OREGON EDUCATION

News on public, private and state schools and teachers

TIGARD -- Tigard-Tualatin School District has scrapped its snow make-up day plan for a new one.

The original plan called for a make-up day on Jan. 30, a teacher training and work day, and March 30, a parent conference day. But the Tigard-Tualatin Education Association's council, which represents teachers, didn't approve the plan because it would have cost teachers a work day, said Rob Saxton, district superintendent.

Instead of the school year ending June 11, students will now attend school June 12, and 15-18. The district lost five school days last month due to snow storms.

-- Melissa Navas;
melissanavas@news.oregonian.com

The Sherwood School Board approved four make-up instructional days for students who missed a week of school in December due to weather.

Students will attend school on Feb. 16, which is President's Day; March 30, which was a staff development day; and June 11 and 12.

The board approved the plan 3-0 on Wednesday. Members Mark Christie and Connie Hansen were absent.

Two Beaverton schools -- one a public magnet school, the other a private school -- have made the GreatSchools list of the top five performing high schools in Oregon.

The School of Science and Technology, a science magnet school for students in grades 9-12 in the Beaverton School District, was honored in the academic performance category.

Jesuit High School, a Catholic, co-educational high school, was recognized in the category of Parents' Choice private schools.

Gov. Ted Kulongoski, Portland Schools Superintendent Carole Smith and other state and local leaders gathered at a Southeast Portland School today to release the school district's $273 million request for federal economic stimulus money.

"Our school buildings are out-of-date and deteriorating," Smith said. "We need to make schools warmer, drier and safer. ...Those school renovations also offer an opportunity to put Portlanders back to work."

Oregon's public universities are rushing to help students who are losing some of their state grant money by coming up with cash to keep them in school.

The universities want to make up for the $40 or $80 reduction in state aid this spring for about 38,500 students who received the grants in the fall, because students need all the money they were awarded, campus leaders said.

TIGARD -- Parents are invited to a Thursday forum about the Tigard-Tualatin School District's recently adopted math curriculum.

The meeting will be from from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Twality Middle School commons, 14650 S.W. 97th Ave., Tigard.

FOREST GROVE -- The Forest Grove School Board agreed to convert a staff training day in February to a regular school day to replace one of the five snow days students lost in mid-December.

Other make-up days, which could include President's Day on Feb. 16, will be determined after the district works with the teachers and classified staff unions. The district intends to replace 3 1/2 of the days lost to snow, which would still meet the number of instructional hours required by the state.

A laptop computer with the names and social security numbers of disabled youth in a state employment program was stolen in October from a University of Oregon employee, the university announced today.

The personal information was password protected, but the university is urging participants in the Youth Transition Program from 2004 to 2007 to monitor their financial accounts and credit reports.

Parents and community members in the Beaverton School District are invited to learn about and comment on several Instructional Time Study proposals at a Jan. 22 meeting at Southridge High School.

The meeting will take place from 6 to 9 p.m. in Southridge's Community Room, 9625 S.W. 125th Ave.

Western Oregon University said today its increasing financial aid to students affected by a grant cutback to help them continue their education.

The university, located in Monmouth, said it will make up money cut from Oregon Opportunity Grants which are given to needy students. The decision applies to students currently getting the grant and to those who were eligible but have not started receiving any money.

Michael Lloyd/The OregonianGov. Ted Kulongoski today, giving his sixth state of the state address.

SALEM --Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski on Monday challenged Oregon lawmakers to do what they need to do to make life better for Oregonians.

During one of the shortest "State of the State" speeches the governor has delivered since taking office in 2003, Kulongoski repeated his priorities for the state in difficult economic times:

Kristina Maupin/OITA crew from Roger Chancellor Well Drilling performs initial drilling last week for a high-temperature well on the Oregon Institute of Technology campus in Klamath Falls. ThermaSource of Santa Rosa, Calif., will complete the nearly mile-deep well, which is intended to tap 300-degree water to run a 1.5-megawatt power plant. The plant should allow OIT to supply all of its heat and electrical needs from its own renewable geothermal source.

For decades, the Oregon Institute of Technology has drawn from the earth to warm its classrooms, heat its swimming pool and melt snow from its sidewalks.

Now the rumble of heavy equipment and the installation of a 150-foot-tall drilling tower signal the school's leap toward energy self-sufficiency. Within a year, OIT will become the first campus in the world powered entirely by its own renewable geothermal source.

BEAVERTON -- Though Oregon school districts have to pick new math curriculums only about every seven years, the debate about what is "better" math rages on.

And this year, it's no different.

Statewide, districts are at various stages of choosing math curriculums. But most face the same dilemma: Which one will best help U.S. schoolchildren, who are typically outperformed in math and sciences by students overseas.

Reversing years of practice, OHSU no longer accepts bodies of indigent people to train medical students, because state officials have difficulty notifying next of kin and the 10-day waiting period renders the bodies less valuable for the anatomy lab.

William Cameron, executive director of the body-donation program at Oregon Health & Science University, said he convened an advisory committee last summer to examine the program.