SOESD

Rethinking The Value Of One Of America’s Greatest Untapped Resources: Teachers

Very few people will deny that the job of a teacher is tough. But how tough is it—really?

It’s so tough that teachers are now the most burned-out employees in America.

It’s so challenging that fewer than 1 in 5 Americans would encourage a young person to become a K-12 teacher

And it’s so hard that teacher vacancies are up 51% over last year.

Though I work with educators almost every day and witness many teachers’ front-line struggles, I know what I see is just the tip of the iceberg. “We are caught in a negative feedback loop in which the stress of the job worsens the teacher shortage,” says Jay Schroder, educator and author of Teach From Your Best Self. “This in turn increases the strain on the system, accelerating burnout and inducing more teachers to leave.”

Read the full article.

Pinehurst Library pre-revitalization, with shelves jammed full of many outdated and unappealing books.

Pinehurst School renovated their library over the summer, thanks to a grant from the Oregon Department of Education (ODE), removing hundreds of shabby and outdated books.The school is now adding many brand-new and diverse  titles to the shelves and cataloging the collection using the newly implemented Destiny library software.

“We are so grateful for the opportunity to give our library a sorely needed makeover,” said District Administrator Deirdre Barber. “In a few short months, the library has gone from an unused room to a place where children are choosing and reading books! It’s made everyone at Pinehurst so happy.”

The school received one of the 86 ESSER III grants to school districts, $10,000 for revitalizing their

school library. The grants were part of the pandemic recovery funds and could be spent on books, staff time to process them, and updated furnishing. 

With advice from one of SOESD’s consulting librarians, Miranda Doyle, staff at the tiny rural school first went through the collection to weed books that were no longer appealing or useful. Many books were decades old and in poor condition, with information that was out of date. 

Removing these books to leave the ones of current interest made a huge difference. Instead of packed but unappealing shelves, the library now has more space to display book covers and for browsing the much improved collection. Students and staff will also be able to use the Destiny catalog to look up and locate books, and to borrow them.

Pinehurst Library after the weeding project, with more engaging books and furniture, an appealing atmosphere, and with room to display book covers and for browsing the shelves.

The bulk of the grant goes to ordering new books, from award winners to popular series titles. Picture books, beginning readers, graphic novels and award-winning fiction are all part of the revitalization. The library is now more accessible, students will be more engaged with reading, and the collection reflects the students and the wider community.

Instructional Assistant Desiree Elder also praised the changes to the library.. “Our newly renovated and updated library is not just a room with books: it’s a gateway to knowledge, a haven for imagination, and a treasure trove of endless possibilities for our community children.”  

For more information on the grants, see  School Library Revitalization Grant webpage.

Southern Oregon Success, a cross-sector collaboration for Jackson and Josephine counties, has been invited to be one of three community organizations to present at the first meeting of the Federal Interagency Task Force for Trauma-informed Care, hosted by SAMHSA, the federal government’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services program. 

Two other regional trauma-informed collaborations, one from Baltimore, Maryland and one from Kanas City, Missouri, will also be highlighted. The Task Force has members from numerous federal departments, including the Department of Education, the Department of Health & Human Services and others. 

The two-day Summit, titled “Creating an Agenda for Trauma-informed Care:  What Have We Learned and Charting Our Way Forward,” will be held at the SAMHSA headquarters in Rockville, Maryland on July 25 & 26. 

Southern Oregon Success is a community initiative of the Southern Oregon Education Service District (SOESD) and is being recognized for its work to increase awareness of trauma and resilience through its Southern Oregon ACEs Training Team, which has presented over 550 trainings to just under 18,000 participants in Jackson and Josephine counties since 2016. 

The collaboration is also being asked to present information to the Task Force on the wide variety of Southern Oregon Success initiatives that have grown out of the ACEs trainings, particularly the Southern Oregon Early Childhood Support Network launched this spring.  

The Early Childhood Support Network has set a goal of making sure every child in our region has the chance to enter Kindergarten ready to thrive. The network centers on working with families and community partners to develop a Family Success Plan for families who are thinking of becoming pregnant, are pregnant or have children under the age of 5. Once the Family Success Plans are developed by families and their trusted community partner, flexible funding is provided to the family and the community partner to help families meet the goals they have set. With navigation help by the community partner, each family can access the support and resources from all parts of the network to make sure they have the best possible chance to succeed. 

“Our approach is very straightforward,” reports Southern Oregon Success Program Manager, Peter Buckley. “We believe that if families are strong, children will thrive.” 

In addition to the Early Childhood Support Network, Southern Oregon Success initiatives also include efforts to align Preschool and K12 education and to increase the number of School Based Health Centers in every K12 school district in our region. The collaboration also is focused on sustaining and then expanding child care options, securing health care coverage for early childhood educators, increasing the region’s behavioral health workforce and aligning efforts to meet goals for family stability that are set out in the region’s Community Health Improvement Plan. 

In addition, Southern Oregon Success convenes monthly meetings of its Youth Development Work Group for all school districts, agencies and organizations working with youth ages 6 to 24 to make sure that everything possible is being done to align services and supports for the success of the next generation of parents. 

Southern Oregon Success will be represented at the Summit by Bob Lieberman, former CEO of Kairos with over 40 years of experience in the mental health field. Lieberman is one of the founding members of the Southern Oregon Success collaboration and serves as the lead trainer for the Southern Oregon Success ACEs Training Team as well as the regional coordinator of the Southern Oregon Family Resilience Project that teams Southern Oregon Success with three other collaborations doing trauma-informed work in Klamath, Lake, Coos, Curry and Douglas counties. 

“We very much appreciate the invitation to present the work in our region and throughout Southern Oregon to the Federal Inter-Agency Task Force and SAMHSA,” Buckley said. “We see it as recognition of the collaborative work with our Early Learning Hub and all of our community partners in education, health care, human services, public safety and workforce development in Jackson and Josephine counties, as well as the vision and support of SOESD.”