February 20, 2017

School District News

From Superintendent

Robert Vian

District lunches and the Smathers Family

Ashley C. Ford felt driven to act by a sad fact of life in the nation’s school cafeterias: Kids with unpaid lunch accounts are often embarrassed with a “substitute meal” of a cold cheese sandwich and a carton of milk.

Ford, a New York City writer, appealed to her 66,000 Twitter followers with a solution. “A cool thing you can do today is try to find out which of your local schools have kids with overdue lunch accounts and pay them off.”  School Districts all over the country are receiving money thanks to her initial efforts in New York City.

In Minnesota, an online fundraising effort has paid almost $100,000 in lunch debt in Minneapolis schools and $28,000 in St. Paul’s. Donors, mostly anonymous, erased $6,000 in debts in Topeka, Kansas. 

Locally, Orofino Mayor Ryan Smathers read about Ms. Ford and started a local campaign to do the same for Clearwater County students.  He urged residents to take part and help parents/students to pay for student lunches.  The generosity of local citizens is well known and many people joined Ryan and Heather in sending $800 to the district for this purpose. 

Food Service Director, Carmen Griffith is applying the $800 to student accounts based on her knowledge of family situations.  This is debt the family will be able to stop worrying about and that the district will not need to cover at the end of the school year.

Reading some of the face book posts made me want to respond to one point.  Since I became Superintendent five years ago with supported from the Board of Trustees, we have not given any student a “substitute meal.”  Each student is treated with the same dignity, regardless of their status as one with no money to pay for lunch, to free or reduced priced lunches, to full price paid lunches.  No one working on the lunch line at school knows which student is which.  I am not even privy to that information as the Superintendent.

The district is required to balance the budget and we transfer money into the food service program at the end of the year to cover any unpaid charges.  Charges are tracked and a student is not eligible “to walk” at graduation until all fees owed the district are paid.  Knowing our school staff, I doubt that any student would be prevented from walking at graduation since someone will step up to pay what is owned.  It is not a child’s fault that the parent or guardian cannot pay for a lunch or even that they might be able to pay, but are just not responsible.

Orofino Elementary School

• District Spelling Bee Update - Timberline Schools hosted this year’s District Spelling Bee.  The Bee was held on Monday, February 13th at 6:30 pm.  OES selected 6th grader Julia Grimaldo and 5th grader Olivia Boller to compete.  Julia Grimaldo will go on to compete at the Northwest Regional Spelling Bee held Saturday, March 11 at 1:30.  The location is Williams Conference Center on the Lewis Clark State College campus.  The event is sponsored by the Lewiston Tribune, LCSC and the St. Joseph Regional Medical Center. .  
• Mrs. Falk’s 4th grade class was the winner of the Kindness Challenge at OES during the Great Kindness Campaign held the week of January 23-26. Sarah Johnson, school counselor, her intern, Andrea Bonner, and Lisa Hanna, PBIS coordinator organized several activities for the week to increase student, family and staff awareness in spreading and sharing kindness throughout the school year.  Mrs. Falk’s class recorded the most acts of Kindness for the week.
• OES will be celebrating Read Week February 27-March 3. Librarian Lisa Hanna is coordinating the event.  There will be lots of reading-themed activities such as door decorating, a school-wide read-in, and dress up days to celebrate our love of reading.  OES, Peck, and Cavendish students are also participating in the Reading is the Ticket Silverwood Reading Challenge through March 14.  Students participating must read ten hours outside of school to earn a free ticket to Silverwood Theme Park, good for this summer season.      
• Parent, student, teacher conferences will be held February 21-23 as needed.  All parents with students performing below grade level in any subject will be invited to schedule an appointment to attend.
• OES is hosting its 1st Annual Science Fair for students in grades 2-6.  Grades K-1 may complete a class science project to submit. Topics may include life science, physical science, and earth & space science.  Students must follow the Scientific Method for their projects.  Types of projects can include models, displays or collections, or experiments.  Registrations are due to classroom teachers by March 9.  The fair will be held in the OES gym on March 22 at 6:00 and will be open to the public to browse.
• The enrichment program at OES for grades 3-6 is set to begin February 22 with weekly sessions to be held from 3:30-4:45.  Deidre Jenkins will be teaching the STEM focused classes using the materials from the new STEM lab OES was able to purchase thanks to a $1200 donation from PTSO.  Long term goals include adding art and ELA components as well as incorporation of grades K-2.  
• OES continues to focus on increasing positive behavior with the monthly recognition assemblies.  PTO recently donated $800 toward the purchase of star student and EMME (Exceeding Mini-Maniac Expectations) incentive awards.  Character education also continues to be a focus in and out of the classrooms.  In January, counselor Sarah Johnson taught lessons to the fifth grade with a focus on tolerance.  In grades K-4, continued follow up lessons focus on using Kelso’s Choices for conflict resolution.  For the month of February lessons will highlight the themes of determination and diligence.
• Winter benchmarking was completed in grades K-6 for both ELA and Math.  Grade level data meetings have been held to implement a collaborative approach for providing effective interventions for students performing below grade level.  Discussions also included enrichment opportunities for students who exceed expectations.  The following Fall to Winter IRI (Idaho Reading Indicator) data helped provide evidence for the progress made in each primary grade level as well as what needs to be done next.

Timberline School

Target time was initiated due to an increasing number of students with D’s and F’s.  Each Wednesday we will have “target time” built into our day.  The purpose of target time is to incentivize work completion and passing grades (C or Better).  Students who are passing all classes will be given “target release” and students who are in need of additional support will remain with their target teacher.

Orofino High School

Spring break and the end of the school year are rapidly approaching, I would like to share some very important upcoming events at OJSHS.

March 9                      OJSHS Career Fair and Blood Drive

March 15                     Parent Teacher Conferences @ OJSHS 5:00 to 7:00 pm

March 22                     OJSHS Choir Concert 7:00 to 8:00 pm

March 23                    End of 3^rd Quarter & Shakespeare at OJSHS 9:00am

April 11                       All Juniors complete SAT testing.

April 13-27                  ISAT Testing OJSHS (See attached testing schedule)

April 15                       Prom @ Armory 9:00 to 12:00pm

June 9                          OJSHS Graduation (time change to 6:00pm)

(See OJSHS web-site for more specific information on Activities and Events)

From the Science Lab: Congratulations to Jim Gustin upon receiving a grant from the  Idaho Education Technology Association in the amount of $1944.00.