Woodlawn School

5/20
Culture of Kindness
Meeting 6:00-7:30 PM
5/22
4th Grade Artist
Residency Rick Meyer
PK Field Trip to
Newark Theater
5/27/13
No School
Memorial Day
5/28
6th-8th Grade Star Reacher
Zoo Field Trip
5/29
4th Grade Artist
Residency Rick Meyer
K Field Trip To Zoo
5/31
PTA Fundraiser It Takes
A Community 4:00-8:00
K-5 Awards Assemblies
6/14
Last Day of School 

Portland Public Schools offers a full-day pre-kindergarten program at Woodlawn. Complete the Pre-Kindergarten Application and submit it by 5pm on Friday, June 7.

The Woodlawn staff continues to recognize that in order to learn academic and social skills which encourage students to reach their individual potential as a person; the school must create a safe and nurturing environment for all members. Last year, we began to deliberately focus our attention on implementing professional development to establish common classroom strategies and schoolwide guidelines to ensure we are creating a safe and civil school. During the 2011-2012 school year, I established the PBIS (Positive Behavior Intervention Support) Leadership Team who work to facilitate this important initiative.

The PBIS Leadership Team members include: Jeff Gierer, one of our speech pathologists, Tracey Briggs, one of our 5th grade teachers, Ellen Werner, one of our special education teachers, Liz Delmatoff, our PBIS coach, David Child, our 6th-8th grade science teacher, Aaron Moreno, one of our fourth grade teachers, Lionel Clegg, one of our 1st grade teachers, Rachel Banks, PTA board member and parent, Amy Ranson, special education paraeducator, Amy Spunaugle, our school improvement specialist, Devin Harkness, our school counselor, and Principal Morrison. Throughout the summer, the PBIS Leadership Team met and developed a comprehensive action plan to address our school safety needs by reviewing the progress we made with our school climate; analyzing current discipline data; began to refine, develop, and implement updated policies and practices aligned to our PBIS philosophy.

The majority of the Woodlawn staff have participated in a Comprehensive Management Class offered through the Office of Student Services. In January 2013, the PBIS Leadership Team asked students and staff to complete the surveys. Once we receive the results of the surveys the Leadership Team will be able to analyze our progress and make adjustments based on this information. Additionally, the Leadership Team asked parents to complete a survey to provide us with parent’s perspective of what is important to them. This will allow us to analyze our progress compared to the 2012 survey. We would like to thank the parents who took the time to complete the 2013 survey.

The PBIS Leadership Team and the Woodlawn staff continue to look effective strategies to continue our growth. The staff actively implements different strategies and curriculum to provide students with problem-solving skills and the knowledge to prevent bullying and harassment. Every classroom directly teaches classroom behavior expectations the first month of school. As an entire school, we teach and review our schoolwide student behavior expectations in our common areas during our Positive Behavior Intervention Support rotations three times a year. During this activity all students walk through thirteen stations and staff members directly teach or review expected
behaviors.

Kindergarten through fifth grade teachers utilize the Second Step Curriculum weekly to teach social skills and social concepts. At each grade level, students are presented with information and tools on how to identify and appropriately confront bullying and harassing behaviors. Devin Harkness, our school counselor, implements curriculum at the sixth through eighth grade level to educate students about bullying. These are but some of the strategies the Woodlawn staff has implemented to create a nurturing environment.

During the 2011-12 and 2012-13 school years, every Woodlawn student explored music through grade-level residencies with the Oregon Symphony, Portland Taiko, the Oregon Children's Theater or Oregon Trail artist Rick Meyers. Read more about our partnership with The Right Brain Initiative.