In just over a month, OAESD will be hosting the annual Spring Conference. This year’s theme will be “ESDs: Leading Education to Thrive in Oregon.” In a change from the last few years, it will be held at SunRiver Resort in Central Oregon and run from May 15 to May 17. The agenda will include keynote addresses, general sessions, panel presentations, individual breakout sessions, and the Association’s annual banquet.

 

The first keynote address will feature authors Ricky Robertson and Amber Warner speaking on building resilience in children impacted by adverse childhood experiences. This session will cover the impact of adverse childhood experiences on learning, behavior, and social-emotional development in children. The presenters will also be the featured speakers for a general session which will explore trauma-informed interventions and supports to foster student and staff resilience.

The second keynote address will feature John Welch, Superintendent of the Puget Sound ESD in Seattle, and Brad Brown, Executive Director, Kindergarten to Postsecondary Learning, Teaching and Family Support at Puget Sound ESD. They will speak on “Becoming an anti-racist multicultural organization: Leading with racial equity”.

The conference will also offer a panel presentation by Oregon ESDs “Leading for Equity.” ESDs will discuss lessons learned on their path to greater equity in their organizations. 

This year's breakout sessions will include Treasure Valley Tech, a measure 98 CTE regional consortium; tell our story: how do ESD’s collect, vet, create, and share good news; diversifying our NWRESD and educator workforce; taking the guesswork out of goal setting through predictive analytics; and leveraging partnerships to build pathways in computer science.

The annual banquet will take place on Thursday evening and will feature a talk by Tim Sweeney, Oregon’s 2019 Oregon Superintendent of the Year. Later that evening, the New Ideas in Education winners will be announced and a number of board members will be recognized for service. If you have not registered to attend this year’s conference, there is still time. Use the registration webpage to sign up before registration closes on April 15.

The Multnomah Transition Specialist Consortium brings together transition specialists and educational assistants from eight school districts in Multnomah County. They connect to exchange best practices, resources, and experiences from professionals who are working with students with disabilities. This effort started because staff saw a need and opportunity for innovation and collaboration to support both the mission of Multnomah ESD and a seamless approach of the Transition Technical Assistance Network (TTAN).

The Consortium held its first meeting in October 2016 and participated in a PATH (Planning Alternative Tomorrows with Hope) planning process. PATH gave the group focus. These meetings allow for sharing successes, discussion, presentations from community partners, professional development activities, and problem-solving to address barriers when supporting students. The consortium facilitates group activities to establish goals and actions for continued growth and improvement of services for students seeking work experience and employment in their local communities.

From these monthly meetings, projects like Building Bridges to Tomorrow’s Workforce were developed. This is the second year of the event which promotes collaboration with local businesses and schools to support Oregon’s mission of Employment First and the belief that anyone can work. A business and student panel will share their successful work experience relationships and employment in the community. Businesses learn how this benefits their workforce and how to participate.

ESDs are likely to play a huge role leading the Educator Advancement Council’s (EAC) soon-to-be-developed Regional Educator Networks. The EAC is working on state rules and a Request for Proposals (RFP) to invite interested regional entities to become sponsoring organizations of the 10 Regional Educator Networks (RENs) early next year. ESDs worked together both to propose how the state should be divided up into 10 regions as well as demonstrate how ESDs can best serve as RENs sponsoring organizations.

The EAC hopes to have temporary rules and RFPs out in May. The proposed budget would allocate approximately $150,000 per year to each REN sponsoring organization to coordinate their region's work. Additionally, each REN will get an Educator Advancement Fund allotment based on a formula that takes into account the number of educators in that region, how many of those are new to the profession, teacher turnover, and the discrepancy between children of color and teachers of color in that region. Depending on how the legislature funds the EAC, we expect between $16M - $22M will be allocated across the 10 RENs each year.

The purpose of the Regional Educator Networks is to work with districts, early childhood providers, and other stakeholders to provide professional development, mentoring, and teacher workforce development across the PreK-12 continuum. Each REN will create a governance structure to decide how to prioritize the needs of each region and implement strategies and initiatives. OAESD and its component ESDs will play a crucial role in ensuring that every district across the state gets access to these services. Stay tuned and keep an eye out for the RFP in the next month or two.

Does your ESD have something interesting going on the rest of the state should know about?

Send your ideas or suggestion to  info@oaesd.org

  Oregon Association of Education Service Districts is a partnership between:

Clackamas , Columbia Gorge , Douglas , Harney , High Desert , InterMountain , Jefferson ,

Lake , Lane , Linn Benton Lincoln , Malheur , Multnomah , Northwest Regional , South Coast , Southern Oregon , and Willamette Education Service Districts.