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Oregon Community Foundation Awards a 3-Year Grant to SKCE

The Oregon Community Foundation has awarded a 3-year grant to SKCE, beginning in the summer of 2018. The goal is to strengthen the fundraising and marketing capacity for programming that helps spanish speaking parents improve the educational achievement of their children.

The first year award is $30,000, the second year is $25,000 and the third year is $20,000.

Board members Arturo Sarmiento-Linares, Christi Ortiz, Fabiola Camacho, Chris Brantley and Charlie Benitez were on hand to accept the grant award along with Annalivia Palazzo-Angulo, the SKCE Executive Director. Susan fuller, the Oregon Community Foundation volunteer representative, presented the grant award.
(Photo L to R: Arturo Sarmiento-Linares, Christi Ortiz, Fabiola Camacho, Annalivia Palazzo-Angulo, Susan Fuller, Chris Brantley, Charlie Benitez)

Thank you, Oregon Community Foundation!

Our 2018 Raising the Bar for Oregon Luncheon was a success!

Between our generous business sponsors and supporters, the 2018 Raising the Bar luncheon was a great success! The luncheon attendees, donors and sponsors together raised a total that was an all time high for SKCE events. 

Our 2018 Luncheon theme question was

How can we accelerate Oregon’s education rate
of success and get out of the bottom 5 in the nation?

 

The following 11-minute video was shown during our luncheon:

 

The following video is our full luncheon with guest speakers 

Our Sponsors

                                                                     

                       

Thank You Spirit Mountain Community Fund!

On March 14th, 2018, the Spirit Mountain Community Fund awarded a grant to SKCE. Annalivia Palazzo Angulo and Yadira Juarez received the $40,000 award for SKCE. The Spirit Mountain Community Fund awarded this grant to SKCE so that we can, using our Early Learning parent engagement programs, increase the success of Latino students with immigrant backgrounds and Spanish as their home language in the Salem Keizer School District. Thanks to the generosity of the Spirit Mountain Community Fund, these programs will be in several Title I elementary schools in the spring and fall of 2018.

Jack Giffin, Jr., Yadira Juarez, Annalivia Palazzo-Angulo, Sho Dozono, and Mychal Cherry

SKCE Works to Help Parents Reduce the Achievement Gap

There is an achievement gap between ELL (English Language Learners) and Latino students compared to White students in the Salem Keizer School District. Research shows that if struggling readers have not successfully met the achievement skills of their peers by third grade or age nine, we risk losing up to 75% of them to low performance, low attendance rates, failure to graduate, not being ready for college, or dropping out altogether. Our Parent Engagement programs are successful in affecting student success, from pre-school to high school, all of which use culturally relevant methods and curriculum, with Latino Parent facilitators who have the same culture and life experiences as participants.

Grupo de Apoyo

LA ESPERANZA COMIENZA CON USTED

Cada 17 minutos, al menos seis estadounidenses pierden un ser querido a causa del suicidio.
Muchas de estas personas están aquí, cerca de su casa. En Oregon, el suicidio es la segunda causa de muerte entre nuestros jóvenes, de 10-24 años de edad. Cuando nuestros veteranos re-gresan de la guerra también están en mayor riesgo en comparación de sus compañeros.
La mayoría de las personas afectadas, no tuvieron la oportunidad de detectar
las señales de advertencia.
Las Investigaciones nos dicen que el 66% de las personas que murieron por suicidio mostraron
señales y pistas a familiares o amigos.
Usted tiene la oportunidad de hacer la diferencia en su familia
Usted tiene la oportunidad de salvar una vida!
Venga, juntos aprenderemos como cuidar a nuestro hijos. Espacio limitado.
RVSP o para mas información comuníquese con
Javier Quiroz
503-930-9162
Para obtener más detalles acerca de la formación de QPR, póngase en contacto con
Susan McLauchlin, CPS
Educador de la prevención del suicidio,
Departamento de

Unete a nosotros en este taller de esperanza y de aprendizaje, auspiciado por
La Coalición para la Igualdad de Salem-Keizer
SABADO 24 DE FEBRERO 2018
El desayuno se servirá de 10:00 a 10:30 a.m. Y el taller de 10:30 a 12:30 p.m.

RVSP o para mas información comuníquese con
Javier Quiroz
503-930-9162
Para obtener más detalles acerca de la formación de QPR, póngase en contacto con
Susan McLauchlin, CPS
Educador de la prevención del suicidio,
Departamento de salud del Condado de Marion
503-981-2464 smclauchlin@Co.Marion.or.US

el folleto para el taller de la prevención del suicidio

 

2018 January Newsletter – Graduation Rates Increase!

 

I am writing you today to let you know that despite our difficulties as a state and district, Salem Keizer students are making progress, and will continue to do so, but only if all of us continue at the heavy pace we have been working for the last five years.

See the new graduation report in this Statesman Journal article by Natalie Pate, highlighting both the district and our organization.

We must all take responsibility in pulling Oregon’s education outcomes up from at best mediocre (reading and math in the low to mid-average range) and at worst, the third lowest graduation rate in the nation.

I believe strongly that the success of our children in education is in the hands of parents, schools, districts, government, businesses, community members, city leaders, the health industry, and the social services and nonprofit sectors. We must work together, as a team, with a singular but inclusive and focused approach, using the equity lens to provide all the components our children need to succeed. We need a combination of advocacy, family partnerships and community collaborations.

We can do this together. And Salem Keizer Coalition for Equality is doing its part. Working with parents, ECONorthwest reports show students’ Chronic Absenteeism rates have drastically reduced for the children of parents we serve. State data show that not only has Salem Keizer’s overall graduation increased, Latino student graduation has gone up at even higher rates.

Over the past 14 years, we have brought informative motivational workshops to and supported leadership and self determination for at least 7000 Spanish speaking immigrant parents in just the Salem Keizer District alone, not to mention another 2000 parents in other districts.

We are successful because we are parents who have been there. Staff members are parents who have the same struggles, the same immigrant backgrounds, the same lived experience. Parent/staff who are imperfect, passionate, vulnerable role models, coaches, and friends, who encourage others to ENVISION SUCCESS and take leadership in their homes, in their schools and in their community.

However, this takes money and lots of it. In the last five years, we have intensified our outreach and our program depth and breadth. The results continue to climb. We want more than just attendance. We need to see great increases in reading and other subjects. We need to see reductions in discipline and dropout rates. We believe that SKCE has the key to the missing puzzle piece of Education Reform. 

Latino students are 39% of our student body. Their success means the district’s success. We are ready to ramp up the number of schools we work in. We have schools and parents asking for our programs that we can’t pay for yet.

  • Our maximum outreach has been ten Title I schools yet there are 37.
  • Only three of our 20 Title I elementary schools with ELL programs have our parent led literacy intervention program for K-2 students.
  • And only twice in four years have we been able to run our unique, incredibly popular, 10-week parent-led preschool.

PLEASE GIVE TODAY! 

Sincerely,

Annalivia

Reasons to Vote Yes for the Salem-Keizer Schools Bond Measure

SKCE wholeheartedly supports the Salem-Keizer Schools Bond Measure!

As our Executive Director says:

“I am proud to be a Salemite and I know my community will step up and support our 42,000 students and their families by saying YES to the Salem-Keizer Schools Bond Measure. Saying YES means that our schools will not be crowded and they will be safe, healthy places with the resources they need to produce successful students and be the best district in the state of Oregon!

SKCE is doing its part to increase student success for 39% of the district (Latino). Please do your part and vote YES on the Salem-Keizer Schools Bond.”

The YesForSalemKeizerSchools website lists 9 bullet points (copied below) for changes in the Salem-Keizer School District facilities that the bond measure would make possible. Notice that 5 of the 9 list items are expanding teaching areas to accommodate the increasing student enrollment in the school district. The last two listed items are to do maintenance for or replacement of worn out facilities. One of the items is to upgrade facilities for that expected major earthquake and one is to improve safety and security – badly needed, considering the nationwide death toll in our schools in the last several years.

  • Construct new vocational/technical classrooms
  • Make seismic upgrades
  • Construct additional space at elementary schools
  • Make safety and security improvements districtwide
  • Expand and construct additional space at all six of the district’s traditional high schools
  • Construct additional space such as classrooms
  • New science labs
  • Extend the life of existing facilities
  • Replace the district’s worn-out portable buildings

This Bond Measure was Created by Volunteer Citizens in the School District

The Salem-Keizer Schools Bond Measure was constructed by the Citizens Facilities Task Force, made up of 20 volunteer citizens who live in the district and who worked very hard to make it meet basic current and long-range future SKSD needs. They not only listened to other local citizens, but did a feasibility survey to make sure the citizens of the district felt that this bond measure – both the total cost and the areas of emphasis – was a measure they wanted and which could get their votes.

 

 

2017 Improvements in Overall and Latino Student Graduation Rate

The Improvement in the Latino Student Graduation Rate was “impressive”

In a Statesman Journal article, two interviews discussed the improvement in the graduation rates for Oregon students over the last few years. Acting Superintendent for the State of Oregon Department of Education, Colt Gill, and Annalivia Palazzo-Angulo, the Executive Director of SKCE, were interviewed about graduation rates.

Superintendent Gill discussed overall graduation rates and different ways to view the graduation rate data. Annalivia Palazzo-Angulo also discussed graduation rate data, but her information was more specific to the Latino student graduation rate, which was described as an “impressive” gain in the last few years.

“Class of 2017 Graduation” Salem Keizer School District

There was also discussion of how graduation rates change when graduation time is increased beyond 4 years, and when students who graduate through GED, online classes, or other methods are included.

On the Salem Keizer School District website, graduation rates are also discussed. The first paragraph leads to a more in-depth discussion of graduation rates, “According to the Oregon Department of Education’s recently released graduation rates for the 2016-17 academic year, Salem-Keizer Public Schools (SKPS) increased its graduation rate by nearly two percentage points. Additionally, the drop-out rate decreased by nearly one percentage point. The graduation rates were based on a four- and five-year cohort of students entering the ninth grade in the 2013-14 or 12-13 academic year. The dropout rate reports on students in grades 9-12.”

The increase in the number of students graduating was led by the Latino student graduation rate

In 2012, 59.5% of Latino students graduated. In 2017, 72.5% graduated. This is a substantial improvement of 13% in 3 years. Seen in number of students instead of percentages, for every 100 Latino students who should have graduated in 2012, only 59 graduated. However, for every 100 Latino students who should have graduated in 2017, 72 graduated. That’s 13 more out of 100 who graduated in 2017 than graduated in 2012.

Graduation rates must increase for Oregon

However, even with the good news, Oregon didn’t reach a 78% graduation rate. For the present, that means the state Department of Education goal of a 90% graduation rate by 2024 is not on track. (The state legislature has instructed the Oregon Department of Education to have a 100% graduation rate by 2025.) Our graduation rate is currently 49th in the nation.