Southern Oregon Education Service District (SOESD) kicked off the school year on Sept. 17, 2019 by hosting over 125 educators, staff and administrators from 12 districts across several counties. Attendees included staff from Attendance and 9th grade On Track Teams, ODE’s Every Day Matters Staff and Regional Capacity Builders.
The vision of the event was to build districts’ capacity to create environments within their schools in which all students feel more safe, know they matter and they belong, in order to inspire more students to come to school more often. To achieve this vision SOESD focuses on building capacity by leveraging research and experienced-based practices in data, teaming and communication.
The event also introduced The Center for High School Success (CHSS)—a project of Stand for Children—providing FREE training, technical assistance, data support, and resources to districts and high schools interested in developing effective 9th grade success programs as a key lever for increasing on-time graduation rates.
The Every Day Matters campaign was also discussed. This program is designed to assist districts with materials and messaging they can use to increase attendance.
The group took a deep dive into the local data and addressing barriers to attendance. SOESD has developed a toolkit for district use that can be found here.
For more information from the Oregon Department of Education, click here.