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WMMS Winter STEAM Night

By News, School Improvement Services, School-Wide Improvement

Excerpt from White Mountain Middle Schoolā€™s Newsletter

Wow!!! What an amazing winter family night!! We had 226 people total in attendance. They had a great time participating in our eight different STEAM stations around the school.

STEAM Stations included activities such as Tower Challenge, zSpace, Circus Balancers, AVID Presentations, Math Bingo, Cup Stacking, Water Ecosystem and Balloon Pop.

Gracias!!

A very special thank you to the staff members that helped plan and run the stations: Michaela, Daniel, Landon, Darlene, Kim, Ryan and Miriam. Also thank you to Jason Clark and Kevin Campbell for supporting our event and the Southern Oregon ESD for their participation.

First STEAM Night held in Shady Cove

By News, School Improvement Services, School-Wide Improvement

Shady Cove Elementary/Middle School held their first ever STEAM night on November 5th to kick off the start of their ā€˜Destination Imaginationā€™ program with about 70 students and family members participating. Seven different STEM sessions were set up around the gym and students were split into groups who had about 8 minutes at each station. Each activity was hands on, involved problem solving, teamwork, communication, outside the box thinking, and real life application. Destination Imagination is a non-profit organization, whose mission is to ā€œengage participants in project-based challenges that are designed to build confidence and develop extraordinary creativity, critical thinking, communication, and teamwork skills.ā€ According to Amy Isackson, the principal of Shady Cove Elementary/Middle School, Shady Cove Ele/Middle is only the 2nd school in our region to start Destination Imagination with the hopes that other schools will follow.

Chief Science Officer (CSO) Fall Convening

By College and Career (CC4A) / STEAM, News, School Improvement Services, School-Wide Improvement

21 CSOs from 8 different schools over Josephine, Jackson and Klamath County attended the Chief Science Officer (CSO) Fall Convening on Nov. 19. These motivated students are passionate about STEAM and have been elected by their peers to help share the excitement of STEAM education and careers. At the event they were welcomed by Quantum Innovations Advanced Manufacturing Facility in Medford to tour and learn about all the STEAM related work they do. Following Quantumā€™s tour, they met for lunch in Medford and worked on their Leadership Projects, sharing their ideas with each other and offering each other feedback. Some of the projects they’re working on on include problem solving food waste within their school with composting and putting on a STEAM event for their school and community.

Hearld & News Article: Klamath Promise gains new project manager

By News, School Improvement Services, School-Wide Improvement

Klamath Promise has a hired a new project manager to help plan and develop ways to increase high school graduation rates in Klamath County.

Jessie DuBose, 38, started in the role Tuesday, where she will also manage College and Career for all for Klamath County. The position is funded by Southern Oregon Educational Service District in Klamath Falls.

DuBose is a 1999 Henley High School graduate and 2003 graduate of Oregon State University. She earned her Masters of Business Administration from West Texas A&M online this spring.

Read Full Article

 

SOESDā€™s Aaron Cooke speaks at Digital Design Workshop

By News, School Improvement Services, School-Wide Improvement

Aaron Cooke weighs in on the important work being done by the Southern Oregon Education Service District. ā€œI personally think that integrating digital design and the use of those data systems to reduce the work for classroom teachers is probably one of the biggest things we have to look at. The teacher workload has gotten to a point where we’re losing more than half of our teachers in their first three years. Trying to find ways to integrate systems to open up space for teachers to teach, interact with students to build relationships.ā€

To read the full article, click here.

SOESD Planning for Student Success Act

By News, School Improvement Services

SOESD program leads from Education Services, Special Education, ELL/Migrant/Indian Education, and Southern Oregon Success have been engaging in planning to support our component school districts with writing their plans to access Student Investment Account funding as part of the Student Success Act.Ā  SOESD is committed to serving our districts well as they create and implement plans to meet studentsā€™ behavioral and mental health needs and increase achievement by reducing academic disparities for those student groups who have been historically underperforming.

Teachers Attend Intro to High Tech Tools for Schools

By College and Career (CC4A) / STEAM, News, School Improvement Services, School-Wide Improvement

On Oct 28, local educators attended ā€œIntro to High Tech Tools for Schoolsā€, a FREE, student-centered, teacher-friendly professional development opportunity.Ā  The workshop is being offered once a month through May and introduces educators to the SOESD STEAM Lending Library. Alli French of Talent Maker City provides participants with an engaging, hands-on introduction to everything in the STEAM Lending Library–including SNAP circuit kits, Makey Makeys, laser engravers, 3D printers, green screens, and Lego robotics. Educators enjoyed a day of play and learned how to incorporate some the newest and FREE educator tools into their classroom, courtesy of SOESD.

View Workshop Flyer - Additional DatesVisit the Talent Maker City Website

Nicole Cleland Earns Girls Living STEM Award

By News, School Improvement Services

The STEM Learning Ecosystems Initiative is thrilled to announce it has awarded Nicole Cleland with the 2019 Girls Living STEM Award. The award recognizes girls and young women who demonstrate leadership and mentoring to inspire their community’s interest in STEM and solve real-world problems.

Ms. Cleland is a member of Southern Oregon’s Chief Science Officer Program. She founded Beyond the Bell, a monthly after-school program that offers Klamath Basin elementary students an opportunity to engage in hands-on activities that incorporate science, technology, engineering, and math.

The STEM Learning Ecosystems and the Southern Oregon Education Service District wish Nicole congratulations on her tremendous efforts to advance STEM in her community. Her passion, accomplishments, and future excite us!

SOESD Kicks off School Year with Southern Oregon Regular Attender Network for Improvement Event

By Attendance, Homepage, News, School Improvement Services, School-Wide Improvement

Southern Oregon Education Service District (SOESD) kicked off the school year on Sept. 17, 2019 by hosting over 125 educators, staff and administrators from 12 districts across several counties. Attendees included staff from Attendance and 9th grade On Track Teams, ODEā€™s Every Day Matters Staff and Regional Capacity Builders.

The vision of the event was to build districtsā€™ capacity to create environments within their schools in which all students feel more safe, know they matter and they belong, in order to inspire more students to come to school more often. To achieve this vision SOESD focuses on building capacity by leveraging research and experienced-based practices in data, teaming and communication.

The event also introduced The Center for High School Success (CHSS)ā€”a project of Stand for Childrenā€”providing FREE training, technical assistance, data support, and resources to districts and high schools interested in developing effective 9th grade success programs as a key lever for increasing on-time graduation rates.

The Every Day Matters campaign was also discussed. This program is designed to assist districts with materials and messaging they can use to increase attendance.

The group took a deep dive into the local data and addressing barriers to attendance.Ā  SOESD has developed a toolkit for district use that can be found here.

For more information from the Oregon Department of Education, click here.

 

Big turnout at Southern Oregon Careers Trade Expo

By News, School Improvement Services

On Sept. 26, 2019 nearly 2000 students gathered at Seven Featherā€™s Convention Center in Canyonville for the Southern Oregon Careers Trade Expo. This event, for which SOESD is the fiscal agent, is organized to introduce high school juniors and seniors, veterans, currently serving Military Personnel, and referred public and private agencies to exciting opportunities in many arenas. Some of these include aviation and rail, archaeology, construction trades, wildlandfire fighting, mechanics and more.

ā€œI had no idea what sparked my interest, but being here made me realize that there are a lot more options than what it seems out there,”Ā Ā  said Mary Burnett, a 12th grader.

SOESD attended the event to hand out t-shirts to students (pictured) and witness the activities in action.

For more information visit http://www.empowerthepossible.org/

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