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Oregon School District News

The School Improvement Committee has been meeting since Christmas break to establish the school improvement plan for the 2014-2015 school year.

The goal of a school improvement plan is to develop goals for the school, and include strategies and steps that will be used to reach those goals.

The committee is split into two subcommittees, which include mission/vision and

academic. The mission/vision group

has developed goals that pertain to involvement in extra-curricular activities, and involvement in community service.

The expectations for these have been set extremely high, but the committee thought it was important to align these goals with the Premier Schools Program at Oregon High School.

The academic group focused on keeping 100% of students on track for graduation at the end of each year.

Other areas that they focused on include: the completion of AP/Dual Credit classes at Oregon High School, developing assessments to measure student growth, and academic success for students within the special education program.

Committee looks into improving the district

Oregon Elementary School held a fitness testThink back to your grade

school days with physical fitness testing.

Some of the students love the challenge, others not so much.

Fitness is important to all ages, not just when you’re a student in elementary school.

It builds self-esteem, endurance, and a life time of good health.

It also helps control your weight if healthy eating is included.

Our focus in P.E. is not to just keep kids active while they are in school, we want to introduce them to activities that will be with them into adulthood.

It is called life long learner, things you can do even into later years.

Some of the activities we introduce to the students are line dancing, jumping and climbing ropes, power walking, jogging, bowling, roller skating, and floor hockey.

Why do we test? It shows students their strong and weak areas plus the test tracks them for several years to show personal improvements.

There are 5 different areas of testing in the president’s challenge; one minute of sit-ups, a 30 foot shuttle run, a timed flex arm hang or pull-ups, a timed mile walk/run, and sit and reach flexibility test.

These 5 activities show your fitness level in abdominal strength, agility, upper body strength, aerobic endurance, and flexibility.

If you are interested in taking the test, or want to find out more, log in to www.presidentschallenge.org.

The students will be taking the President’s Physical Fitness test this spring.

During a grade level track meet the students will receive awards for their performance on the fitness test.

Pullups were one of the items students completed during the fitness test.

This box was used by pairs of students to check the sitting reach without bending the knees.

This student reaches for tubes placed on the ground of the gym during the fitness test.

Oregon School District News

Seventh graders who participated in the “Battle of the Books” pose for a photo.

The DLR library sponsored this year’s “Battle of the Books.”

The contest is in conjunction with the statewide Rebecca Caudill Young Readers’ Book Award.

The award is named after Illinois author, Rebecca Caudill, of Urbana. She wrote for over fifty years and this award recognizes her literary talents and the widespread appeal of her novels.

The RCYRBA committee selects a list of 20 books annually. Students who read three of the books on the list are eligible to vote for the state award winner.

This year’s winning novel was Wonder by R.J. Palacio.

Locally, any DLR student who read three books was eligible to participate in the battle which pits seventh graders against eighth.

In addition, any student who read even one book and passed a short test was entered into a drawing for a gift certificate.

One seventh and one eighth grader will receive those certificates at the fourth quarter assembly.

Because so many seventh graders read at least three books, a preliminary battle was held to determine which team would face the eighth

graders.On April 9th, the final

contest took place in the DLR library with district librarian, Jenny Brady, posing the questions.

The match was close through the first twelve rounds when a mistake by the seventh graders allowed the eighth graders to take the lead for good.

The final score was 15-10, eighth grade. They will be rewarded with an afternoon of bowling and pizza.

Members of the winning team were: Sara Blume, Alyssa Winters, Anastasia Gordon, Olympia Powell,

Alisza Cremeans and Kaylee Corbin.

Congratulations to all who participated in this worthwhile literary activity.

One student, Sara Blume, read all twenty books and will receive a Barnes and Noble gift card for her efforts.

Overall, seventy-five DLR students read at least one book and a total of 215 books were read.

Well done, DLR! Remember that summer is a great time to read.

The 2015 Caudill list has been published and both local libraries have copies of all the books.

Students compete to read in “Battle of the Books”

By Ranae Leamanczyk8th Grade English Language Arts Teacher

David L. Rahn Junior HighIt all started with a book,

Liz Murray’s Breaking Night, a memoir about a young girl who became homeless due to her parents both being mentally ill and fighting addictions.

She wound up putting herself through high school and going to Harvard.

I read the book a year ago and I thought there might be great options for eighth grade curriculum.

But how would I fit it into my already crammed English Language Arts Curriculum?

Fast forward one year later. I was trying to figure

out what to do for my first hour Enrichment class because I would have a group a third time and needed something different.

I decided to put together a three week curriculum educating kids on homelessness.

Most kids do not believe it is a problem in our area, nor do they understand the true meaning of homelessness.

When asked, they described “hobos, drunks and druggies asking for money in the ghetto.” None of them mentioned kids.

According to the McKinney-Vento homeless Assistance Act, kids are considered homeless even if they are living in hotels, motels, camp grounds, or temporary housing with

family or friends. We began with studying

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and discussed what happens if basic needs are not being met.

We then learned about both U.S. and Illinois homelessness statistics as well as what the current poverty levels are.

Next, we learned about minimum wage and what is considered affordable housing in our area.

With this information, the kids formed a budget based on a scenario that they were planning to move to one of three areas, figuring out which area they could afford to move to living on minimum wage.

Unfortunately, they found out that what is considered

“affordable housing” isn’t so affordable on minimum wage.

After that, I asked them if they were told they had to leave their home now and could only take what they could fit into a back pack, what would they take? This was a tough task for them.

Next we plan to discuss runaways and statistics

related to that. I’ve also contacted Deb

Faust, Homeless Liaison from the Lee Ogle Regional Office of Education, to come do some activities with the kids.

We will culminate our class with the movie, Homeless to Harvard. The Liz Murray Story.

I think this curriculum

is quite an eye opener for the small group of eighth graders that were able to participate and hope it will alleviate ignorance about homelessness and foster more empathy for those that are less fortunate.

I plan to continue with this enrichment curriculum with next year’s eighth graders.

Oregon High School will be administering Advanced Placement (AP) exams in the following courses during May: Environmental Science (5/5), Spanish Language and Culture (5/6), Calculus AB (5/7), Calculus BC (5/22), English Literature and Composition (5/8), Statistics (5/9), US Government and Politics (5/21), US History (5/21), and Art History (5/22).

Advanced Placement are rigorous courses based on a college freshmen level course.

Students take the Advanced Placement courses to prepare for the AP exams.

Depending on the students’ scores on the AP exam, they may be able to earn college credits for that class.

This is a great opportunity for the student to start college with credits already earned and credits that did not cost the student any money.

The OCUSD 220 School Board is a strong supporter of the AP program and pays for the cost of the exams, so that all students in AP classes

have an equal chance to test and earn college credits without additional financial burden.

As a continued support to the students, the OHS AP teachers have been offering the AP students opportunities to take full length retired AP exams on Saturday’s during March and April.

This additional practice gives the students an opportunity to be knowledgeable of the structure of the exam, better prepared, and more confident.

AP exams are scheduled

Curriculum can be quite an eye opener for students

The Oregon High School Graduation Ceremony will be held on Sunday, June 1.

The DLR Promotion Ceremony will be held on Friday, May 30.

Senior Honors Night is scheduled for Tuesday, May 20.

Graduation set for June 1

Oregon School District News

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