PORTLAND PUBLIC SCHOOLS | JANUARY 2020
Article Highlights from September-December 2019 Stories written by Mike Tokito Design by Louise Tollisen
September 9, 2019 Inaugural Best of PPS Film Festival will celebrate student filmmaking September 9, 2019
Two teachers wanted to find a way to celebrate the filmmaking accomplishments of their students. That was the genesis of the first Best of PPS Film Festival that will be held Sunday starting at 4 p.m. at the Hollywood Theatre (4122 NE Sandy Blvd.). The event, which runs 84 minutes, will showcase 11 standout films created by Portland Public Schools students during the 2018-19 school year.
“This is Me at 17” by Bella Roberts, Cleveland (teacher Vanessa Hughes). “A visual list of the most important and defining aspects of my life at age 17.”
“Portland Expanding” by Simon Murphy and Alejandro Nava, Franklin (Adam Souza). An exploration of the “complex issue of the development of Portland and gentrification.”
Franklin High School teachers Adam Souza and Javier Perez wanted to feature the films of students at their school, and soon realized the concept had the potential to be a district-wide celebration of the work of video production and digital media students. They worked with the district’s CTE (Career & Technical Education) department to make the event happen. Organizers sent invitations to submit entries to all high schools, and to middle school technology programs. The 11 films were selected from a pool of 64 entries in which 89 students from eight schools were involved. Students submitted their films at the end of last school year, and they were reviewed by a panel of 14 judges that included professional filmmakers, cinematographers, directors and screenwriters who have worked for such companies as Nike, CBS, Facebook, Laika, Caldera and Cineastas.
“Our Island’s Treasure” by Kaiya LaguardiaYonamine, Roosevelt (Kristen Mico). “Focuses on the current destruction of the beautiful Okinawan ocean in Henoko and the fight by native Uchinanchu people to protect it.”
“The Starlings” by Emma Sanders and Michael Harmon, Franklin (Adam Souza). A look “behind the scenes of the popular characters created by the Northwest Children’s Theater, The Starlings.”
“How I Lost My Toenail” by Toby Chambers, Cleveland (Vanessa Hughes). “I chose this story to tell because it is the only eventful thing that has happened in my life.”
“Chair-Riots of Fire” by Jack Nelson, Nate Bone and James McCormick, Cleveland (Vanessa Hughes). “A spoof on the ‘Fast and Furious’ movies using our classroom chairs.
“Motion” by Jack Nelson, Cleveland (Vanessa Hughes). “I set out to downtown Portland and captured much of the environment and landscape around me.”
“Clownin’” by Quintana Jones, Molly Gaines, Norah Bean and Audrey Bederka, Franklin (Javier Perez). “A clown finds out who their true friends are.
“Cinepoem Animation” by Eliza Long, Cleveland (Vanessa Hughes). “Music video animated to one of my favorite songs, ‘Wait a Minute’ by Willow Smith.
“Bird” by Isaac Bell, Franklin (Javier Perez). “A bird watcher experiences terror.”
For tickets and other information, see the event webpage on the Hollywood Theatre website. The first 250 people who register for the event at its EventBrite page will get free admission. The event is sponsored by the Hollywood Theatre, Bodecker Foundation and Caldera. The 11 featured films will be curated for online viewing after the festival.
“Vipera” by Shayna Stauber and Michel Harmon, Franklin (Adam Souza). “After three confessions an investigator must interview three suspects to find out who the true killer is.”
September 23, 2019 Nutrition Services keeps a local flavor in feeding PPS students September 23, 2019
Portland has a reputation for being a great food city, with restaurants that use locally-sourced and sustainable ingredients. So it makes perfect sense that meals in Portland Public Schools also are created to reflect those values. The district’s Nutrition Services department runs two programs – a monthly Local Lunch Days and a weekly Harvest of the Month – that use and feature locally-grown ingredients. “It’s definitely one our values, supporting our local farmers and ranchers,” said Whitney Ellersick, Senior Director of Nutrition Services. The first Local Lunch Day was held last week and featured locally-grown organic chicken drumsticks. Next month’s is on Tuesday, Oct. 15, and will feature hamburger patties made from grass-fed beef from Carman Ranch, a longtime PPS partner from Wallowa in Eastern Oregon. In September, the Harvest of the Month – which features a locally-grown fruit or vegetable served with meals on Thursdays – was melon from Pollock and Sons of Hermiston. The company had trouble selling watermelons in stores after Labor Day, even though the fruit remains in prime flavor in the early fall, but found a willing buyer in PPS, where students could retain some summer taste to start the school year. Nutrition Services also tries to use vendors that are mindful of the environment, for example using sustainably-grown flour from Shepherd’s Grain to make bread. Ellersick and her team typically get at least 32% of ingredients from local growers. Some proteins can be cost prohibitive to use frequently, but the monthly Local Lunch Days show what could be possible with a little more funding. (continued)
“We can take that to show our legislators and others that people are behind our farm-to-school programs,” Ellersick said. School meals are not paid for out of PPS’s general fund; instead, they are funded by the United States Department of Agriculture. “That means it’s usually about 2.2 million federal dollars that we’re reinvesting into the local economy,” Ellersick said. Learn more about the PPS meal programs at the Nutrition Services webpage.
September 23, 2019 September 23, 2019
Jason Lee welcomes fathers, grandfathers and uncles for unique event September 23, 2019
More than 150 family members, mostly male, turned out for a unique event at Jason Lee Elementary School last week. The school’s annual WatchDOGS (Dads of Great Students) event aims to bring in fathers, grandparents, uncles and other family members for an evening of pizza, games and bonding. “It’s just a great positive adult connection on campus, and it’s really helped out with our climate and culture at Jason Lee,” said Blake Robertson, assistant principal. The event, which was started by teacher Susan Hill, has become an annual early-year highlight at the school. It has grown steadily, with about 50 families participating early on, to 124 families last year, and 150 this year. “For a K-5 school, that’s a pretty massive turnout,” Robertson said. WatchDOGS is a national program that helps schools create events and offers merchandise and planning help. Although it is aimed at male family members, all family members are welcome to Jason Lee’s version, and several mothers attended last week. Jason Lee tailors its version to fit its core values of being safe, respectful and responsible, and to its focus on family engagement and the school community’s culture. Last week’s event, for example, included Spanish and Vietnamese interpreters, and school staff reached out to families in multiple ways to make sure they were aware of the event. The event also served as a recruiting tool to invite parents to volunteer at school, and last week’s effort produced more than 30 signups for shifts in classrooms, the lunchroom and recess. Those shifts go until February, when the school will hold a similar event, Desserts with Dads.
Vestal students make statement on peace one penny at a time September 30, 2019
Students and staff at Vestal Elementary School made their statement on International Peace Day one penny at a time, literally. To celebrate the Sept. 21 observance day started by the United Nations, Vestal’s fifth-grade student government organized a fundraiser to purchase a peace pole, an internationally recognized symbol. (continued)
September 30, 2019
Each pole costs $100, and the effort was so successful, Vestal was able to purchase two. Each 7-foot pole will have the message “May Peace Prevail on Earth” written in the four most common languages of the school’s families – English, Vietnamese, Spanish and Somali.
Goal! $203 Raised
“We’re a school that’s focused on social justice and peace, and this is a symbol and a representation to always do our best to be peaceful,” said Sabrina Flamoe, Vestal’s principal. The student government announced the campaign during the school’s Monday town hall meeting (essentially an assembly), and each class was given a jar for students to put pennies into. Student government members collected the jars, poured them into a large bucket, which two teachers took to a local credit union. While not every coin in the kitty was a penny, most were, and the teachers made a video of them pouring the change into a coinsorting machine. When the video was shown to students, they cheered at the final tally: $203. “It was so exciting,” Flamoe said. The poles, which will arrive in four to six weeks, will be cemented in place, one on the playground, the other in front of the school. The project was a perfect melding of Vestal’s focus on social justice and the school’s diverse population. “Two of our big areas of focus within the social justice are individual identity and community diversity, and we thought this represented that really well,” Flamoe said.
October 7, 2019
Franklin High teacher Mercedes Muñoz wins Oregon Teacher of the Year award October 7, 2019
One testimonial called Mercedes Muñoz a “force of nurture.” Another said she is a “living embodiment of grace under pressure.” A third said her students are “immeasurably lucky to have her.” Now there is one more thing you can say about the Franklin High School special education teacher: She is the Oregon Teacher of the Year for 2020. In a surprise ceremony Friday in the Franklin gym, Portland Public School Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero and Franklin Principal Chris Frazier joined Colt Gill, director of the Oregon Department of Education, in presenting Muñoz with the award. “As a special education teacher, Mercedes delivers daily hope and encouragement to a wide range of students with varying academic, social and emotional needs,” Gill said. “I look forward to her impact as a model for all teachers across our state this coming year.” (continued)
The ODE presents the Teacher of the Year award in partnership with the Oregon Lottery. The honor includes a $5,000 cash prize, with Franklin receiving a matching $5,000. Muñoz has served as a learning specialist at Franklin since 2013, and she has been instrumental in developing and implementing the “push-in” model for special education. Push-in is a collaborative and inclusive approach that brings instruction and materials to special education students to ensure that they get full access to general education curriculum while limiting any disruption to their daily schedule. Elizabeth Kirsch collaborated with Muñoz, who served as the push-in teacher for her sophomore English class during the 2017-18 school year. She said Muñoz became a fixture in the class, helping not only the special education students, but all of the students.
“I cannot emphasize enough Mercedes’ capacity for building strong relationships with students,” Kirsch wrote in a nominating letter. “It is one of the things that allows her to be as effective as she is as an educator.” Madison High School special education teacher Andy Clark, who worked with Muñoz at Franklin, said despite a large caseload, Muñoz finds time to impact many others. “She still finds time to assist newer SPED teachers with their students, collaborate with general education teachers and lead the charge for building a more equitable environment,” he wrote in a nominating letter. As part of receiving the award, Muñoz will serve as a spokesperson and representative for all Oregon teachers and will attend the Recognition Week for Teachers of the Year in Washington, D.C. this spring. She also will receive year-long professional development and networking with other state Teachers of the Year.
October 14, 2019
Franklin Fall Festival gives middle school singers a glimpse at their future October 14, 2019
When Lent K-8 Scool teacher Chris Meade took his middle school choral students to the recent Franklin Fall Festival, he watched in amazement as they entered the fully modernized high school’s state-ofthe-art auditorium. “Oh man, they were overwhelmed by it,” Meade said. “They thought it was the coolest thing. They’re like, ‘This place is huge!’” (continued)
In some ways, the event served as a convergence of two major initiatives in Portland Public Schools: the modernization of Franklin, thanks to a voter approved bond; and the district’s work on the arts, fueled by the Portland Arts Tax, and the development of the Master Arts Education Plan (MAEP). One of the MAEP’s main goals is a create arts pathways in which students can learn an area of the arts – visual or performance – throughout their time in PPS. Karen Bohart, who is in her second year as music teacher at Franklin, is doing early work toward that in her cohort. Last year, she took Franklin’s choir out to perform at cohort middle schools. This year, she replicated an event she held during her 17 years in the Reynolds School District and brought Meade’s Lent choir, and the Lane Middle School choir taught by Judy Rose, to Franklin, to perform in front of, and with, the high school choir. About 45 middle school students took part in the Fall Festival, getting an opportunity to perform with their own choir and in a mass performance. Performing alongside the high school singers in Franklin’s sparkling venue offered the students a preview of what could be in their future.
“It was so cool,” Bohart said. “All those middle school kids were walking out saying, ‘I can’t wait for choir at Franklin.’” Bohart would like to find ways to include other Franklin feeder schools, especially Mt. Tabor Middle School, which does not have a choir program, but does have a band program. She also wants to show choir students the other performing arts opportunities at Franklin, such as drama, which is preparing for its fall production, “Addams Family, the Musical.” “They could be an instrumentalist, they could be a singer, and they could be an actor or actress,” Bohart said. “They can do it all in high school.” Meade, who is in his third year at Lent, said the Fall Festival was the first opportunity for his students to leave campus and perform. More importantly, it showed them that music does not have to be an elective that is quickly forgotten after middle school. It can be a part of their future. “That’s what I told them, that this is yours, this is here for you,” Meade said. “You just have to seize it.”.
November 19, 2019
PPS families can get free clothing for their students from PTA Clothing Center November 19, 2019
As the temperature drops with winter’s approach, the need for warm clothing rises. In Portland Public Schools, families that need help acquiring clothes and other essentials can turn to a long-established program. The PTA Clothing Center has been helping PPS families since 1964. The program is run entirely by volunteers and serves more than 1,500 students each year. (continued)
If you know any PPS students in need of age-appropriate clothing, please refer their families to the Center. • Where: Room C-56 at the Marshall High School campus (3901 SE 91st) • When: Monday and Thursday on school days, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., September through April • How to get started: Pick up a form at your child’s school At no cost, PK-12 students in PPS can get new or gentlyused pants, tops, sweaters, shoes, socks, underwear, coats, toiletries and personal hygiene items. Students can visit the center twice each school year – once before winter break, once after. Families of K-8 students who would like use the service can pick up a form at their children’s school office or counselor (the form helps to confirm students as PPS attendees), and a parent or guardian needs to accompany them on their visit. High school students may shop on their own, but need to fill out the form.
The Clothing Center can accommodate 60 people each day, and customers are asked to form a line outside the center and are called in by number. Once in, each student is given three pairs of new underwear and socks, a pair of pants, shoes, a coat and two shirts. Once students have these items, they can then go to the used clothing area and pick out more items. This shopping time is excused by the school. How you can help: The Clothing Center needs new and gently-used clothing, from sizes 4T to 4X, that can be worn immediately and does not need to be laundered. Clothing can be donated at any PPS school; please place in bags clearly labeled “PTA Clothing Center.” The Center always needs new socks and underwear, and will soon need gloves, knit hats and other cold-weather gear. “We’re especially in need of teen-sized cold weather coats right now,” said Sharon Meigh-Chang, PTA Clothing Center Director. The Center also needs volunteers who can help from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. To learn more, please contact Meigh-Chang at 503-293-0783 or ptaclothingcenter@comcast.net.
Nichole Berg starts climate justice work in PPS in first-of-its-kind position November 26, 2019
Earlier this year, Nichole Berg was scrolling through Facebook while visiting family when she came upon something that would change her life: a job description. The life-long Wisconsinite, then a vice principal at a Madison middle school, read about a position in Portland Public Schools she had never heard of before: Programs Manager for Climate Change and Climate Justice. “It lines up with all the professional experience that I’ve had, as well as my professional goals to really work in curriculum, work in student engagement, and my commitment to climate justice,” she recalled thinking. “It really lines up.” She applied, got the job and moved across the country. She started her new role on Sept. 23 with a full day, capped by a presentation at a Board of Education meeting. It is believed to be the first role of its kind in any district in the country.
November 26, 2019 “This is a really innovative position, and I’m really excited about it,� Berg said. Berg is hard at work in helping to develop K-12 climate justice curriculum that will go into science and social studies classes district wide, and a high school elective course that will provide access to crucial climate information, as well as credit recovery for students who need it. While the district already incorporates climate change teaching into some K-5 classes and high school science, Berg is helping to create a cohesive curriculum. Berg also is charged with engaging with students and stakeholders and will work with a Student Advisory Council to draw student voices into the curriculum process, particularly voices that have not been involved historically. (continued)
“The students are very impressive,” Berg said. “Every student I’ve met so far is just able to articulate their concerns, their needs, and they’re very passionate. They’re also in a really nice position to help lead us in terms of how we, as a system, can become more educationally responsive to them.” Berg’s own education was not always responsive. A third generation Mexican-American, she did not speak Spanish at home, but learned the language in school starting in middle school. Her schools in Wisconsin, however, were monolingual campuses, where students had to assimilate into an Englishspeaking culture. That sparked Berg’s interest in social justice. After a brief flirtation with law school, she turned to education as a career, serving as a paraprofessional, bilingual teacher and vice principal. “It’s always been with a lens of justice at the center,” she said. “Being a bilingual person and working in bilingual education in a predominantly monolingual system is liberatory in nature.” She expanded her world through grants that allowed her to travel to learn about First Nations communities, including Olmec and Mayan civilizations in Mexico, and the Ancestral Puebloans of Mesa Verde in the Badlands of South Dakota. Five years ago, Berg received a National Geographic Grosvenor Teacher Fellowship that allowed her to travel to Antarctica, where she saw firsthand the effects of climate change, including the impact on penguin populations, overfishing of krill and a rare summer snowstorm.
“It really opened my eyes to the climate crisis and helped me understand why we should be concerned about climate change,” she said. She used her experiences to inform curriculum in Madison, and now brings it to PPS. Berg’s work will see her take the lead in implementing the Board resolution to increase climate literacy, and it fits like a glove in a district in which about 6,000 students took part in the September Climate Justice Strike, and aligns with PPS’s core curriculum and Vision for a graduate portrait. “I’m just really excited to get the work going,” she said. Anyone who would like to connect with Berg can contact her at nberg@pps.net or 503-916-3874.
December 9, 2019
Kelly teacher Marissa Troeschel set to appear on “Great American Baking Show” December 9, 2019
Marissa Troeschel showed a promo for a television program to her Kelly Elementary School students without telling them what it was. “I just starting playing it, and they’re like, ‘Wait! Wait! Wait! Is that you?’” It was. The promo was for “The Great American Baking Show,” an amateur competition on ABC, and Troeschel, who teaches drama at Kelly, is one of the contestants. The show’s new holiday-themed season begins airing Thursday at 9 p.m. (locally on KATU/2), and Troeschel, with the rest of the nation, will see the episodes for the first time. “I’m excited, and a little scared,” she said. (continued)
Troeschel learned to bake with her grandmother growing up in Maryland, and she took on some of the family baking duties after her grandmother passed away. About five years ago, Troeschel got back into baking in a big way, challenging herself to become better. Like many amateur bakers, she became a fan of “The Great British Baking Show,” an iconic competition show filmed in London. When an American version was started, she applied. After not being accepted the first two times she applied, she made the cut after a series of phone and Skype interviews, and an in-person audition in Los Angeles. On her flight from Portland to L.A., her carry-on baggage included a pie, a cake and a loaf of bread she had baked for producers to taste. “It was very nerve-wracking,” she said. She was one of 10 bakers chosen to compete. She flew to London to film over a month during the summer, in the well-known white tent used for the British version. The bakers kept a schedule of two days of filming, two days off.
Marissa also appeared on AM Northwest on KATU.
“It’s pretty intense,” Troeschel said. “It’s 10- to 12-hour days that we’re filming.” Troeschel has taught drama at elementary, middle and high schools, has performed in plays since high school, and has a Master of Arts in Theater Education from Emerson College. That background, however, did not really prepare her for being on a baking competition show. “You definitely get used to it, but the first day of having cameras right in your face is kind of nerve-wracking,” she said. “You have to talk while you’re baking, there’s judges looking at you – there’s just so many components.” The actual baking also had a slew of challenges, with British ingredients and ovens that were slightly different than she is used to, and a time limit on each baking challenge. “I think all of us put a lot of pressure on ourselves to do well, and there were moments when things just started to break down,” she said. “It’s emotional, because you put a lot of love into your baking, you put a lot of feeling into it. When those are all heightened in the show, there are definitely some emotional moments. I remember saying, ‘I don’t know why I’m crying.’” Troeschel is not allowed to say how she fared in the competition, but her appearance has not been lost on colleagues at Kelly, who had already been enjoying her baking when it was her turn to bring snacks for staff meetings. “Now everyone knows about the show, so it’s probably going to become an expectation,” she said with a laugh.