Pamplin Media Group – Hillsboro School District applies for Student Success Act funds

The district’s plan includes 59 new positions and funding for new ‘culturally responsive’ curriculum.

As it anticipates an infusion of cash from a new state law, the Hillsboro School District is focused on adding staff and developing materials for a diverse student body.

Hillsboro was among the first school districts in the state to apply for money from the Student Investment Account (SIA), which was created following the passage of the Student Success Act last year. Officials submitted the application earlier this month.

Travis Reiman, assistant superintendent of academic services, said students will begin to see the benefits of smaller class sizes, updated curriculum and more well-being resources starting next year.

The district’s plan for how to use about $17 million in additional funding per year was a direct result of feedback received from teachers, parents and community groups in outreach conducted in the fall and winter, Reiman said.

The district held focus group meetings with organizations such as the Bilingual Programs Parent Advisory Committee and received more than 3,000 responses to a survey conducted both in English and Spanish to determine how the community wanted the funds to be spent.

Districts around the state have until April 15 to submit their applications to receive funding from the $497 million in the SIA.

The Hillsboro School District’s two main focuses are to use its share of the money to close achievement gaps between different student groups and provide more mental and behavioral health support for students, Reiman said.

He said the district wanted to put its application in as early as possible because the Oregon Department of Education will review plans and make funds available on a rolling basis.

“What we wanted to do was be out in front of recruitment and hiring for the state,” Reiman said. “We think that we will be competing against other districts for the best candidates. Our theory was if we got our plan in and approved, we would be ahead of the curve in terms of hiring this spring.”

Following about a decade of budget cuts and increasing class sizes as a result, 70% of respondents to the district’s survey said hiring more teachers was their top priority. Additionally, about 33% of respondents said hiring more counselors was their top priority.

If the district’s plan is approved as submitted, the district will add 59 new full-time staff, including 35 teachers, nine counselors, several school psychologists and nurses and special educators such as English-language specialists.

“We will see a class size reduction, especially at the secondary level, who was been the hardest hit during the last ten years of budget cuts,” Reiman said.

Without SIA funding, it’s likely that the district would have had to make additional cuts, Reiman said. A portion of the funding will also go toward protecting against future cuts, he said.

The district will also hire a director of equity and bilingual programs and a director of mental and behavioral health.

“When you talk about culturally responsive teaching, that’s directed right at building that capacity,” Reiman said about the director of equity and bilingual programs. “Reducing class size, but also providing some support to teachers to increase their skill sets in terms of meeting the needs of increasingly diverse students.”

Most students in the district are non-white. The largest minority is Hispanic or Latino, with 38% of students identifying as such, according to the district’s demographic data.

The district included a goal to increase the number of teachers and counselors of color by 10% by 2023 using funding from the SIA. It also included a goal to increase by 10% the number of traditionally underrepresented students completing college-level course work by 2023.

For the last two years, a district team has been working to develop a comprehensive language arts curriculum for kindergarten through the sixth grade, Reiman said.

“With the SIA, we will have the funding to implement that,” Reiman said, adding that school board members will have the ability to adopt the curriculum at a future meeting.

The curriculum will give teachers updated literacy materials, allowing them to teach students to read using books and other course work in Spanish as well as 10 other languages. Reiman said research shows that if students are able to learn to read in their primary language first, the skills will transfer once they gain English skills.

“We’ll be meeting the needs of our increasingly linguistically diverse community,” Reiman said.

The district will also use the SIA funding to bolster the quality of its teaching force by adding professional collaboration and lesson planning days and creating an educator pathways program to reduce barriers to recruitment and training of diverse teachers and counselors.

Additionally, the district’s plan highlights the need to support more after-school programs, particularly for those where the student body is low-income. Five of the district’s eight schools that receive federal funding due to high poverty rates do not include any after-school programming.

Nearly $1 million will go toward supporting additional after-school programming in the next three years.