At our charter school in Blachly, OR, every student is nurtured and challenged toward balance and excellence in their individual learning.
BLACHLY SCHOOL DISTRICT
Student Investment Account 20-21 Annual Report & 21-23 Plan Submission
Student Success Act | SB 3427
$2 Billion to the State School Fund
30%
20%
50%
Early Learning Account
Student Investment Account
Statewide Education Initiatives Account
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Equity-Focused Investment
Education equity is the equitable implementation of policy, practices, procedures, and legislation that translates into resource allocation, education rigor, and opportunities for historically and currently marginalized youth, students, and families including civil rights protected classes.
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Community Engagement
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Help determine the best investments for students in your local community that:
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Goal 1—Meet students’ mental health/behavior needs.
Goal 2—Increase academic achievement, including reducing academic disparities for:
Students of color�Students with disabilities�Students navigating poverty, homelessness, and foster care�Students who are emerging bilinguals
STUDENT INVESTMENT ACCOUNT
SSA Five Priorities
STUDENT INVESTMENT ACCOUNT ALLOWABLE USES
Accountability
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Through continuous improvement on state and locally identified progress markers
20-21 Annual Report
Outcomes:
20-21 Annual Report
Strategies:
SIA implementation efforts during the 2020-21 school year, Positive impacts, and Progress
Strategy #1: Provide career connected learning through STEAM based CTE Pathways: We were able to provide additional opportunities for MS & HS students to receive career connected learning credits through the expansion of FTE (Visual/Culinary and MS STEM). While we are not pursuing a culinary pathway, this was an important offering through the pandemic. Based on capacity, staff expertise and student interest, our 21-23 CTE pathways include Construction/Manufacturing and we aim to build towards Visual Arts and Business.
Strategy #2: Increase mental and behavioral health supports and programming for students: An increase in administrative FTE allowed us to be responsive during the many shifts of the pandemic. Additionally, we have increased partnerships with our local community and our ESD School Improvement team, setting the foundation for a focus on social emotional learning and trauma informed practice for all certified and classified staff. Our full time counselor is further connected with a number of networks, providing important training and implementation support for our schools. Our student support team has developed drafts of systems and processes for suicide, threat, and sexual incident response, and safety protocols.
Strategy #3: Increase capacity for curriculum embedded intervention and enrichment, including data literacy and maximizing use of technology: Using SIA and ESSER funding, we were able to purchase Fuel Ed, Edgeniuty, E-Dynamic, and Canvas. These online curricular and communication platforms allowed us to continue to support students in a remote learning environment, as well as to expand learning opportunities when students returned to in-person instruction. This also allowed us to streamline school to home communications, increasing our capacity for care and connection. Most importantly, these platforms added capacity to have every secondary student take an elective course, providing a level of personalized learning we would not have been able to accommodate on our own.
Barriers, impediments, or challenges faced
The year was hard for everyone in many ways; however, our staff was highly responsive and flexible and rose to each occasion. Our biggest challenge is the mental health and well-being of our staff. The tremendous cycle of strain, including grief, anger, and response to ongoing changes, has taken its toll on each of us. As we move through the coming year it will be important to remain attuned to their emotional needs as we are all very tired.
As instructional leaders, the conditions of the pandemic have often forced us to live daily in the management and operations aspects of the job. We are aiming for continual growth, but often having to spend time on the reactive, that prevents sustainable growth. We look forward to a return to the deeper work, starting with our development of a Portrait of a Blachly Graduate in the 2021 school year.
Successes and challenges in maintaining community engagement
When thinking about SIA community engagement and the limitations presented by the pandemic, it can feel like we were limited in our engagement opportunities this past year, especially with regard to continuing our student and community engagement sessions from the initial SIA planning process. However, it is important for us to remember that this year of distance learning and return to in-person was all about care and connection and ensuring we knew how our students and families were doing and how we could respond to best meet their needs. This is authentic community engagement. Formal engagement opportunities included three virtual Community Forums and written communications on our website and mailers. The forums were sparsely attended; however, we did identify the need for a new district website to communicate district information and initiatives, beyond the charter. (launched Fall 2021).
Prioritization efforts in the first year of SIA implementation
Our biggest need in 2020-21, was online curriculum that allowed for coherence between distance and in-person learning. While we had less money than originally planned for, we were able to move our priority strategies around increased elective offerings and mental health supports through increased partnerships with the ESD and strategic planning of schedules and curriculum. Our SIA plan allowed for easier decision making with increased funding through ESSER and summer school dollars.
We continue to work on ways to utilize our equity lens in our decision making and allocation of resources; however, student (especially focal group) and staff needs remained centered in all pandemic planning.
Progress Markers and Goal Setting
(Included in template for future reference)
SIA Progress Markers offer a way to identify early impacts from the investments and strategies SIA grantees are pursuing.
ESD Liaison: Support goal setting and progress monitoring towards continuous improvement
Public Input & Discussion
Annual Report and 21-23 Plan Submission posted on website
Comments encouraged through email/website, prior and ongoing.
Open discussion with opportunity for public comment required in this meeting. Minutes provided to ODE.
***We encourage the public to utilize the new email system for comments by sending to comments@blachly.k12.or.us
Questions, comments, concerns?
Increase mental and behavioral supports and programming for students.
Provide career connected learning through high-wage, high-demand CTE Pathways
Increase capacity for curriculum embedded intervention and enrichment, including data literacy and maximizing use of technology.
Blachly school district communicates a sequentially coordinated curriculum in which each student develops a career-connected wellness individual learning plan.
All K-12 educators engage in data team protocols in order to provide timely interventions and necessary mental health and wrap around services.
Every student graduates as a career-connected program of study completer.
Health and wellness programming can be linked with positive changes in academic success, social emotional well being, overall school and community climate.
Provide career connected learning through high-wage, high-demand CTE Pathways
Increase mental and behavioral supports and programming for students.
Increase mental and behavioral supports and programming for students.