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About Vernonia's voice. (Vernonia, OR) 2007-current | View Entire Issue (July 21, 2022)
Schools July 21 2022 11 Schools Update: Summer Activities By Superintendent Jim Helmen I am excited to be writing my first Vernonia’s Voice column. I want to thank everyone in the community for being so welcom- ing. There are a few events that I want to highlight. Our principals and staff have worked hard to develop summer learning opportunities for our K-12 students. A little background on sum- mer learning grants funds: in 2022, the Oregon legislature ap- propriated $100 million for sum- mer learning programs for Oregon schools focused on high school students and enrichment programs for K-8 students. With Vernonia Schools’ sum- mer learning grant funds we will be providing the following activi- ties for K-12 students: Aug. 1-4 – Volleyball Skills Camp Aug. 8-26 – Special Education Summer School/ Extended School Year Services Aug. 8-18 – High School Credit Recovery/9 th -grade On-track pro- gram Aug, 8-12 – Nature Art Creative Writing - Graphic Novels Football/ Track Clinic Legos and Engineering Math is Fun Aug. 8-11 – Art & Juggling 1 Aug. 8-19 – (M-F) Kinder Camp Aug. 15-18 – Art & Juggling 2 Aug. 15-19 – Creative Chemistry Aug. 15-24 – Credit Recovery 2 Aug. 22-24 – AVID/Boot Camp Summer Learning Details ALL Summer Learning in- formation, such as activity times and dates, grade levels for each activity, location of events, staff assigned, and ACTIVITY PAR- ENTS SIGN-UP FORMS, will be located on the district web- site under the Heading “SUM- MER LEARNING PROGRAM- 2022” 2022 Summer Lunch Program We want to remind everyone of our Summer Meals Program hosted by Vernonia Schools. We have FREE meals daily for every student ages 1-18 and adult meals for $4.50! LOCATION: Vernonia Schools Commons area DATES: June 27 - August 19, Monday -Friday TIME: 11 am - 12:30 pm We have a fantastic summer school staff that is excited to serve you. We hope to see you soon. Please visit https://www.ver- nonia.k12.or.us/foodservice to see our Summer Meals Menu. Our summer lunch program team is working extremely hard to ensure all our community chil- dren have access to free nutritious meals and fun activities for ALL. We understand that the current lo- cation at the school may be a bar- rier for families, so the summer program is currently working with the Oregon Department of Educa- tion to find alternatives to adding another Summer Meals location. We will keep everyone posted as this process develops. Vernonia Schools Website I encourage everyone to vis- it our District website for ALL school information (www.verno- niak12.org). We are updating the website daily to better support easy access to District informa- tion. If you have any questions or need help, please contact Barb Carr at bcarr@vernoniak12.org . I want to send an open invita- tion to community members and students to email, call, or set a meeting with me. Go, Logger Nation! Jim Helmen Superintendent Vernonia School District jhelmen@vernoniak12.org (503) 429-5891 School Board Report At the July 14, 2022 School Board Meet- ing: Superintendent Report – Superinten- dent Jim Helmen attended his first official meeting since starting in his new position. Helmen updated the Board on summer ac- tivities around the District. Pelster Elected Board Chair, Wagner Elected Vice Chair – The Board voted to elect Stacey Pelster as Chair of the School Board and Susan Wagner as Vice Chair. Board Approves Substitute Teacher Pay – The Board approved Licensed Substitute Teacher Pay at $201.01 per day. Board Approves Board Meeting Schedule – The Board approved the Board meeting schedule for the 2022-23 school year. The Board will continue to meet at 6:00 pm on the second Thursday of the month. Meet- ings will be held in the Schools Library, except for the October and April meetings, which will be held at the Mist School. The Board also scheduled a workshop for Thurs- day, September 29 from 5:00-9:00 pm. Board Accepts Staff Resignations – The Board voted to accept the resignation of VHS math instructor Robin Manning, and VES 2 nd grade teacher Taylor Obley. Board Makes Superintendent Advisory Assignments – The Board approved the following volunteer advisory committee as- signments: Safety Committee – Susan Wagner Talented and Gifted Committee – Susan Wagner, Joanie Jones, Amy Cieloha Policy Review Committee – Amy Cieloha, Javoss, Susan Wagner Curriculum Committee – Joanie Jones, Ja- voss McGuire The Board also approved the fol- lowing Board Assignments: Negotiations Team for Classified & Li- censed Union Groups – Stacey Pelster, Su- san Wagner, Greg Kintz, Javoss McGuire Scholarship Committee – Javoss McGuire, Scott Rickard, Greg Kintz Board Approves District Designations – The Board designated the following: Dis- trict Chief Administrative & Budget Of- ficer/Clerk , Custodian of Funds, and Rep- resentative of Federal/State Fund & Grant Applications – James Helmen; Depository of Funds – US Bank & Government Pool; District Auditors – Pauly, Rogers & Co. P.C.; Insurance Agent of Record – Brown & Brown Northwest; Attorney of Record – Garrett, Hemann, Robertson, Jennings, Comstock & Trethewy, P.C.; Newspaper of Record – Vernonia’s Voice. Board Chair Thanks Students for Vol- unteer Help – Board Chair Stacey Pelster thanked high school students who volun- teered during the 4 th of July Great American Bash event. “It was awesome!” said Pelster. “They were down there participating, they were respectful and responsible, they helped clean up. They did a fantastic job.” Vernonia School Board Meetings are held on the second Thursday of each month. The next meeting is scheduled for August 11, 6:00 pm. Please check the District’s website for updates/ changes: www.vernonia.k12.or.us . “It’s All About Culture” continued from front page to Lock-down, Lock-out, and evacuation and ensuring our systems are solid. I am currently working with the School Board and administration on planning safety training – we want to ensure we are ready when it is time to respond to any emergency. We are currently investigating getting school shooter training for all staff members in our District. We will be meeting with the local police department and County Sheriff’s department to begin planning for this training. We hope to get this training for our staff before school starts and provide ongoing training options throughout the school year. We will also work with our local city government, transportation department, and fire/rescue to review our current crisis management plan.” VV: Teachers and public school systems across the country have been targeted and accused of indoctrinating students with a liberal agenda. There are also questions about Critical Race Theory, the “Don’t Say Gay” law in Florida, the banning of politi- cal symbols in the Newberg School District, and other controversial political issues be- ing taught or discussed in schools. How would you respond to those concerns? JH: “We will be focusing on educating our students to meet and exceed the state of Oregon educational standards identified through the common core state standards and developing high-quality students that can meet the demands of this world, and what pathway they choose, once they gradu- ate from high school. There is an expecta- tion across the board for everyone that we will be teaching to a high level of rigor and following the Oregon Department of Edu- cation (ODE) guidelines and recommenda- tions for how to do that. Anything outside of that and how we educate our kids – that is going to be de- cided by the School Board and educational community.” VV: Coming out of COVID it feels like there is a morale problem across the teach- ing profession – teaching through COVID was hard. How can you try to address this moving forward? JH: “My take on COVID is it was tough on everyone. But, one thing I believe is tough times make tough people – this includes our students, staff, and families. You learn a lot about yourself when you are taken out of your comfort zone. I think it is impossible for morale not to be impacted when you go through what ev- eryone did with the COVID Pandemic. We need to make sure that we are being very intentional about communication and de- veloping consistent and supportive systems for staff. Paying attention to staff’s wellness and mental health is very important, and it directly impacts our students. Teachers and staff have an enormous responsibility in educating kids, especially coming out of COVID – they need tools and supportive systems to ensure they can do that. As we are evaluating our systems, be- havior support needs are continuously com- ing to the forefront of district-wide needs – this priority is not unique to Vernonia. One of the tools identified for supporting elementary behavioral needs is training op- portunities for staff and skills building. To increase training and support options for staff and students, Dr. Jen Cooper, a trained clinical psychologist with significant expe- rience in working with adolescent behavior, has been hired. Dr. Cooper is also a Lieu- tenant Colonel in the Army National Guard as a med unit psychologist, so she brings a wide array of skills to support our students and staff. Dr. Cooper will work closely with Jaime Hamsa, School Wellness Director, and Rachel Wilson, K-12 Assistant Princi- pal, to identify and support students with social-emotional health needs and develop school readiness skills for grades K-12. We do not want to be reactive to behavior prob- lems, but proactive in our student support and staff training.” VV: What other priorities are you working on? JH: “We are currently looking at school Smarter Balanced, graduation percentages, On-Track to Graduate 9 th graders, atten- dance, and behavior data to determine and develop a baseline on how our students are performing. We are also evaluating our ODE grants and are beginning the process of evaluating how these funds are support- ing our students. To reach our goals set by the School Board and the state of Oregon, we have to know where we are at right now. There are a couple of professional de- velopment areas we will focus on imme- diately. One of those is ‘Depth of Knowl- edge (DOK).’ DOK is simply identifying what level of rigor and critical thinking our students are required to perform in the classroom daily. We want to ensure that we provide teachers the training they need to continuously challenge students in every academic area. I strongly believe that how intentional we are with our classroom plan- ning related to standards and rigor, the more engaged kids are in the classroom and the fewer behavior issues we may see. We have a fantastic administration, teach- ers, and staff, so this should be an easy lift for everyone. In early August, our administrative staff will be developing a yearly profes- sional development calendar focused on training all staff around effective instruc- tional practices, behavior management strategies, and student social-emotional learning training. I am very excited to get this underway. We have a significant focus on de- veloping a district-wide continuous im- provement plan focused on goals related to instructional practices, socio-emotional learning, and career and technical educa- tion (CTE). Through direction from the Board and input from staff and the com- munity, structuring a three-year ‘Continu- ous Improvement Plan’, is very exciting. Most importantly, we’re making sure that our systems and expectations for ad- ministrators, teachers, students, and com- munity members, and exactly what we’re doing daily, are clearly communicated, even over-communicated, and that everybody is on the same page. To build a positive and productive school culture, everyone needs to know what is expected of them, and it’s consis- tently supported and reinforced. I am very thankful and appreciative of the warm welcome from the Vernonia and Mist staff and community. I hope everyone knows and becomes a leader in our District goals as they relate to success in all parts of District achievement – in the classroom, in the hallway, on the sports fields, in the com- munity, at fine arts events – everywhere. When we say Logger Nation, everyone will know what that means! So, I am very ex- cited about what we will accomplish this school year.” FOR TOWING EMERGENCIES IN AND AROUND THE VERNONIA AREA Police and County personnel are required to use a rotation of available providers, UNLESS YOU SPECIFICALLY ASK for a service by name. REQUEST TOWING SERVICE FROM We Buy Cars & Trucks Annoying the Upper Nehalem Valley since 1982
