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2021 Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund

Oregon’s Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund To our Outlaw Community An opportunity is ahead of us to make use of federal funds to benefit our students and school community. The funds will allow us to expand efforts already underway in our state and district, such as: 1. Addressing unfinished learning through asset-based acceleration strategies 2. Prioritizing health, safety, wellness, and connections for all communities 3. Strengthening high-quality, culturally-sustaining and revitalizing instruction, leadership, and pathways to graduation and post-secondary transitions. About the funding: On March 11, 2021, President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act of 2021. The ARP Act includes nearly $122 billion for the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER III) Fund. The Oregon Department of Education was allocated $1.121 billion. 90% of this amount ($1,008,925,861) will go to districts using the Title I formula. What this means for our district: Through interviews, survey’s and discussions that are consistent with research we were able to prioritize our needs. The Title I formula for our district will result in $810,005.47 Here’s what you need to know about how that funding will be used: Creating Empowering and Adaptable Instruction All students can benefit from experiences the are creative, appropriately-challenging and that honors their identity. As we return to more regular school operations, our historically underserved population certainly need creative opportunities and time in order to close the achievement gap. Given the disruption to students in these focal groups over the last year, the Sisters School District is implementing a number of specific, evidence-based interventions and activities to begin recouping lost learning. Our primary focus for these funds was to increase learning time through an expanded summer school program. Summer school targeted our credit deficient high school high school students to engage in creative credit recovery opportunities. The focus for our K8 students was to provide opportunities to stimulate critical and creative thinking. Through incorporating these evidence-based interventions, programs, and activities, our students from these focal population groups will certainly be surrounded by the support necessary to begin closing the achievement gap. Support our Teachers It is critical that our district prioritize evidence-based interventions and activities to make teaching jobs and support roles more rewarding, collaborative, and sustainable during this turbulent time in the education field. We feel a primary condition for anyone to succeed in is to allow staff to build on their strengths and passions. To that end we opened up summer school by providing teachers a fairly blank slate when creating classes. We wanted them to create a class that was deep on their hearts and in return we would support with resources and funds. Additionally, two of our teachers became mentors/ coaches. One in focused on writing, inquiry, collaboration, organization and reading strategies. The other is helping teachers look through an equity lens in their classrooms. Both of their roles is to support teachers through research, mentoring, coaching and staff professional development. Maintain and Enhance Relationships Our priority is to ensures students, staff and community members feel safe, welcomed and that they belong to our school district. We’ve updated our policies and practices to cultivate and support this goal. The most obvious is the addition of our “All Belong Coordinator” who primary goal is to continually assess and address issues the impact our feeling of belonging. The other major change to address emotional needs was the change of the daily schedule at the middle school and high school. The high school learned through CDL how few classes in a school day as well as during an academic term enhanced students ability to manage school work. We maintained a high pass rate and attendance rate as a result to our schedule. The antidotal data and surveys helped ups create the 4 X 4 high school schedule. Additionally, we used other funds to keep our class sizes low. Small class sizes lead to more one-on-one attention from the teacher. This benefits the students academically and emotionally by enhancing the relationship of students.