Superintendent's Update

It's School Board Recognition Month! Each January, Oregon’s 197 K-12 school districts come together to celebrate and honor our School Board members for their service to students, families, and the community. These elected volunteers give their personal time and energy to the important task of overseeing school budgets, policies, and other critical management tasks.

We are so grateful for the efforts of our Centennial School District Board of Directors: Chair Rose Solowski, Vice Chair Pam Shields, David Linn, Ronald "Jess" Hardin, Claudia Andrews, Melissa Standley, and Will Mohring.

Please join us this month in thanking these amazing individuals for their dedication to our Centennial schools!

On Monday, January 20th, our District will observe the federal holiday designated to celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Please note that all Centennial schools and our District Office will be closed on this date. Classes resume Tuesday, January 21, 2025.

The Profile of a Graduate was developed as part of the Strategic Planning process for Roadmap ‘27, and is a guiding vision for our PreK-12 educational system that identifies the essential knowledge, skills, disposition, and interpersonal competencies a Centennial School District student will develop over the course of their educational journey for readiness and success in their future endeavors.

With the start of the new calendar year, we are excited to launch a collaborative planning and design process that will shape student experiences and opportunities in alignment with our Profile of a Graduate vision. This process will include:

• Three design retreats with a stakeholder group of 40-50 representatives, where participants will establish the instructional vision and plan for demonstrations of learning, as well as articulate progressions of student outcomes by grade band
• Three planning sessions with District and school leadership, to adapt the development process as needed
• Two school level review and feedback sessions, which will provide school staff at each site the opportunity to participate in the design process
• A community forum to provide the larger Centennial community with the opportunity to participate in the design process and provide feed as plans are developed

For more information about our Profile of a Graduate, please visit our website at the link below.

We hope you will join us for our Profile of a Graduate Community Forum on Thursday, January 30th, starting at 6:00pm in the Community Room at Centennial High School. This forum will be an opportunity for all members of our community to review the plans developed in the first two design retreats and share your feedback with our teams.

We are excited to announce that Centennial has been awarded two Oregon Department of Education Student Success Plan grants: one for Latino/a/x students and Indigenous students, and another for Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander students. These two grants together will bring our District additional funding of close to $1.3 million dollars over the next four years to address issues such as: attendance; chronic absenteeism; and early childhood to elementary, middle to high school, and high school to post-secondary transitions.

One of the specific areas of focus over the next four years that both of these grants will support is the creation of a Family Resource Center that will serve students and their families across the Centennial community with an emphasis on increasing culturally specific instruction, resources, and services. This plan will incorporate the work of Family Engagement Specialists, strengthening existing culturally specific partnerships while developing new ones, and increasing professional learning for District staff.

The grant process was competitive with school districts and community-based organizations from across the state applying for these funds. We want to give a special thank you to Social Workers Amanda Boman-Mejia, Grace Littig, and Erin Sloan, Reconnections Coordinator Melissa Donnini, Early Learning Administrator Kendra Hughes, EL & Federal Programs Administrator Sonia Nelson Carranza, Director of Student Services Denise Wright, and Assistant Superintendent Dr. Tasha Katsuda for their collective work on the grant proposals.

On Friday, December 20 at Powell Butte Elementary, Bond Oversight Committee Chair and Former Centennial Board Member Rod Boettcher was honored for his contributions on behalf of the 2020 Capital Projects Bond at a school-wide assembly. This included the unveiling of a plaque adjacent to the school’s gym -- which was built using funds from the 2020 Bond -- acknowledging Rod's outstanding efforts.

Thank you Rod for all your work in supporting the Centennial School District!

On December 18, the Portland City Council approved a joint proposal submitted by our District and other Portland area school districts which will provide funding for capital improvements through the Portland Clean Energy Fund (PCEF). This is in addition to PCEF dollars previously awarded to our district, Centennial has been awarded over $11 million in PCEF funding over the next five years.

Receiving this funding will allow our District to focus on specific scopes of work, including:

These improvements will decrease the likelihood of school cancellations due to excessive heat during the summer months, as well as improve our ability to adequately and efficiently heat buildings during the winter months. This is a historic investment that will have lasting positive impacts both on our students as well as the environment.

With students out of school for the two week Winter Break, our Facilities team took advantage of vacant buildings to continue to make headway on some facility improvements at a couple of our schools.

At Meadows Elementary, the downtime allowed for the school’s boiler to be replaced. As you may know, hot water boilers are the primary source of heat for schools. The boiler at Meadows Elementary had exceeded its useful lifespan, required frequent repairs, and struggled to provide reliable heating. The new boiler will provide years of reliable heat and is more energy efficient than the previous boiler.

Additionally, as part of our ongoing efforts to support a welcoming, clean, and well-maintained school environment Patrick Lynch Elementary received a complete painting of entry, all of the corridors, and cafeteria.

These projects are funded by the Capital Maintenance and Projects Fund, which receives the majority of its funding through the Construction Excise Tax, which is a tax on new construction within the District. We are excited for these building improvements, which help to support comfortable and welcoming learning environments for our students.

As part of our ongoing efforts for robust and accessible communications with our families and community, the District is testing digital exterior signs and communication boards at several sites across the District this year, including Butler Creek, Oliver Middle School, and Centennial High School. Sites for this year were selected to represent all levels (Elementary, Middle, and High) and areas (North, Central, and South) of our District.

Similar to the facilities projects mentioned above, our funding source for these signs is the Construction Excise Tax. Should these signs prove effective, we anticipate expanding updated signage to all schools in the coming years.

The first of our digital signs was recently installed at Centennial High School, and will soon begin to be fully used to communicate important announcements and events. Thank you in advance to our group of CHS students who are learning to use the sign and will be helping keep the messages up-to-date!

In our December 6th newsletter, we shared information about our new Early Literacy Educational Assistants (EAs) that will be working with our kindergarten students to provide targeted, individualized literacy support in all kindergarten classrooms. These staff will receive specific training on the topic of literacy, and will work in collaboration with Kindergarten teachers to provide targeted literacy learning opportunities that align with the teacher's academic plan. The EAs will work with Kindergarten students one-on-one and in small groups, with the goal of building confident, enthusiastic learners prepared for future academic success.

We are currently in the hiring process for these new positions, and seeking applicants now! For more information or to apply as an Early Literacy Education Assistant, please click the link below.

Avoid clinic wait times!

Schedule an immunization appointment at your nearest Student Health Center now and turn in your updated records to your school before the annual exclusion deadline.

Deadlines to submit updated immunization records for this year:

• Jan. 15 to not get an exclusion letter
• Feb. 19 to not get turned away from school

For more information, please visit multco.us/services/immunizations