools and district and community-based alternative programs, as well as the almost 3,000 students at neighborhood high schools, Benson High

School and Metropolitan Learning Center.

Of the students who started in a regular PPS high school (non-charter and nonalternative school), 70 percent earned a regular diploma in four years.

While the overall on-time graduation rate was up 5 percentage points for all students, some groups of students saw even greater increases. Graduation rates rose by 12 points for Hispanic students and 7 points for Native American students.

Another Tax-Break for Oregon’s Wealthiest

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hen Oregon voters approved Measure 66 nearly two years ago, income taxes immediately rose for the highest tier of earners in the state. But the jump was temporary. Last month on Jan. 1, the rate dropped back, though not all the way to pre-Measure 66 levels.

The rollback comes as lawmakers will plan for possible cuts to public safety, education and social service programs this legislative session. Legislative analysts say if the rates stayed where they were pre-rollback, lawmakers would have about $118 million additional dollars to spend on state services.

Today’s OEA | february 2012

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Newsflash Did you know? » Today’s OEA’s best story ideas come from you, our readers! Is your school working on a cutting edge concept, or do you know an educator who should be featured? Email your suggestions for articles to webadmin@oregoned.org.

> Kudos

OEA Member Named a Top Cyberlobbyist of 2011

Ready, Set, Respect!

A

nn Watters, a member of the Salem Keizer Education Association, has been honored as one of the top 50 cyberlobbyists from the National Education Association.

The NEA family won a number of important victories in Congress this year ­— victories that would not have been possible without the activism of educators and others who care about children and public education. Watters, along with fellow cyberlobbyists from around the country, helped send over 530,000 emails, made over 8,300 phone calls, and made thousands of visits to Members of Congress to help achieve these victories.

> Kudos

Rainier History Teacher Honored

A

ndy Demko, who teaches seventhand eighth-grade social studies and pre-algebra at Rainier Junior/Senior High School, was recently named one of five History Club Advisor of the Year Book Award winners by the National History Club.

He and his students are working toward holding a re-enactment of 1850s Rainier next school year. Students are researching photos and interviewing people. Each student will wear authentic-looking clothing and have tools from the period. Congrats Andy!

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Today’s OEA | february 2012

L

ooking for new ways to address name-calling, bullying and bias in your elementary classroom? The Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) has released a new toolkit to help elementary educators ensure that all students feel safe and respected in school.

“Our latest research on bias-based remarks and bullying in America’s elementary schools provides new understanding of the experiences facing our youngest students,” said GLSEN Executive Director Eliza Byard. Ready, Set, Respect! contains suggested lesson plans that focus on name-calling, bullying and bias, LGBT-inclusive family diversity and gender roles and diversity.

The templates are designed for teachers to use as either standalone lessons or for integration into existing curriculum content or school-wide anti-bullying programs. The toolkit also contains helpful tips for teaching more inclusively and intervening in bullying and promoting respectful recess playtime and physical education.

> Quotable

NCLB Hits the 10-Year Mark – With Little Cause for Celebration From high-stakes testing to narrowing of the curriculum, this law has missed the mark. Instead of creating a generation of critical thinkers, we are graduating a generation of test takers. Let’s get back to the core purpose of public education and let’s re-balance the federal role: ensuring every student has access to a great education that prepares them for lifelong learning and success in the 21st century.

– NEA President Dennis Van Roekel

Newsflash Represent your local association! » As the OEA prepares for another representative assembly, you have the chance to participate in pre-RA meetings through your local association. Help shape the direction of the organization moving forward! www.oregoned.org/ra

Whoa, Mama!

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ere’s something to celebrate – the percentage of births to teenage mothers in Oregon dropped almost a full point from 2009 to 2010 (from 8.7 percent to 7.7 percent), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The decrease coincides with findings by Planned Parenthood in which most parents – 82 percent – say they are discussing sexuality with their kids.

Oregon’s teen birth rate is now significantly less than the national rate of 9.3 percent. While the trend is positive, pregnancy among teens continues to be a concern for educators and professionals working in

750,000

The number of teenagers who become pregnant every year in the U.S. – Planned Parenthood Columbia-Willamette pregnancy prevention. And, while Oregon has progressive sex education guidelines for schools, funding cuts have meant that not all schools can offer it as part of their health course curriculum.

?

Who’s Asking Questions in Your Class?

Walk into any classroom, and it’s obvious that certain kids are more prone to asking questions than others. Typically – the “questioners” are simply thought to be the classroom extroverts — but, as it turns out, there’s more to this equation.

According to a study from the University of Pennsylvania, middle-class children ask their teachers for help more often and more assertively than workingclass children and, in doing so, often receive more support and assistance from teachers. The findings are based on three years of studying a cohort of students in one socioeconomically diverse public school, as students progressed from third to fifth grade.

Improving efforts to increase diversity

T

he Obama administration is taking bold steps to eliminate barriers that prevent racial diversity in our public schools, colleges and universities and help ensure that students get the experiences they need to succeed in a global economy.

The U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice have jointly issued new guidelines at www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/ colleague-201111.html, which allow local school districts and college admission boards more flexibility to improve racial diversity.

New Documentary Tells the Real Story About Teaching

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merican Teacher, a fulllength documentary narrated

by Academy Award-winning actor, writer and director Matt Damon, seeks to counteract all-toocommon negative misconceptions about teachers and education. The film tells the moving personal stories of four K-12 public school teachers living and working in disparate urban and rural areas.

The film is available to watch through several on-demand networks, and is also available for purchase online. Find out more at: www.theteachersalaryproject.org/ ondemand.php

Today’s OEA | february 2012

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FYI

Tests, tests, and more tests!

Insider tips about licensure tests — get smart before you register, pay and study!

By Teresa FerreR / OEA Consultant, Center for Teaching & Learning

I

f you are an Oregon teacher that still has to meet testing requirements for licensure...or if you are contemplating adding a new endorsement or authorization level, this article is for YOU! n 1. If you are a teacher seeking to add the middle level authorization, the multiple subjects endorsement at the early childhood, elementary or middle level, or for SPED teachers seeking to meet "highly qualified" status: Beginning Sep. 1, 2012, the National Evaluation Series (NES) Elementary Education exam is the test preferred by the Oregon Teacher Standards and Practices Commission (TSPC) and will replace the current ORELA Multiple Subjects Examination. If you obtain a passing score on the ORELA Multiple Subjects Examination up to that date, it will be accepted by TSPC. The new Elementary Education exam will be all multiple choice and will be computerbased, to be taken at a designated testing center. You will be able to register for the exam when you are ready to take it and will leave the exam already knowing whether or not you passed.

n 2. If you are a teacher, administrator

or school personnel specialist who still needs to pass a basic skills exam for your license: Since June 21, 2011, the National Evaluation Series (NES) Essential Academic Skills (Reading, Writing, and Mathematics subtests) has been the basic skills test preferred by TSPC. TSPC currently still recognizes a passing score on the California Basic Educational Skills (CBEST) exam and will continue to do so. Likewise, TSPC still accepts a passing score on the Praxis 1: PPST exam and the WEST-B. However, an educator must choose one of the complete exams and not attempt to combine subtests from different exams.

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Today’s OEA | february 2012

The new Essential Academic Skills exam is aligned to professionally accepted national learning standards and is currently available, by appointment, when you are ready to take it at a designated testing center. It is similar to the CBEST in that it tests basic skills in the following subtests: reading, mathematics and writing. You can take all subtests at once or break them up. The exam is made up of multiple choice questions and a writing assignment.

n 3. If you are a teacher wishing to qualify

for the ESOL endorsement: Beginning Sep. 1, 2012, the National Evaluation Series (NES) English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) test is required by TSPC and will replace the current ORELA ESOL. The English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) Examination is a customized educator licensure test designed to measure a candidate's knowledge and skills in relation to Oregon learning standards. The last administration of the current ORELA ESOL Examination will be June 9, 2012. The English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) Examination is a customized educator licensure test designed to measure a candidate's knowledge and skills in relation to Oregon learning standards. This new exam will be a paper-based exam that will be available six times a year depending upon location in the state.

n 4. If you are a teacher seeking to

qualify for an Integrated Science endorsement: The Oregon Teacher Standards and Practices Commission approved the National Evaluation Series (NES) General Science exam as the official test of this content area effective Sep. 1, 2011. This is a computer-based exam that is available

by appointment at designated testing centers.

n 5. Teachers or out of state administra-

tors seeking to qualify for an administrator license: Beginning August 1, 2012, the ORELA Administrator Examination will be delivered via computer-based testing.

The last paper-based administration of the ORELA Administration Examination is June 9, 2012. The Administrator Examination is a customized educator licensure test designed to measure a candidate’s knowledge and skills in relation to Oregon learning standards.

n 6. Finally almost all exams required

for endorsements and authorizations in Oregon are part of the Oregon Educator Licensure Assessments (ORELA), but there are a few that are still currently under ETS Praxis Series. Below is a list of current required PRAXIS exams for licensure in Oregon: n Agriculture n Communications Disorders (Speech Language Pathology) n Early Intervention/Early Childhood n French n German n Hearing Impaired n Marketing n Reading Specialist n School Psychologist n Speech Communication n Technology Education n Vision Impaired For more details about all of these exams, go to: www.orela.nesinc.com/ PageView.aspx?f=GEN_Tests.html.

Questions about exams? Email me at: teresa.ferrer@oregoned.org.

Eye on Equity

Taking the Road Less Traveled Let’s change the course of inequity, one student at a time

By Tami Miller / OEA Member

H

ow do we have a conversation about equity without offending each other? How do we expose our beliefs and the experiences on which they’re based, if the spectrum of truth is limited to what I think you can hear, without taking offense? How do I listen without feeling slighted, belittled and pandered to? Where is the safe space — the median traffic lane in which to reflect and possibly alter course?

As a teacher, that space, that median traffic lane is my classroom. The directions that students follow are the rules of the road that I establish. The course that students take are their choice, based on the opportunities and guidance that I provide, and that we provide, as an education community.

When it comes to addressing inequities in our public schools and in our communities, I am not placing upon educators the responsibility alone for solving the inadequacies of an indifferent society, and absolving parents from their role.

However, I know from experience that we can intervene and for a moment, create a space in which each of our students experiences equity in their discourse with each other, and their expectations from us.

I recall one such moment when one of my beloved students addressed a classmate with the name of another’s, and then excused his error by stating that “You people all look alike.” I recall walking up to him and stating that his comment was unacceptable, among other choice words.

I addressed the other student and told her that she should never accept this kind of excuse. That same day after school, my student came back into my classroom, and with tears in his eyes expressed his regret and apologized for his statement, acknowledging that I was the last teacher that he would want to disappoint.

I would like to believe he learned a great lesson that day — that we should perceive each other as individuals and not as a group, indistinguishable from one another. Regardless, in my classroom that day, a parameter of behavior was set and observed by all of my students. The median lane was the conversation. The change of course occurred with the apology.

along this treacherous roadway. In this situation, there would be no traffic cop to pull over the adult who broke the rules, who failed to follow the signs that spelled e-q-u-i-t-y.

I took the opportunity to empower this student with the language, tools and behaviors to retrain this teacher. It was my hope that this discourse would equip my

I know from experience that we can intervene and for a moment, create a space in which each of our students experiences equity in their discourse with each other, and their expectations from us.

The situation brings to mind yet another time in which I was asked for my driver’s license while in line at a store, even though I was holding a store card with my own picture on it. When I asked the cashier why he requested my license, given that my picture was imprinted on my store card, his response echoed the student’s statement: “You people all look alike.” There had been no one in his life, like a teacher or other mentor, to make him aware of how offensive that statement can be. Into this traffic, we either set the course through meaningful dialogue, or we collide, damaging our ability to relate to each other.

A series of collisions was described by one of my students, as he lamented over the inequities in one of his classes.

I told him that he would have to alter his behavior in order to change the situation.

Essentially, I said, “Mr. X doesn’t get you” — and then outlined for this 14-year-old explicit directions for negotiating his way

student with his own skills to redirect traffic into the median lane, where his adult teacher might perceive the value of changing course. Opportunities like these are too frequent. The few of us who are willing to step into traffic must do so before the collision becomes imminent, before the jam becomes a permanent fixture and a life is thwarted from its proper course.

As educators, I am convinced that it is our responsibility to deliberately redirect traffic. Sometimes, we’ll collide. We will make mistakes. But the possibility of failing to change the course for our students who face inequities is too great — we must take the risk.

I teach high school French in the Hillsboro School District, all grade levels, and all levels of French. As the Vice President of the Hillsboro Education Association, I am dedicated to improving our working conditions and advocating for members, in support of the education that is the right of every child in our classrooms.

Today’s OEA | february 2012

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Teaching & Learning

The Future of Proficiency-Based Teaching & Learning The OEIB seeks to implement PBTL statewide – but is it the best model for all students?

BY Erin Whitlock and Lindsey Capps / OEA Center for Teaching & Learning

T

his past winter, Governor John Kitzhaber addressed the Oregon Education Investment Board with a highlight of what he believes to be the most promising practices in Oregon education.

On the top of the Governor’s list was the work of educators and school leaders at Forest Grove High School, and their initiative to provide instruction to students using a new proficiency-based teaching and learning (PBTL) model.

The results are significant. With the adoption of proficiency-based teaching and learning (see details in box, below), Forest Grove High School achieved its highest-ever graduation rate. The high school saw a dramatic increase in average student scores on the ACT and SAT. And the percentage of graduating seniors who went on to attend a community college or university rose from 40 to 70 percent.

It comes as little surprise, then, that PBTL is the model at the heart of Oregon Learns, the strategy put forward this past December by the Oregon Education Investment Board for transforming public

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Today’s OEA | february 2012

education, pre-K through grade 20.

Using recognized essential skills or performance targets for evaluating student learning, proficiency-based teaching and learning has indeed achieved results in the schools in which it has been piloted.

Proficiency-based teaching and learning provides the diversity of students in a classroom, who are each learning the same concepts, multiple opportunities through a variety of mediums to demonstrate what they know and the concepts they’ve learned. It provides for student learning to be individually paced and for the student to understand at all times where they are in the learning process.

For sure, the committed teachers, education support professionals, and administrators who have carried out the time consuming and complex work to implement and innovate around proficiencybased teaching and learning are deserving of accolades. Proficiency-based teaching and learning has largely been developed from the ground-up by teacher leaders, eager to foster meaningful learning, especially where equity is a driving concern.

While proficiency-based teaching and learning has demonstrated its merits, there are other effective practices for transforming K-12 public education (many of which are already being employed in classrooms around Oregon) that deserve a careful look by education policymakers. Like the research that shows how one-size-fits-all approaches to teaching and learning can have mixed results, we must acknowledge that there is more than one way to teach effectively. Through solid grounding in the experience of both the student and the educator, we can find and apply particular strategies, interventions, and pedagogies to best meet the needs of an increasingly diverse student base. Local communities, especially those chronically underserved, need to be engaged and invested in student learning as they play an invaluable role in the learning process.

The idea of proficiency-based teaching and learning is nothing new, yet it is evolving. Applied in diverse learning environments, it has demonstrated merit in both efficacy and effect as an instructional

Teaching & Learning Like the research that shows how onesize-fits-all approaches to teaching and learning can have mixed results, we must acknowledge that there is more than one way to teach effectively. Through solid grounding in the experience of both the student and the educator, we can find and apply particular strategies, interventions, and pedagogies to best meet the needs of an increasingly diverse student base. model. OEA’s Center for Teaching and Learning is engaged in an ongoing conversation with educators utilizing this learning and instructional model in Oregon’s classrooms. OEA has long partnered with the Business Education Compact (BEC), a non-profit organization led by educators and business leaders, in providing support to teacher-developed and teacher-led proficiency-based models in schools across the state.

One of the foundations for the success of proficiency-based teaching and learning has been the ownership of educators in developing and applying this model in their schools and classrooms. Additionally, the model has been aided by the support districts have provided, often supplemented by grants, for educators to have the planning and collaboration time, professional development, resources and technical assistance to implement it.

Setting individualized targets for student proficiency is both an empowering process and a complex challenge.

Proficiency-Based Teaching and Learning as Key Strategy to Achieve 40-40-20

Educators and parents have only to look to the experience of NCLB and IDEA to reflect upon the mixed record of top-down mandates in our local public schools. Proficiency-based teaching and learning will benefit from ongoing experimentation and innovation, schoolby-school, classroom-by-classroom,

educator-to-educator and educator-tostudent.

The Governor and the OEIB recognize the failings of NCLB, offering an alternative governance model centered upon a “tight-loose” relationship between the state and local districts. In this approach, the state is the investor in education services, and school districts and other educational institutions are the providers of education. The state’s role is to tightly define the “what," or the expected outcomes of Oregon’s educational system.

The “how” is left to school districts.

School districts determine the strategies to achieving these outcomes. This local flexibility is what constitutes the “loose” in this “tight-loose” arrangement.

Yet, as it has identified proficiencybased teaching and learning as an educational best-practice, could the Oregon Education Investment Board mandate that all school districts in Oregon provide proficiency-based teaching and learning in every school? The answer is yes — and this raises concerns.

This mandate would shift the governance dynamic to a “tighttight” relationship, where the state both decides educational outcomes and the educational practices to achieve it. But, more importantly, this top-down decision-making would undermine the intimate relationships between educators, students, parents, and the community in

our schools — a recognized cornerstone of high-achieving schools and effective school improvement.

Will the OEIB enable school districts flexibility to pursue a host of promising practices? Will the model of collaborative networks of professionals sharing ideas and innovations – networks that have been leveraged to advance educator-led development of proficiency-based teaching and learning itself – have a place in driving the development of other effective models of teaching and learning?

These questions remain to be answered.

It is clear, however, that as the OEIB moves forward in guiding the future of Oregon’s education system, the foundational promise of a “tight-loose” relationship ought to be allowed to flourish. School leaders, teachers, educational support professionals, parents, students and community members are up to the challenge.

Will the OEIB view these stakeholders as partners in educational change, or passive recipients? To be sure, as with proficiency-based teaching and learning itself, the voice of educators will be critical in where we go from here.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Today’s OEA magazine features differing perspectives on the proficiency-based teaching and learning model. In our June 2011 issue, we highlighted some success stories around PBTL in the feature story “Praise for Proficiency,” which can be read at: www.oregoned.org/ todaysoea/archives. And, as an alternative in this issue, read about one OEA member’s concerns with PBTL in her guest column, beginning on page 33.

Today’s OEA | february 2012

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Politics & You

OEIB's Work TO RESHAPE Public Education: What Will It Look Like?

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s the halls of Oregon’s State Capitol fill up with elected officials, advocates, citizen lobbyists and various visiting student groups, the talk of the February 2012 Legislature Session centers around one word: Transformation. Governor John Kitzhaber has made clear that he will push forward his transformation efforts in two priority areas: health care and education.

In the area of education, the Governor is promoting a package of three bills to further the goal of the Oregon Education Investment Board (OEIB) in creating a “seamless, unified system for investing in and delivering public education from early childhood through high school and college so that all Oregonians are well prepared for careers in our global economy.”

The bill that will directly impact K-12 and community colleges is Senate Bill 1581. SB 1581 establishes the state's firstever Chief Education Officer (CEdO) who will have authority over all public education entities from pre-K through post secondary. The bill also creates achievement compacts - agreements that must be entered into between the OEIB and education entities, including all school districts, community colleges, and higher education. OEA has been working closely with the Governor's office and other education stakeholders on amendments to SB 1581 to ensure the compacts will:

n Be developed collaboratively between

local school leaders and educators. It’s critical that any achievement compact require collaboration between the district and the educators charged with delivering on the compact to help all students in public schools succeed. It is critical that the compacts provide a meaningful opportunity for professional educators to be directly involved in developing, evaluating

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Today’s OEA | february 2012

setting and meeting the districts’ goals for student success.

public education so that every student has the opportunity to succeed.

n Ensure that every district has access to a

n Protect local control and avoid one-

statewide data and technology infrastructure to share best practices and information. In order to achieve the goals put forth in the compacts, schools need the ability to collaborate and share information and best practices with other local schools; districts need to share among districts; and the Oregon public needs to know how this new direction is leading to increased student achievement and success.

n Move away from an overemphasis on

harmful standardized testing. Research has long proven that standardized test scores are not the best measure of a student’s success in school and also an incomplete measure of student growth. The achievement compacts should measure what really matters in terms of student achievement such as learning conditions, class size, individual student growth, and teacher quality through formative evaluation processes and 100 percent licensure standards. The OEIB should focus on the significant barriers to learning that impact student achievement like economic conditions, disability, language and lack of parental involvement, all of which play a large part in determining the level of success by Oregon's students.

n Align our investment in our schools

with the outcome we expect. There is no additional funding that will come with these compacts. It's important to recognize that school districts are still dealing with “crisis” level budgets. We cannot expect our schools to continue to do more with less. Oregon cannot expect 100 percent results with a 65 percent investment.

We must address the disinvestment in

size-fits-all mandates. Every community in Oregon has its own unique set of conditions under which students best learn. Student and family demographics, socio-economic status, geography, and the level of community support are just a few factors that significantly impact teaching and learning. It is parents, teachers, school and community leaders who know what is best for their neighborhood schools. The achievement compacts should reflect what the local community wants and needs for their students and their schools.

n Shared accountability. Schools and

educators believe in accountability and are not afraid of high standards. As we expect our schools to perform to certain standards, it just makes sense that the compacts would include reciprocal standards for elected officials who are responsible for providing the investment necessary for every student in a public school to succeed.

n Address the needs of the whole child/

family. The leading predictor of student success is family income. Poverty directly impacts a student’s ability to learn. The compacts must recognize the level to which students are experiencing food and housing insecurity, lack of access to health care and other conditions of poverty that impact learning. Oregon’s public schools need to support opportunities for all students to achieve.

While the legislation includes an extremely aggressive timeline for implementation, OEA is appreciative that the

Politics & You Governor will offer amendments that take a step forward on addressing several areas of concern. OEA will continue to work with legislators and the governor to ensure that the achievement compacts contribute to increasing student achievement and provide access to a well-rounded educational experience for all students.

There are two other bills that came out of the OEIB process. House Bill 4062, related primarily to Oregon’s University System, abolishes State Board of Higher Education, and transfers their functions to OEIB. It also eliminates the Chancellor of Oregon University System, transferring authority to the new CEdO. Another bill, House Bill 4165, focuses on early learning. HB 4165 makes the Governor’s Early Learning Council permanent and disbands the Commission on Children & Families, and other agencies.

The work of the OEIB will continue well beyond the 2012 February session. It will soon hire the first Chief Education Officer.

OEA believes that the new Chief Education Officer must have strong experience in public education, be a real collaborator who can bring Oregonians together, and comes with a thoughtful vision on how to make Oregon’s public education system a success for all Oregonians.

As an educator, your work also begins now! Connect with your local association and ask how you can get involved in shaping your local achievement compact. It is essential that you share your expertise and experience to make certain that what is imbedded in your school district’s achievement compact makes the best sense for your students and your school.

Also, don’t forget to stay in close communication with your legislator – they need to know how the process is working (or not), so that if additional adjustments to this new law become necessary, they are clear on the impact to their local school districts.

You can stay informed on any new developments with the work of the OEIB by visiting: www.oregoned.org/oeib

Credit: Becca Uherbelau

Community members gather for an at-capacity OEIB forum in Washington County.

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OEIB Meetings Turn Out Big Numbers

his January, more than 1,000 students, educators, parents, community and business leaders turned out to learn about the work of the OEIB and give feedback on the proposed achievement compacts. At the seven regional meetings in all corners of the state, community members and education stakeholders shared the successes they are seeing in their schools and their concerns about some of the initial ideas and unintended consequences included in the compacts. In general, participants voiced support for the focus on early learning and the effort to better coordinate services from early childhood through college and career.

At the regional meetings, education leaders spoke to a variety of concerns, chief among them was funding; participants don't believe that the current proposal addresses the funding crisis facing public education. Education experts want to know how OEIB will impact funding and continue to stress that current revenues are inadequate to achieve the desired goals. Educators, parents and students also have expressed significant concern on the continued reliance on standardized testing to measure student achievement. Educators continue to stress the importance of educating the whole child and the need to address – or at a minimum, recognize – the impact poverty has on student learning gains.

As the only K-12 teacher serving on the OEIB, Hanna Vaandering attended all seven forums and participated in the webcast. “It is powerful to hear from hundreds of teachers, parents, students, community members, and school and college leaders at the regional forums that held across the state. As an OEIB member, I know our work is enhanced and better informed when we open our doors wide to all Oregonians as we move forward in transforming and supporting our public education system."

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OEA Holds Its First Tele-Townhall

s a way of raising awareness among our membership, OEA held its first ever tele-townhall, and it was a rousing success! More than 3,500 OEA members participated in a conversation with OEA Vice President Hanna Vaandering, Margarett Peoples (Member of the Legislative Taskforce on Accountability), and Otto Schell (PTA’s Legislative Director) to ask questions about how these big changes might work in classrooms across the state and how the proposals will improve achievement for all Oregon’s students, no matter their background or their story.

Today’s OEA | february 2012

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Politics & You

What Have We Lost?

You no doubt feel the pain of budget cuts in your own district.

According to an updated survey conducted by the Confederation of School Administrators, Oregon’s schools and the education workforce have been hit hard by the Great Recession.

Class Sizes Matters!

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ecently, there has been a robust debate on whether class size matters in student achievement. As educators working on the front lines, you know firsthand that it matters! It matters if you don’t have the time to provide individualized instruction to every student. It matters if you can’t maneuver safely among the crowded desks in your classroom. In fact, an overwhelming amount of research shows that small class sizes are better (go figure!)

– particularly for low-income, minority, and ELL students. Smaller classes allow for more personalized instruction and lead to better student behavior outcomes for all students.

In Oregon, we have seen an explosion in class size in districts across the state and this is having a significant impact on student learning. Currently, the class size data the state gathers is incomplete, misleading and does not tell the full picture of how class size ratios impact students. OEA is advocating for a bill – House Bill 3141, sponsored

by Rep. Betty Komp (D-Woodburn) - that

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Today’s OEA | february 2012

would require a once-a-year report on actual class size, defined as the number of students and teachers of record in Oregon’s public school classrooms.

By collecting the data using a more accurate sampling, rather than just dividing total personnel into total enrollment, we will

be able to better describe the learning conditions of our students. Equally important, it will help advocates, parents, educators, and policymakers better understand the implications of funding decisions regarding K-12 public education and how it impacts student achievement outcomes.

Politics & You But statewide, what do these numbers look like?

Here's a closer look.

Fair is Fair

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Follow the Legislature!

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s an educator, the time you have to track the legislature is limited. We’ve made it easy for you to keep informed on what’s happening at the Capitol! Here’s how: » Visit OEA’s 2012 Legislative Website at: www.oregoned.org/legislature, where you can: n Learn more about OEA’s legislative priorities. n Find contact information for and send a message to your legislators. n Track specific bills that you are interested in (to access BillTracker you will need an OEA member login). n Like OEA on Facebook! We’ll be posting updates on emerging issues and any new developments in Salem. n Sign up for OEA’s Politics & You e-newsletter! Send an email to janine.leggett@oregoned.org if you’d like to be on the list. n Visit the Oregon Legislature’s webpage at: www.leg.state.or.us.

e are all too familiar with the headlines like, “Oregon’s revenue down - Budgets to be cut midyear.” As you may know, the state budgets on a two-year, biennial cycle and occasionally when times are tough, we’ll see dips in revenue forcing the state to rebalance their General Fund budget – more than 90 percent of which goes to fund public education, health care and other vital services.

In order to rebalance the state budget, at times, Oregon’s governor is forced to make “allotment cuts,” meaning that each function of state government must reduce their General Fund-supported budget by an equal and set percentage. This session, OEA hopes to make this process more equitable and less painful for essential services through House Bill 3142. The Bill would require that tax break programs will share in the allotment cut process proportionally to General Fund services. This bill does not eliminate any individual tax break.

Currently, more than 50 percent of every tax dollar levied in Oregon goes back out the door to “tax expenditures” (or tax breaks), yet when the state budget is rebalanced through allotment cuts, these tax breaks escape their fair share of reductions. This has the effect of amplifying the size of cuts to schools, health care, public safety and other vital services in order to balance the state budget. In addition to the budgetary consequence, many Oregonians believe there is a fairness issues involved in making sure that tax break recipients share in the impacts of budget cuts along with schools, health care programs, and public safety.

Oregon Economists Say State Revenue Picture is Leveling Out

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he Oregon Legislature received the latest revenue forecast in mid-February, which predicts that Oregon will have $35 million less than expected for the current biennium. The current total of the shortfall is about $340 million. It's unlikely to result in any additional cuts to K-12 for the remaining current budget cycle, but legislative agreement to balance the current budget does

include a $14.8 million cut to community colleges.

While state economists see this as a sign the economy is recovering — there are no guarantees about what this means for the next school year. Many districts are reporting that they are predicting shortfalls for next year, proof that even as the economy improves, we continue at crisis-funding levels for public schools.

Today’s OEA | february 2012

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Mel Parker, right, BendLaPine School District's homeless liaison, celebrates with her student, Oneta, on her recent acceptance into Southern Oregon University.

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Credit: Photographer

That place called

home As the homeless youth population continues to climb, more students find the resources they need to survive through Oregon’s public schools

By Meg Krugel photography By Tom Patterson Credit: Photographer

Jobs.

It’s one of the defining words of this moment in history – a word that will be a driving wedge in the upcoming presidential election, a word that has become a rallying cry of the Occupy movement. Jobs define whether communities sink or float; and for families these days, jobs are as vital to survival as food, water and shelter.

But then there are the few who look at jobs in a different light. “Honestly, I’d like to be out of a job,” said Mel Parker, the homeless liaison for the Bend-LaPine School District in Central Oregon. “I’d love for them to walk in and say, ‘sorry – there are no more homeless kids. You’ve got to go’.”

For Parker, the reality of this ever happening seems like a long shot. Halfway into the school year, Bend-LaPine has identified about 675 homeless students in the community — a number that’s well on track to exceed last year’s end-of-the-year count of 726 homeless students.

Parker’s work isn’t easy. Like homeless liaisons in every school district in Oregon, Parker’s primary responsibility is to ensure the educational rights and stability of her students, regardless of where or how many times they move during a school year.

She coordinates transportation for Bend-LaPine’s students to be able to stay in their school of origin, ensures full inclusion of students experiencing homelessness in the classroom, enables

them to enroll in school and free lunch programs without the barriers of extensive paperwork, birth certificates, and income documentation. She also works with unaccompanied youth (teenagers who are no longer under the care of a parent or guardian) to navigate the system and apply for food stamps, health insurance, housing, and, yes, college.

Parker’s responsibilities as the school district’s homeless liaison dovetail well with her second job, where she works as the operations manager for a Bend-area residential living facility for runaway and homeless youth called The L.O.F.T (living options for teens). The 15-bed residence, run by the Bend non-profit Cascade Youth and Family Center, is always at capacity with a

OEA member Kathi Gonzales, a counselor at Mountain View High School in Bend, helps coordinate services for students and their families.

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Today’s OEA | february 2012

waiting list that’s many kids deep. Sometimes, teens will have to return to the L.O.F.T. two or three times before they are selfsufficient enough to live on their own.

But, what some may see as a revolving door of sad stories, Parker sees hope. She tells the story of a young woman named Oneta, who was a runaway youth and lived in emergency homeless shelters around the community. Over the course of three or four years, Oneta transitioned into living at the L.O.F.T. while attending school fulltime and keeping her grades up. Last month, Oneta received her acceptance letter to attend Southern Oregon University in the fall. She’s the kind of success story that keeps Parker going — even amidst the heartache.

“Everyone says, ‘oh it must be so sad’ to do this job. And it is sad, but it’s sadder for me to think — what if my position wasn’t here? What would happen to these kids? They’d get shuffled around from school to school, living in a car one week and a shelter the next, and we’d all watch them fall behind. For my students, it’s not their choice to be homeless,” Parker said.

A Network of Support

Pat Gundy, the program manager for Cascade Youth and Family Center, said that during last year’s annual community homeless count, 2,000 individuals in the Deschutes, Crook and Jefferson counties were identified as homeless. Shockingly, 48 percent of those individuals were youth. That means nearly half of the homeless population in Central Oregon’s tri-county area is trying to attend school while living in cars, doubled or tripled up in small apartments with other families, or in motels. Fortunately, for students experiencing homelessness in Bend-LaPine like Oneta, there’s a coordinated effort in place to support them — and a great deal of it centers on work being done in the area’s public schools.

For about 15 years now, public schools in Deschutes County (including in Bend-LaPine, Sisters and Redmond) have operated the Family Access Network (FAN) program. It’s an innovative “wraparound” model that places a classified staff member, called a FAN advocate, at every school in each of the three school districts in the county. FAN advocates act as “resource brokers” to connect low-income students and families with community and state agencies, businesses, nonprofits and churches to help them meet their basic needs. On one day, a FAN advocate might help a family enroll their child in the Oregon Health Plan, outfit a student with new clothes and a pair of eyeglasses, ask a church to deliver a quart of firewood to the family’s home in order to keep the heat on, and help a student apply for a Parks & Recreation scholarship to attend after-school programs free-of-cost.

The FAN program’s key to its success is simplicity. “There’s not a lot of red tape. We can get pretty creative to figure out how we can keep the school piece of that student’s life stable, even while the rest of their life isn’t,” said Dana Arntson, who is the Director of Federal Programs for Bend-LaPine Schools and oversees the FAN Program. Currently, the district has 14 FAN advocates spread across about 27 schools in the county.

Arntson determines how to staff each school based on income

and poverty demographics, free and reduced lunch rates, and student body numbers. An elementary school with 80-percent free and reduced lunch rate, but only 200 students, may get a fulltime FAN advocate, while a 1,500-student high school with just 14 percent free and reduced rate might only get a half-time FAN advocate. The program is funded through a variety of streams – about 60 percent of its funding comes from Title 19 Medicaid administrating dollars; the remainder of the funding is mostly made up with United Way donations, grants, and contributions to the FAN Foundation, a separate 501(c) 3 that fundraises for FAN advocates’ salaries. Just a small portion – equal to about three FAN advocates – is provided directly through the District’s general fund.

Kathi Gonzales is in her first year as a full-time counselor for Bend-LaPine Public Schools. For the past five years, she was employed as a FAN advocate while pursuing her counseling degree. She has experience across the age spectrum – prior to joining the district, she worked with Head Start kids, then got her job as a FAN advocate at a middle school, and is now at Mt. View High School in Bend, where her counseling caseload is about 465 students. Her school has identified 20 students who are experiencing homelessness, though Gonzales says she believes that number is under-reported. School districts use the McKinney-Vento Act‘s definition of homelessness, which is far broader than the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) version — the McKinney-Vento definition includes living “doubled up” with other families or in places that aren’t intended to function as a home, like a trailer without running water. As a result, many families don’t always recognize that they qualify as homeless.

“Sometimes these students have lived in that kind of instability their whole life – it’s just what they know,” Gonzales said. To this day, Gonzales, an OEA member, says FAN is a vital program to the district – but, like all social services in this economy, it’s being stretched too thin.

Today’s OEA | february 2012

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“The need has definitely gotten higher over the years. For me, the most frustrating part was that the need was so great but the resources were so low,” Gonzales said of her time as a FAN advocate. “I’d get calls from people and broker them, sending them out to different resources in the community, but I knew there was a good chance they wouldn’t get the help they needed.”

Gonzales said that as a FAN advocate, certain things were always available – school supplies and clothes for needy kids, for example, were easy to come by – but support for the bigger ticket items, like rent assistance, was few and far between.

“As the economy got worse, the stories got sadder. Families that were at one time able to donate, or had at least never found themselves in a position of need, were calling me asking for help with their rent. And, that turned into families needing help with their mortgage,” Gonzales remembered. “I felt burned out in the role. It was great, and I loved doing it, but it got tough to get calls all the time from people who just wanted help with those very basic needs.”

As a counselor at the high school level, Gonzales now works less with families, and more directly with unaccompanied teenage youth – helping them find the resources they need, like food stamps and living options, and encouraging them to pursue college. In this type of work, she’s able to be part of her students’ success stories, in addition to their crisis moments.

“Counselors are the gate-keepers to the whole child. It’s not just the academic piece, but the social and emotional piece as well,” Gonzales said. “Obviously, we can’t be everywhere, and I can’t meet the needs of all 467 of my kids. I’ll have one kid in, and we’ll talk about scheduling and college options. The next kid will come in, in total crisis mode and on the verge of suicide. So it’s that constant shifting that is tough and we’re not always able to do it to the degree we want to.”

Still, through FAN, Bend-LaPine schools have a definite “leg up” in recognizing barriers to academic achievement and being able to intervene at the school level. Arntson says the program relies on every individual important in a student’s life — the teacher, who makes a referral for the kid who’s squinting from the back of the class; the bus driver, who notices a whole new group of kids getting picked up at an apartment complex; the food service worker, who sees the same student coming back for second and third helpings, every single day. “I think educators in our district have come to expect that they’ve got this partner who can help with kids’ needs, so that they can be successful in what they do,” Arntson said.

A Vision for Ending Homelessness

The FAN program is just one piece, albeit an important one, that’s instrumental in alleviating the burden of homelessness across Deschutes, Crook and Jefferson counties. Bruce Abernethy, Bend-LaPine’s grant writer, an OEA member and former Mayor of Bend, has watched the drastic evolution and downward spiral of his community as a result of the economic recession. In 2005-2006, Abernethy points to data that shows 22

Today’s OEA | february 2012

Bend was the sixth fastest growing city in the entire country.

That year, he says, there were more single family housing permits issued in the town of Bend than in Seattle or San Diego.

From 2007-2008, during Abernethy’s term as a Mayor, the recession hit. Bend saw a 90 percent drop in single-family housing permits, houses went “underwater” and a lot of residents were forced to move out of the community. To this day, the region is still struggling to rebound. “There’s no doubt that we, as a district, have benefitted significantly from stimulus dollars. But a lot of it comes down to this: this is an amazing community. In terms of people, businesses, churches, and foundations – it’s very giving. Every region has some silos, but central Oregon as a whole prides itself on minimizing those silos,” Abernethy said.

And as testament to that, in November 2011, a consortium of partners released “Central Oregon’s 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness” – a concept that was originally launched by HUD back in 2000. Abernethy says there are over 350 plans similar to Central Oregon’s around the country, and 13 or 14 already in place throughout Oregon. “We’re pretty late coming to the party, but we are the first ones in Oregon to have done a plan on a regional level,” Abernethy said. The tri-county plan includes strategies that rely on all of the partners within the community working on the issue of homelessness (including the school districts) — and also builds in strategies for implementing new funding streams, new policies, and building new collaborative relationships.

“How can you tell that people are moving toward more selfsufficiency? It’s a tradeoff between something that is so specific, it’s out of date within three months, and something that’s so general it doesn’t really provide any guidance,” Abernethy said of the plan. “Champions are just critical. You need to have someone who is really invested in order to make this happen. I think people would be really disappointed if this was just put up on the shelf and forgotten about.”

Thankfully, some of the region’s strongest champions for solving the homeless crisis are the ones already working in the area’s public schools. Both Abernethy and Parker, the district’s homeless liaison, are voting members of Bend’s Homeless Leadership Coalition, a group of service providers and community members who ensure that the city, county, and local service providers develop policies and services that are in the best interest of the area’s population of homeless individuals.

“I truly believe that we’re all capable of being in the same position that these students are in, which is why I want to shift the language away from ‘homeless student’ to ‘students who are experiencing homelessness.’ It’s something that they can be in and move through, ” Parker said.

A Statewide Crisis

Bend-LaPine is, of course, not alone or unique in its growing number of homeless families and public school students.

According to a report released by the Oregon Department of Education, at least 18,051 students were homeless at some point last school year — a 12 percent increase over the previous year’s

Beaverton student Galilea Muñiz looks through the racks during an evening drop-in hour at the Beaverton School District's clothes closet, housed inside the Family Resource Center.

15,859. More than 13,000 students are living with relatives; about 750 called a motel their primary residence, another 1,700 were living in shelters or transitional housing. Finally, 2,264 were classified as “unsheltered” – meaning they were living in cars, sheds, tents, or on the streets.

Latest figures are staggering, no doubt, but they do little to really grasp the attention of the individuals who can make the systemic change needed to alter the course of this crisis. These numbers, as scary as they are, don’t surprise the people working in public schools. And no matter how many times newspapers across the state report on this “growing trend,” the social services these families rely on continue to face cuts.

“What can we do? The shelters are full. We can ask our families, ‘do you have a car you can sleep in? Do you have a place to park that car? Do you have money for gas, in order to keep the heater on?’ We’re already to the bare bone, and then we talk about cutting additional instructional days. For some kids, school is the only warm place they have to go,” said Dulce Nash, who is a program coordinator at the Family Resource Center for the Beaverton School District.

The Family Resource Center is a welcoming little haven tucked away in a modular building next to the Beaverton School District administration office. It houses the district’s support programs

for homeless and low-income students, as well as a drop-in clothes closet, which families can access several times during the school year. At the resource center, families can swing by any time of day and pick up toilet paper, diapers, winter coats – even bigger items, like infant car seats, if the resource center has them on hand. They rely primarily on donations from the community.

While there are pockets of innovation working in communities across Oregon, like the Deschutes County FAN program or Beaverton School District’s drop-in resource center, as a whole, Oregon seems to be struggling to turn the crisis around.

Year after year, Beaverton continues to rank at or near the top of the charts in numbers of homeless students. Last December – just two and a half months into the school year – staff at the Family Resource Center had already documented 1,212 homeless kids in Beaverton public schools. While nobody likes seeing a number that high – it’s indicative that the system for referring and providing services is working, explains Lisa Mentesana, Beaverton School District’s homeless liaison. “I’ve never seen people come together to help each other like I have during the last three years,” Mentesana said. “We’re working as an entire community to identify those who are in need and provide a service to them as best we can. The most important thing we can do is create awareness.” n

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Short caption for this photo.

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Today’s OEA | february 2012

a revolution in the making a new virtual education model - run by public school educators - goes live

By Laurie Wimmer and Meg Krugel • Illustrations by Eric Hanson

At

the start of a term, Dena Marsch’s students in her high school physical education course run a mile and record their time. They document the number of sit-ups and pull-ups they can do in a minute. They measure their body mass index and do a nutritional inventory of their diet. Using the results from all of these “tests,” Marsch’s students develop a personal fitness plan to improve their overall health. Every three weeks, they re-test themselves and adjust their fitness plan as necessary to keep on goal. Sounds like a pretty good, and a pretty standard, physical education curriculum, right? Here’s the twist: Marsch is teaching her P.E. class online.

P.E. – online? It might be the last course one expects to take while sitting in front of a laptop at home or inside a school computer lab.

But in Marsch’s experience – the curriculum is working well. Her students have the flexibility to work on their fitness plans on their own timeline; some finish weeks before others in the same class.

She has students who do their online postings for the P.E. class late into the night – allowing them to work while attending school, or take a full class-load through their traditional public school, and take P.E. as an additional credit online in order to graduate on time. One of her students hails from the remote little town of Long Creek, Ore., 60 miles south of Pendleton, where she attends a K-12 school with just 40 kids total. In the state’s most remote districts

Today’s OEA | february 2012

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like this, students may find a much wider breadth of courses through online education than their own school can provide.

Some might say Marsch, who retired from Astoria High School after 28 years as a health and P.E. teacher in 2009 and has been teaching online classes for the past year, is part of a revolution that’s been quietly brewing in Oregon over the past five years.

The revolution trades traditional teaching venues, like brick-andmortar public school classrooms, for teaching models that fire across the virtual airspace and onto students’ laptops.

Marsch knows there are upsides – and downsides – to this new frontier known as virtual education. “There’s flexibility to it.

Some students don’t do well in a normal school setting – and that’s reality. If we can offer a different form of curricula so that students have the opportunity to gain credit elsewhere, and they can be successful at that, then online education is awesome,” she said. But, she also acknowledges virtual education requires a certain kind of student – one who’s self-motivated – in order to be successful. “It’s definitely not for everybody,” Marsch added.

Online education made its way into Oregon around 2005, when full-time virtual schools began operating under the state’s charter school law, and also as district- or ESD-sponsored public classes in a handful of districts. A non-profit version called Oregon’s web academies also rose to prominence in this period, though several closed their doors mid-year after falling to financial ruin. Oregon students interested in pursuing online classes have been able to access them for more than a decade through options like Portland State University’s Extended Studies program, which requires parents to pay tuition for the classes and to buy accompanying textbooks.

Over the last year and a half, however, a new delivery system has taken hold in Oregon that capitalizes on a recently enacted virtual school mandate and employs Oregon’s public school teaching force to deliver a high-quality (all teachers are Oregon-certified), low-cost alternative. “Oregon Virtual Education,” or ORVED, was started as a zero-profit venture in 2010 by the Northwest Regional Education Service District (NWRESD), which serves the North Coast area, including school districts in Clatsop, Columbia, Tillamook, and Washington Counties. ESDs are regional public school districts that provide technical support and educational services to school districts both inside and outside of their geographic boundaries. In September of 2010, ORVED opened its door to a modest enrollment of nine students, with a handful of teachers on staff, including Marsch. Now, just a year-plus into the enterprise, more than 100 students from around the state take ORVED’s online classes in subjects such as health, Mandarin Chinese, digital photography, and math.

How is it different from the other alternatives?

Most virtual schools operating in Oregon are full-time programs run by for-profit corporations who negotiate a charter school agreement with a sponsoring school district. Nearly all of these charter schools are sponsored by small, remote, poor districts who’ve sought to make money from the enterprise. For instance, in the tiny district of Scio in Linn County, just 600 students from

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Kindergarten to twelvth grade are enrolled in the district’s brickand-mortar, traditional public schools. As sponsors of Oregon Connections Academy, or ORCA, however, the district calls some 3,000 more students – nearly all from outside Scio – “enrolled students” because of their laptop learning connection to a district in which most will never step foot. In May 2011, 73 percent of the senior class of this school failed to graduate – one indicator that for-profit “virtual schools” have a poor record of academic success.

These schools have been found by researchers to have 1:50 teacherstudent ratios, to lack personal, on-time interaction with students on a regular basis, and to have a series of other issues in terms of curriculum, teaching quality, and test performance.

By contrast, ORVED takes a different approach. NWRESD Superintendent James Sager knew from surveys that most students didn’t want to opt out of their hometown school. Most students interested in online learning, he said, want to take a class or two for any number of reasons — to take classes at an accelerated pace, to earn college credit, to recover a credit with an online “do-over” of a required class, or to circumvent scheduling challenges. Based on this understanding, Sager led the charge to reinvent online

Most students interested in online learning want to take a class or two for any number of reasons — to take classes at an accelerated pace, to earn college credit, to recover a credit with an online “do-over” of a required class, or to circumvent scheduling challenges.

education in Oregon. His approach was to provide high-quality education taught by Oregon licensed teachers, including those working in schools who pursue online teaching as an “extra-duty assignment", and retirees who’ve kept their certification current.

ORVED’s initial course offerings would include the highestdemand classes, and the list of available classes would continue to grow as interest in the model expanded.

The ESD’s online school is expanding and revising its delivery model to conform to a new state law, which specifies that 3 percent of students residing in a district must be allowed to enroll in online education each year. Technically, ORVED must become a “virtual charter school” in order to compete for the 3 percent of students mandated by the state. A consortium of districts, in partnership with two community colleges, are collaborating to sponsor ORVED as a charter program that will serve TAG students, home-schoolers, advanced public school students, students needing remedial help, and young people who live in small and remote districts with limited course offerings in their resident districts. As a result, ORVED is evolving rapidly. So far, 17 school districts have signed intergovernmental agreements to send their students to ORVED on a per-class basis. Once ORVED is chartered, students will take half their classes through the ESD, but they will still receive the other half of their education in regular classes in their neighborhood school. This will enable students to retain the personalized, face-to-face interaction with teachers and mentors, to use school equipment, and to participate in activities, classes and social events.

Paul Peterson, the Assistant Superintendent of NWRESD, noted “a lot of people in the education community look at charter (schools) as taking kids away from regular public schools. We’re trying to use the charter concept to strengthen schools. Every kid deserves the best of what Oregon’s schools have to offer. Small

school districts that have been impacted by funding cuts still need to meet the needs of kids. A student in eastern Oregon deserves the same high quality education that a student in the metro area might get.”

And to this end, ORVED helps equalize the spectrum.

“It really is about personalizing the education and getting them what they need,” he said.

But how much does it cost?

School districts use their general fund dollars to “buy” students the courses they desire. Through ORVED, $300 per semester per course buys a program that can start at any time in the semester, is fully accredited, and meets all state standards for quality, content and rigor. No tax dollars are siphoned off to corporate shareholders, as with the for-profit schools. One hundred percent of the fee pays for the operating platform, teacher, and other course-related expenses, with zero profit to NWRESD. The Oregon Education Association worked with the ESD to develop a memorandum of understanding with districts in which ORVED teachers are employed by day on an “extra-duty assignment”, based on the number of students enrolled in a course. Through NWRESD, teachers are

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given free, top-quality professional development training in online instruction, and the sponsoring districts who pay State School Fund money to ORVED will have the peace of mind knowing that their students will receive a high-quality education.

One feature of ORVED’s program that sets it apart from other online experiments is its collaboration with professional educators in Oregon’s public schools. The program has trained more than 200 educators to teach in an online environment so far, focusing on the opportunity to personalize education for each student they serve. “The idea was to reinforce collaboration between the classroom environment and the online environment,” Sager explained. “We want to keep teachers employed, and we want to hire the best educators for our students.”

Peterson says ORVED’s relationship with a new teacher begins with the question, “What courses would you like to teach?” and then, “How many students would you like in your class?” He says there’s a deep awareness that many Oregon educators have been significantly impacted by cut days, layoffs, and the inability to earn any extra money, aside from taking on a coaching job.

“A lot of teachers want to be able to use their own skills to be able to do what they’re so good at – and they may want to do something where they get to control their own terms,” he said.

ORVED provides the space for that. When Marsch was hired by NWRESD as a health and P.E. teacher last year, she opted to begin the year teaching just one health class before she took on any other assignments.

Now, between her two classes, she spends about two hours per day, including weekends, checking in with her students via email, phone calls and text messaging.

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ORVED requires teachers to make at least two in-person contacts with each student per week. Within the first week of the term, Marsch can tell whether or not students are falling behind, simply by the number of times they log in to the system and during phone call conversations with them about course content.

And, where the P.E. curriculum is concerned, Marsch says it’s just helpful having long-term experience teaching the subject — “I know if they’re flubbing around and not doing what they should be doing.”

While many districts find themselves in perilous budget situations, having to gut their programs of everything but the very basic core content subjects, Peterson says ORVED is open to the idea of innovation. In some ways – the virtual program is picking up the pieces that school districts have had to cut due to funding loss. In one instance, a teacher in Clatsop County, who’d lost funding for the school’s agriculture program, is now partnering with several other school districts to create an “Intro to Ag” class through ORVED. “That’s a program that we can bring back to kids, using an Oregon teacher.

And it won’t be all online-based. They’ll be out doing things – quite literally ‘in the field’, and probably getting involved in the County Fair. It’s Oregon educators creating it for Oregon kids, and that is just so powerful,” Peterson said.

As for the technical side of the enterprise, Northwest

Regional ESD made a decision at its inception to maximize the work that had already been done by the Oregon Department of Education and its Oregon Virtual School District. This program is essentially an online curriculum repository and library, which every district may access for technology education in Oregon schools, and includes access to tools like the Moodle software.

ORVED makes use of these curricula as well as the technology required to operate the system (the “platform”), which is also housed at the Department’s Virtual School District. Additionally, Sager has purchased curriculum from companies that offer courses, just like they offer textbooks.

One district that has signed on with ORVED will combine this program with its own “wraparound” services. Tigard-Tualatin School District has rented a facility off-campus and near a MAX transit station to host a computer lab for its online enrollees.

Staffed by a teacher and an education assistant, this drop-in center-style lab will remain open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. for students, who will have access to district computers, internet service, and live instructional assistance as they complete their ORVED coursework. Nestucca High School on the Oregon Coast is creating a similar add-on at their North County Tech Center, where students may drop in during a study hall, teacher-aide period, or at other times throughout the day. Not all districts have the resources to supplement the ORVED program in this way, but Sager says that he is actively encouraging districts to plan for similar support to students in participating districts.

Scott Holmstead, a retired educator and OEA member, teaches digital photography through ORVED. Prior to retirement, Holmstead worked for 32 years in education, teaching photography at Astoria High School for 20 years and then moving into the district’s technology director role for the last 12 years. Now, through ORVED, he gets to combine his love of photography and technology – which he says is a perfect fit.

His experiences teaching in online education aren’t all that different from the time he spent in the classroom. There are still students who are highly motivated, who have tremendous parental support, and who do very well in his course. And then, there are the students who rarely check in, have difficult home lives and whose parents are unengaged in their education. It’s about finding the right balance and getting to know what makes a student “tick” – all through a virtual relationship.

Last spring, Holmstead noticed that one of his students was taking a lot of photos of a guitar. One evening, while they were chatting online about the photos, Holmstead told his student he’d love to hear him play the guitar. Within 24 hours, the student had made a YouTube video of himself performing, uploaded the video and sent Holmstead a link to hear him play. “In some cases, I feel like I get to know the student even more than I would in a traditional classroom,” he said.

ORVED hopes to expand beyond its current enrollment to serve all public school students in Oregon who wish to take some

coursework online while still remaining a part of the traditional school setting. Said Sager, “It’s been a challenge to develop a virtual program that serves students, teachers, and school districts well, and it takes time for people to understand that ORVED really is a new way of doing business that complements and strengthens the regular schools, because that’s where kids belong – in their local school, learning from Oregon teachers.”

Holmstead agrees, noting that there are increasingly more and more opportunities for students to pursue their K-12 education in spaces other than traditional public schools ­­ — namely, through private companies, online university programs, and homeschooling. Even in its infancy, ORVED is filling a unique niche as a public school program that operates online. “Unless public education really starts to ramp up and prepare for this, I think we’ll lose a lot of our kids.

“I told our Superintendent the other day, ‘It’s not like the headlights are coming. The headlights are here.’ You don’t want to be looking at a situation five years from now and say, ‘what happened?,’ and try to recover those students, when you could have been more proactive and retain those students to begin with,” Holmstead said. “I think that’s part of the mission of ORVED — to provide those online opportunities to our own kids, without losing them.” n

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beards, d nuts and

bug zappers In the midst of bitter contract negotiations, educators in Eagle Point arm themselves with a new kind of organizing tool — humor

By Brian Hall President, Eagle Point Education Association

When I was a kid, my siblings and I were forced to sit in the front pew in church. See, our mom was the church organist, our dad led the service and sat up on the stand, and the Hall children were not a group to be trusted to sit quietly, unsupervised in any but the front-most pew.

Had others been paying attention, they would have noticed a tense, barely contained eruption up there at the front. It was a weekly occurrence that we came to know as the Church Giggles.

When our mom would go up to the organ to accompany a hymn, her eyes never once looked at the sheet music. Both hands and both feet flew in convoluted yet seamless configurations, never missing a note, but her eyes were laser beams staring with a threatening scowl at her disruptive children in the front pew. Her eyes promised all manner of cruel parental punishment lest we behave and not embarrass her.

Every Sunday, every hymn, one of us would whisper something inappropriate at just the right time, or my brother would discretely fart, or my sister would flare her nostrils in a certain way…. it didn’t really matter. What mattered was that the need to laugh would suddenly be more crucial to existence than oxygen. The Church Giggles struck with ferocity. My feeble, adolescent brain could barely stand the tension between the hilarity of my siblings and the eyeball-thrown threat of certain peril coming from my mother. I knew that I shouldn’t be laughing, but I just couldn’t help myself.

I realize, of course, that no one opened their copy of Today’s OEA, hoping that yes, finally, this is the issue with the bizarre nostalgia from that bizarre guy in that bizarre district! So, the question is: what the heck do the Church Giggles have to do with union work?

Here’s how I see it. What is so funny about union work? What is there to laugh about when you are the first-year president in a difficult district? Where are the chuckles when working without a contract? Where are the farts and flared nostrils when rallying to fight subcontracting or asking for mediation? Where is the humor in grievance, advocacy, public relations, communication, member engagement, organizing, bargaining support, recruiting, and all the other tasks that we are faced with as an organization? What is there to laugh about? Damn near everything!

In our local, we laugh a lot. Even though we struggle with many, many challenges, like the few listed above (and that is just the tip of the iceberg, I promise you), we are fighting the good fight with laughter.

A case in point: this year, we have built up our Facebook page (shameless plug: facebook.com/EaglePointEA), and early in the year, we realized that although we were posting important updates Credit: iStockphoto.com

and thought-provoking links, we only had about 25 likes and six people regularly checking the page. We could have taken the approach of communicating to our membership, “You need to keep informed! Your job may be in danger unless you comment on our posts! Something something Facebook something solidarity something something union something!” Instead, a genius member within our local proposed a brilliant plan: donuts. As president (and as a recovering fat kid), I listened. I made the offer that for every 10 likes we received on the Facebook page, I would personally deliver a box of donuts to a worksite in the District. It worked. In the first two months, we received over 80 new likes.

Once people visit the page, we try our hardest to keep them coming back for more. Besides important updates, we try to make people chuckle.

Ever wonder what the difference is between a language arts teacher in Eagle Point and Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick?

We put the answer on our page: an EPEA teacher cares about kids, puts in dozens of extra hours of work to help them, and is working without a contract; Michael Vick, despite being a convicted felon and dog killer, got a contract over the summer (and a very large one at that).

In November, we organized fiercely to fight subcontracting our transportation department (we are a wall-to-wall local). Again, we did it with humor. When more than 125 EPEA members, students, community members, and parents showed up to our school board’s budget discussion about transportation services, they filled the boardroom beyond capacity and spilled out onto the sidewalk. As they entered, we plastered everyone with support stickers. Normal, subtle, serious support stickers? Of course not! Neon pink, orange, green, and yellow shipping labels — the kind that burn retinas and can be used as emergency light sources in the event of power failure. We nicknamed them our “union bug zappers.” And what did our stickers say? “Don’t throw transportation workers under the bus,” and “Students first, not First Student.” After the meeting, there were smiling high school students still coming up to ask if they could take one home.

For our monthly Employee Association Representative Report to the school board that night, I took to the podium and delivered Today’s OEA | february 2012

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the “Top Ten Reasons Why Subcontracting Should Be Taken Off the Bargaining Table Now,” an homage to my adolescent hero, David Letterman (and I confessed to the school board that as that statement indicates, I was a weird kid growing up).

Right before winter break, we announced a new way for members to show their support of their bargaining team and build solidarity in our ranks: beards! Leading the way with my own facial follicle laziness, Eagle Point employees have been putting down their razors until we get a settled contract. And after an outcry of gender inequality, we also announced the plan of braided hair in support of bargaining for female members. Thus far, “Beards and Braids for Bargaining” has been a success in both building numbers of participants and fostering member solidarity. People who have never been on a union committee or shown up to a meeting have emailed to say that they are willing to join the BBBST (Bearded and Braided Bargaining Support Team).

But why the humor? Why the jokes? Well…. why not? It feels good to laugh while working like crazy, and as a strategy for organizing, it’s working. Locally, we have seen a massive increase in engagement with our communications through a little sprinkling of humor, and even a little bit of funny goes a long way. As educators, everyday our email boxes are swamped with junk we don’t want to read; how great is it to get one that makes you smile?

But it’s more than just humor for the sake of humor. There is power in humor. In Eagle Point, as we have escalated our organizing efforts throughout the year, fighting to get a contract, we have done so with a humorous tone and serious intent. Our members have responded with action. Each successive time we ask members to attend a board meeting or complete a survey or respond to a communication, our numbers grow. At the end of every communication, we close by saying that members’ concerns, questions, and input are always welcome. The most common feedback we receive? Members appreciate a little laughter in their day.

If this year is going to be anything like the last umpteen times we have bargained a contract in Eagle Point, we have a long road ahead of us in our process. Two years ago, we voted to strike but settled 32

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Keeping the spirit on gloomy days: members of Eagle Point Education Association rally before their district's school board meeting. The "bug zapper" green of their protest signs has become a popular branding tool of the Association.

before walking off the job. But this time, I’d like to think that at some point, our administrators are going to look at their employees and realize that we are all giggling uncontrollably, that we are all in on the joke, that through our shared laughter, we share camaraderie, unity, and solidarity. All 337 of us will be crowded into the front pew of our District. We know what is at stake. We know what we are fighting for. We know that it’s not something we should be laughing about.

And even though our administrators, infuriated, glare at us with laser beam eyes, we just can’t help but keep laughing. n Brian Hall is the president of Eagle Point Education Association, a wall-to-wall local in Southern Oregon. He is a Language Arts teacher at White Mountain Middle School.

Editor's Note: On Feb. 9, 2012, shortly before this magazine went to print, Brian Hall passed away unexpectedly. He will be greatly missed by the students, colleagues, and friends who knew him.

Credit: iStockphoto.com; Rebecca Konefal; Brian Hall

Opinion

Preparing for a Lifetime of Underachievement One educator's concerns about the Proficiency-Based Teaching & Learning Model

By Tami Miller / High School French Teacher, Hillsboro Education Association

T

he implementation of the Proficiency-Based Teaching and Learning (PBTL) model, which eliminates behaviors and focuses solely on the demonstration of proficiency, is the current trend among school districts and state education departments. The model is intended to “close the achievement gap” and reduce the number of high school dropouts, based on the assumption that students are capable of achieving proficiency in the absence of consequences.

What child would automatically produce these behaviors in the absence of direct consequences? Would yours? Would you?

The education system is a microcosm of society in that it reflects the values of its people. It grooms our children to become citizens who disseminate these values. There was a time when the American dream embodied the quintessential hard-working individual who never quit, who continued to work against all odds. The sense of accomplishment was all the greater for the level of work that was required to attain it. We bragged about the difficulty, and the volume of work required to surpass the target. Doing more than what was believed to be necessary was a habit, and produced greater than imagined outcomes.

As a result of proficiency-based teaching and learning, students in our school districts will be robbed of this part of the American dream. Even if they assiduously apply themselves, yet miss the mark, they will receive no compensation (i.e. grade) for their work. It’s presumptuous to assume that a child will automatically produce a Herculean or even consistent effort in the absence of any immediate and measurable reward. The Olympic spirit of great effort, dedicated to perfecting a skill over an extended period of time, to be tested in a singular moment with no opportunity for retakes has no place in the Proficiency model.

In contrast, proficiency reflects the values of the generation raised on American Idol and the lottery. The idea of earning one’s grade has been replaced by instantaneous gratification. Proficiency grading, and the No Zero Policy for assignments never attempted, fit nicely with the value of

“something for nothing.” Why earn it, when it can be given, free of work, responsibility, and the effort that reflects learning? Proficiency fits nicely with the belief that the easiest path composed of the least effort is the one of choice.

What value have we conveyed to our children by telling them that their only task throughout the course of their formal education is to “meet the standard?”

The Oregon Governor’s 40-40-20 plan reflects the ongoing concern of eliminating the dropout rate and guaranteeing a diploma of some kind to all Oregonians because of its association with economic success and employment. The Proficiency model adopted by our district panders to this proposal by bestowing more diplomas through the elimination of the kinds of dropouts derived from daily accountability.

Those who believe in the efficacy of this model forget that those who drop out, do so for the same reasons that will make it difficult to remain employed. We have only exacerbated their potential for post-high school failure by giving up on the hope that we can instill the behaviors that make for a good employee in their K-12 education.

Proficiency as a single element in the learning process is useful, but should not be the scaffolding from which all else is derived. The scaffolding should be built on the values that form the whole child, and that produce the strategies used to accomplish a task or to learn a skill. If we reward these behaviors, they will be reproduced until they’ve become habits. Once inculcated, these behaviors and habits will produce outcomes that are not limited by a standard, but will surpass it, given the growth orientation that is being instilled.

We have an opportunity to question the efficacy of this model in light of what we believe a school district’s responsibility is to the children and families who reside therein.

We have an opportunity to be integral in creating the kind of citizen that will one day run this country. Meeting the prevailing standard is not worth the cost of instilling the values required by every university and employer, and on which this nation was built. Where we stand in this process will impact the future of our students. n

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Sources + Resources The following information is provided as a resource to members of the Oregon Education Association. Their publication within Today’s OEA is not to be construed as a recommendation or endorsement of the products or services by the Oregon Education Association, its Board of Directors or staff.

AWARDS, GRANTS, SCholarships

Ecology/Environmental Science Teaching Award

what: Sponsored by Vernier Software & Technology, the Ecology/Environmental Teaching Award is given to a secondary school teacher who has successfully developed and demonstrated an innovative approach in the teaching of ecology/ environmental science and has carried his/her commitment to the environment into the community. The winner receives $1,000 toward travel to the Professional Development Conference, and $500 of Vernier equipment. n when: The application deadline is Mar. 15, 2012. n how: For more information and to access the online nomination form, go to www.nabt.org/websites/institution/ index.php?p=132#award2.

where: Oregon Historical Society, Portland, Ore. n how: For more information, go to www. ohs.org/education/oregon-history-day. cfm. Registration Deadline: Apr. 1, 2012. n

n

Imagine Tomorrow Competition for 9th-12th Graders

what: The Imagine Tomorrow competition for 9th to 12th graders rewards innovative ideas that address the world’s energy concerns. It connects classroom lessons to the real world. Cash awards are given to honor students and their schools. n who: Students who are 9th to 12th graders and reside in Washington, Idaho, Montana, or Oregon are eligible to participate. n how: For more information on this contest, go to http://imagine.wsu.edu.

Registration opens March 1 and close April 2, 2012 n

ING Unsung Heroes® Award

what: The ING Unsung Heroes award program helps K-12 educators and their schools fund innovative classroom projects. Each of the 100 finalists will receive an award of $2,000 made payable jointly to the recipient and to his or her school.

Of the 100 finalists, three will be selected for additional financial awards with first place receiving $25,000. n who: All full-time K-12 education professionals (educators, teachers, principals, paraprofessionals, or classified staff ) are eligible. n when: Applications must be postmarked no later than April 30, 2012. n how: For more information and to download an application, go to www. unsungheroes.com. n

Oregon Potters Association Scholarship (OPA)

what: The OPA Scholarship is for $1,000 and is awarded to a student who shows creative and technical excellence in the field of ceramics. n who: It is open to high school juniors and seniors in Oregon and SW Washington n when: Applications must be mailed and arrive by Mar. 30, 2012. n how: For more info, go to www.oregonpotters.org/opa-scholarships.html or contact Deborah Shapiro at shapiroporcelain@yahoo.com. n

Oregon History Day

what: The Oregon Historical Society will host Oregon History Day, which determines which students from Oregon advance to the national level. The theme for National History Day 2012 is “Revolution, Reaction, Reform in History.” n who: The competition is open to students in private, public, and home schools. n when: Saturday, May 5, 2012 n

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Today’s OEA | february 2012

For the classroom

Energy Trust of Oregon Classroom Resources

what: Energy Trust provides resources to engage students and families

n

in learning about energy efficiency and sustainable energy choices, such as LivingWise energy-efficiency curriculum and kits; Change a Light, Change the World fundraiser; Kill A Watt® energy monitors; and links to more school resources. n how: For more information, go to http://energytrust.org/library/buildenergy-awareness/school-resources.

Insurance Curriculum Online

what: Insurance Curriculum Online is a free web-based compilation of lesson plans, activities and resources that give educators an opportunity to teach students the value of insurance and how it works. n how: Access the curriculum online at: www.nwinsurance.org/cm_ins_curric_or.htm. n

Asia for Educators

what: Offers lesson plans, videos, maps, timelines, and primary-source documents for Teaching Eastern Asian history and culture. n how: Go to http://afe.easia.columbia. edu/. n

Global Dimension Classroom Resources

what: This website connects current events with background information, news reports research, videos and other resources. n how: Go to www.globaldimension.org.uk n

Children’s Clean Water Festival

what: Water experts from Oregon and Washington will work with students to explore water science and watershed ecology, and how it relates to our world. n who: This Festival is designed for 4th and 5th grade students. n when: Tuesday, April 24, 2012 n where: PCC Rock Creek, 17705 NW Springville Rd., Portland, Ore. n how: For more information, go to www.cleanwaterfestival.org. n

Sources + Resources Opportunities

Special Education Law: Stressing the Fundamentals

what: This workshop provides special education staff with practical skills to improve the procedural and substantive compliance of paperwork and services delivery. Cost (including lunch and materials) is $150 per registrant or $130 each for three or more from one district. n who: Designed for special education teachers, administrators and other related service providers working in special education programs. n where: April 20, 2012, 9 a.m.–3:30 p.m. in Pendleton. n how: For more information on how to register, contact The Hungerford Law Firm at (503) 650-7990 or e-mail andrea@hungerfordlaw.com. n

Oregon School Employee Wellness Education Conference

what: This conference provides the opportunity to build personal skills to improve your overall health, create a culture of wellness at schools, establish a school team to develop a plan of action for employee wellness, access and use state and national resources to support school employee wellness. 1 CPE Credit | 10 CPDU’s have been applied for. n when: Mar. 25-27, 2012 n WHERE: The Riverhouse, Bend, Ore. n how: Contact Jake Rooks, OEA Choice Trust, phone: 800-452-0914, Ext 105 or email: jr@oeachoice.com; or to register, go to: http://events.beattygroup.com/ SchoolEmployeeWellness.htm. n

Global Exploration Offered to Educators

what: Global Exploration for Educators Organization (GEEO) offers summer professional development travel for educators that are 8-24 days in length. n who: Trips are open to K-12 and university educators, administrators and retirees. n when: Summer 2012 n how: For more information, go to www.geeo.org. n

BOOKS

75+ Reading Strategies: Boost Achievement & Build a Life-Long Love of Reading

by Danny Brassell Crystal Springs Books, 2009; ISBN-13: 9781934026953. $16.95 (List Price); Available at www.barnesandnoble.com

The author offers fun-filled, high-impact strategies to motivate all students and help them develop a passion for reading, using easy-to-use, inexpensive and classroom-proven activities.

Co-Teaching That Works: Structures and Strategies for Maximizing Student Learning

By Anne M. Beninghof Wiley, John & Sons, Inc., 2012; ISBN-13: 9781118004364. $29.95 (List Price); Available at www.barnesandnoble.com

A former co-teacher and national presenter, the author shares stories, and real-life co-taught lesson examples that emphasize creative yet time-efficient instructional strategies to use in a co-taught classroom.

Educating Emergent Bilinguals: Policies, Programs, and Practices for English Language Learners

By Ofelia Garcia and Jo Anne Kleifgen Teachers College Press, 2010; ISBN-13: 9780807751145. $60 (Hard Cover List Price); Available at www.barnesandnoble.com

The authors provide critical research to demonstrate how ignoring children’s bilingualism perpetuates inequities in their schooling and offers thorough descriptions of alternative practices that would transform our schools and students’ futures.

Jump Start Health! Practical Ideas to Promote Wellness in Kids of All Ages

By David Campos Teachers College Press, 2011; ISBN-13: 9780807751787. $29.95 (Paperback List Price); Available at www.barnesandnoble.com

This resource will help classroom teachers jumpstart their students on a path to a healthy lifestyle by providing teaching materials that ask a range of critical thinking questions; encourage collaboration and community building; and embody the National Education Standards and National Health Standards.

Today’s OEA | february 2012

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OEA Board Candidates OEA Members Seek Association Positions » Candidates’ statements are printed exactly as submitted and have not been corrected for spelling, grammar, or punctuation. PLEASE NOTE: Candidate statements that exceeded the 100-word limit were cut off at the District 03 (3 year term)

District 04 (3 year term)

Desaráe Gilles

Classroom Teacher Liberty Elementary School Salem-Keizer School District

Judy Svoboda Photo Unavailable

STATEMENT My goal as an association leader is to advocate for all members. By representing the interest of members, we represent public education. I believe that we need to be a strong, united voice for our association and I feel I have a working knowledge of issues that are important to OEA members. I would welcome the opportunity to represent members from District 4 on the OEA Board of Directors.

QUALIFICATIONS

Local: Springfield Education Association

» SKEA Elections Chair – 2 years » SKEA Elementary Board Director – 3.5 years » SKEA IPD Committee – 3 years » SKEA Retirement Dinner Planner – 2 years » SKEA Building Rep – 3 years State: Oregon Education Association

» OEA New Member Advisory Council – 2.5 years » OEA New Member Advisory Council – .5 years

QUALIFICATIONS » President » Vice President » Executive Board » Negotiations Team » Professional Negotiations Committee » National Conference Committee Chair » Building Representative » Crisis Organizing Committee Co-Chair » Budget Committee State:

» OEA Interim Board Director District 4 » OEA Center for Teaching and Learning Cabinet » OEA Teacher Success Work Group Committee » OEA-RA Delegate » OEA Executive Director Search Committee » OEA-ESEA Work Group Committee » OEA Pie Convention » OEA Summer Academy » OEA Presidents Training National:

» NEA-RA Delegate » Pacific Regional Leadership Training » NEA Women's Leadership Training Personal:

» Teaching Experience: 7th grade science teacher & 4th-6th grade teacher

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Today’s OEA | february 2012

Tad Shannon

President Springfield Education Association Springfield School District

STATEMENT I have become greatly involved in my local association and would like to get more involved at the state and national level. For this reason, I am currently running in our local elections for an OEA RA delegate position as well as an NEA RA delegate position. I feel that, as an OEA Board Director I can serve both Oregon Education Association and Salem Keizer Association in a larger and more direct capacity.

Local: Salem Keizer Education Association

District 05 (3 year term) Teacher Churchill High School Eugene School District

STATEMENT I am dedicated to the principles of unions and believe strongly that teachers are among society’s most important resources. I firmly believe that the interests of teachers coincide with the interests of students and the wider community. For the past 12 years I have successfully fought for the rights of teachers and for the interests of students and public education. As a union representative and activist I have successfully represented teachers who have been falsely accused, have mediated co-worker disputes and have worked to secure adequate funding for public education at the local and state levels.

QUALIFICATIONS Local: Eugene Education Association

» Building representative, Churchill High School » Co-Chair, Grievance Committee » Member, Eugene 4J Bargaining Committee » EEA Executive Board State: OEA

» Board Director, District 5 » Statewide Organizing Task Force National: NEA

» Delegate to 2011 NEA Convention

100th word. Elections for OEA Board Directors and NEA RA Delegates are determined by mail-in ballots, due to OEA Headquarters received or postmarked by March 10th (Bylaws, Article VII, Section 4, C.1.)

District 10 (3 year term)

District 10 (3 year term)

Eric Swehla

Amy Wood

1st Grade Teacher Mary Rieke Elementary Portland School District

District 10 (2 year term)

Photo Unavailable

David C. Dugo Jr.

7-8 Grade Teacher Ockley Green Middle School Portland School District

School Psychologist

Grant High School Portland School District

STATEMENT

STATEMENT

STATEMENT

In these times when teachers seem to be targeted as scapegoats for every social ailment of our society, we need an OEA Board that acts in a proactive, well organized, decisive, and dignified manner to defend the outstanding work being done in our classrooms every day. We need to help our state leaders and community members better understand the complexity of factors which create the best learning environments for our children, as well as the short sighted short-comings of reform movements that claim to be silver bullets or curealls. We are highly skilled professionals!

My goal as a leader Portland Association of Teachers is to use my twenty years of experience to guide and create the best educational system for all children. Working primarily in North Portland, I have experience with diverse populations culturally and economically. I look forward to serving you in this new role as OEA Board Director.

I’m David Dugo and I’ve served on the OEA executive board as an appointee for the past six months. I’m excited to continue this critical work. I have a passion for the kind of social justice and equity which can only come through good governance and leadership.

Advocating effectively for education requires policies that are rooted in the realities that we as educators experience every day. I will take these ideas forcefully into the marketplace of education systems reform. If elected, you can count on me to address the needs of our members in a fair and effective way.

QUALIFICATIONS Local: Portland Association of Teachers

» Union Representative, César Chávez K-8 » Site Representative, César Chávez K-8 » Member of Site Bargaining Support Team » Consistent Bargaining Rally Attendee State: OEA

» OEA Representative Assembly Delegate » PIE Convention Delegate » GLBT Caucus Treasurer » OEA Summer Leadership Conference Attendee National: NEA

» NEA Representative Assembly Delegate » National Council of Urban Education Associations Rep. for PAT » Peace & Justice Caucus Member » GLBT Caucus Member » Human Rights Caucus Member » NEA Fund Contributor

QUALIFICATIONS Local: Portland Association of Teachers

» Treasurer » Executive Board » Building Representative/head representative State: OEA

» OEA Representative Assembly Delegate » PIE Convention Delegate National: NEA

» NEA Representative Delegate » Minority and Women's Conference Personal:

» Twenty years experience as a middle grades teacher in both middle school and K-8

QUALIFICATIONS Local: Portland Association of Teachers

» Executive Board Director » Legislative Committee » TVIP board » School Psychologist Rep State: OEA

» OEA Board Director » Congressional Advocacy Team, Wyden » High Capacity Locals Committee » OEA RA delegate National: NEA

» NEA RA delegate » NEA RA Candidate Interview Committee Personal:

» Oregon School Psychologist Association, Past President » School Psychologist with 12 years of experience.

Personal:

» Neighborhood Tree Planting Committee/ Friends of Trees » Multnomah County Democrats Recording Secretary » Democratic Party of Oregon Platform Convention

Today’s OEA | february 2012

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OEA Board Candidates District 14 (3 year term)

District 17 (3 year term)

Reed ScottSchwalbach Photo Unavailable

9-12 Spanish Teacher Centennial High School Centennial School District

Sandi Miller Photo Unavailable

Special Needs School Bus Driver Transportation Greater Albany School District

STATEMENT I got involved with OEA as a new teacher, and have stayed involved in the union because I found that my union work has not only enhanced my understanding of the complexity of public education, but has made me a better teacher. As a Board Director, I have been dedicated to increasing communication between my members and OEA leadership.

With re-election, I plan on continuing this work and expanding membership involvement in state and national issues, while at the same time making sure the voice of the school house professional is present in governance decisions. Thank you for your vote!

STATEMENT I have served 2 partial terms as a OEA board director for about 2 years of service. In that time I’ve served on various committees such as the Executive Director search committee, OEA RA and NEA RA planning committees, and most currently the ASO bargaining team. Helping to guide OEA through the current budget crisis has been challenging but vitally important. As OEA continues to develop its strategic action plan it will bring exciting changes.

I’d like the opportunity to continue what I’ve started with this board and represent you as your District 17 Board Director.

QUALIFICATIONS

QUALIFICATIONS I have served as: » local building rep, secretary, bargaining chair, and vice-president » UniServ Chaiperson » Delegate to the OEA RA (5 years) » Delegate to the NEA RA (2 years) » State delegate to the NEA RA (3 years) » OEA board director for District 17 (current)

Local:

» Bargaining chair, 2011- present » Grievance Chair, 2007-2008, 2009-2010 » Vice-President, 2005-2007 » President, 2002-2005 » Building rep, 2000-2002 State:

» OEA Board of Directors, 2009-2012 » OEA-RA delegate, 2000-present » Congressional Advocacy Team, Region 1 » OEA GLBTQ Caucus, co-chair 2006-2008 OEA Committees:

» Judicial Panel » Center for Affiliate Service » Region 1 pre-RA planning National:

» NEA-RA delegate » Selected, NEA Political Campaign Training Program grant » Participant, Women's Leadership Training program Personal:

» Fulbright Teacher Exchange Interview Panel, Chair, 2011 » Fulbright Teacher Exchange, 2008-2009

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Today’s OEA | february 2012

District 17 (2 year term) Helen Jacobs Bus Driver

Photo Unavailable

Transportation Greater Albany School District

STATEMENT I believe in OEA’s Mission, Vision, and Core Values for its members and the fight for great public schools for all students. I have spoken to legislators about our issues and campaigned against harmful ballot measures. I would like to continue to bring the voices of our educators to state and federal legislators and to OEA. I have and would like to continue working to improve member involvement in OEA. I will do the work and fight the hard battles for all OEA members. I am Helen Jacobs, your candidate for Santiam UniServ Board Director.

QUALIFICATIONS Local: GA-ACE

» President » Vice President » Treasurer » Bargaining team » Building Rep » Santiam UniServ Chairperson State: OEA

» OCESP treasurer » OCESP board director » Delegate to the representative assembly » PIE delegate » LAC Rep » Board Director National: NEA

» Delegate to the representative assembly » Delegate to the Pacific regional conference » Delegate to the NCESP national convention

District 18 (3 year term)

District 20 (3 year term)

District 07 (3 year term)

Kelvin Calkins

Deborah Barnes

No Name Submitted – Write-in ballot

May Street Elementary School Hood River County School District

Sabin-Schellenberg Center North Clackamas School District

District 07 (1 year term)

4th Grade Teacher

STATEMENT As a member of OEA’s Strategic Action Planning Task Force the past six months, I’ve had the opportunity to work with OEA members and staff— envisioning a course for the future of our union. We face tremendous challenges.

We will adapt and meet those challenges, but this will require each of us to step beyond our usual comfort zones, striving toward an improved future for our students and profession.

As your representative on the OEA Board, I will continue to advocate for members and help OEA provide additional opportunities for members to positively influence the education profession.

QUALIFICATIONS Local: Hood River

» President » Vice President » Chair: Grievance, Bargaining UniServ:

» President » Political Action Chair » Coalition for District Excellence » Legislative Candidate Interviews » Bargaining/Grievance Cadre OEA:

» Region III Vice President » Executive Committee » Board of Directors » Strategic Action Planning Task Force » Budget Committee » Staff Bargaining » Management Selection Committees » Chair Cabinet/Center Teaching and Learning » Chair Cabinet/Advocacy and Affiliate Services » Presidential Citation - Advocacy

Classroom Teacher

STATEMENT I am proud to represent the interests of OEA members as a current board member. I believe my experience as a former broadcast reporter and Milwaukie City Councilor has opened doors for me to be able to communicate our message to policy makers across the state. I have shared our messages of concern while testifying on behalf of our legislation in Salem and convinced lawmakers to approve additional funding for education in Oregon.

I intend to continue those conversations. I would be honored to have your support in my current board position.

No Name Submitted – Write-in ballot

District 26 (3 year term) No Name Submitted – Write-in ballot

QUALIFICATIONS » President – NCEA » Bargaining Committee – NCEA and PSO Bargaining » Metro SE Uniserv – Vice-President » Political Action Committee – Metro SE » Board Director – District 20 » Cabinet for Public Affairs – OEA » Pacific Regional Leadership Conference Participant » Testified before the Oregon Education Investment Board » Oregon CTE Taskforce – Chair » OEA Representative Assembly » NEA Representative Assembly

NEA:

» NEA-RA - Presented Invocation » NEA RA - Chair OEA Const. & Bylaws » NEA RA - Chair OEA New Business State:

» Senate Commission on Education Excellence » Teacher Advisor - State Board of Education Today’s OEA | february 2012

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nea ra delegate Candidates Region I Candidates 5 Positions (3 year terms)

Carrie Scaife

Jill Golay

Tami Miller

Lisa Davidson

Debra Robinson

Karen Hoffman

Sena Norton

Elizabeth Nahl

8th Grade Language Arts Teacher Cedar Ridge Middle School Oregon Trail School District

Classroom Teacher Parkrose Middle School Parkrose School District

5th Grade Reg. Ed. Teacher Free Orchards Elementary School Hillsboro School District

Vice President Beaverton Education Association

Teacher Hillsboro High School Hillsboro School District

Region I VP Boring Middle School Oregon Trail School District

Photo Unavailable

Amy Sheldon

Social Studies Teacher Poynter Middle School Hillsboro School District

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Melinda Perkins

4th Grade Classroom Teacher Harvey Clarke Elementary School Forest Grove School District

Today’s OEA | february 2012

Tamera Davis

ACE President Clackamas Community College

½ day Kindergarten teacher and K-5 Music Teacher Glencoe Elementary School Portland School District

President Hillsboro Education Association

Photo Unavailable

Paula Fahey

Teacher Stephenson Elementary School Portland School District

Region II Candidates 5 Positions (3 year terms)

Photo Unavailable

Michele Ford

Teacher Hammond Elementary School Salem-Keizer School District

Photo Unavailable

Chuck Albright

Carolyn Smith-Evans

Doris Jared

Jo Cooper

3rd Grade Teacher Seaside Heights Elementary School Seaside School District

Sandi Miller

Special Education Teacher Centennial School Salem-Keizer School District

Special Needs School Bus Driver Transportation Greater Albany School District

Photo Unavailable

Anne Goff

Kindergarten Teacher Riverbend Elementary School Springfield School District

Transportation Specialist Transportation Salem-Keizer School District

Teacher Neah-Kah-Nie Middle School Neah-Kah-Nie School District

Region III Candidates 4 Positions (3 year terms)

Photo Unavailable

Karen Watters

Classroom Teacher Sutherlin East Primary Sutherlin School District

Renée Criss

Teacher Malin Elementary Klamath County School District

Megan Sharp

Teacher – 6th Grade Coos Bay School District

Gary Humphries

7th/8th Grade Computer/ STEM Teacher Sunridge Middle School Pendleton School District

Today’s OEA | february 2012

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On the web / 02.12 » www.oregoned.org

Taking it to the Streets — Via the Web

A

s you read through this edition of Today’ OEA, you’ve probably noticed there’s a lot going on in public education in Oregon. The Governor and State Legislature are tackling realignment and transformation of Oregon’s early childhood, K-12 and higher education systems (read about the work of the OEIB on page 14). Meanwhile, students and their families continue to face heartbreaking trials that have a profound impact on learning (some of these stories are featured in this issue's cover story, That Place Called Home).

Keeping up with it all — ­ let alone getting involved and engaged in the issues — seems overwhelming. But Oregon educators are up to the challenge! And OEA can provide the online tools to do it.

In the age of Facebook, interactive/advocacy websites and YouTube, informing and reaching out to folks has to happen online.

And it has to happen in a way that inspires, informs and engages. So that’s what OEA is doing.

Take our online advocacy tools for OEA’s 2012 Day of Action. We developed a website – www.strongschoolsstrongoregon.com – to help get educators, students, parents and other advocates excited about participating in the day’s activities and fighting for strong schools and a strong oregon. The site includes video testimonials from Oregonians like Rex Hagen (pictured above), former educator, grandparent and "Save Our Schools" member, who speak of the importance of making our voice heard in Salem so we can “move away from restrictive testing and allow teachers more time to be creative.”

The site links to the Strong Schools = Strong Oregon Facebook

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Today’s OEA | february 2012

page, provides downloads of posters and logos and Additional points you to valuable Topics Online information like "How to this Month Get to the State Capitol."

While nothing beats onen Funding: oregoned.org/funding on-one connections when n Teacher evaluations: trying to get thousands of oregoned.org/evaluations people to stand together in n Collaboration: front of our State Capitol, oregoned.org/collaboration OEA’s Strong Schools Strong Oregon site has been a great tool that we will keep going long after the Day of Action to announce upcoming events and actions that are important to OEA members.

As you’ll see when you visit the site, video testimonials are a powerful, and efficient, way to share your story, be it with your local school leaders, parents or policy makers in Salem. As educators, you may feel far removed from where the action is because you’re busy with students or preparing for the next day of inspiring young minds.

So, just pick up a camera or a smart phone! Record a 30 second to three minute video. Share your story. And most importantly, see you online!

Comments or suggestions about OEA online?

If you’ve got a video or an idea you’d like to share, send it our way. Email your OEA Communications Department at webadmin@oregoned.org.

The Official Publication of Oregon Education Association

OEA • NEA 6900 S.W. Atlanta Street Portland, OR 97223 tel: (503) 684-3300 fax: (503) 684-8063 www.oregoned.org

Periodicals POSTAGE PAID at Portland OR

Eye on Equity

FEATURING

OEA’s 2nd Symposium on Transformation in Public Education MARCH 26, 2012 • Wilsonville, ORE • www.oregoned.org/edusymposium

a conversation with

Dr. Linda Darling Hammond