News

Hands-on activities can really drive learning home for students. Clover Ridge kindergarten students ended a recent lesson about farms with a visit from baby farm animals. Here is what the school posted about the visit:

As part of their class study of the book Century Farm, Mrs. Phillips wrapped up the unit by bringing farm animals to school for a visit.  Her class, as well as several other classes got to spend time with a baby lamb and chicken.  All the children loved the experience!

Check out more photos on the Clover Ridge web page.

Calapooia Middle School rewarded good behavior last Friday with a dunk tank for school administrators. Students with no tardies or absences got a chance to soak Principal Gina Ayers, Assistant Principal Scott Smith or Behavior Specialist George Sanchez.

Students enjoyed a party with games and snacks after they took their turn at the dunk tank. Thanks for being such good sports, Calapooia Administrators! Even in cold weather, they modeled positive behavior for their students.

See more photos on the District Facebook page.

Last Saturday, the South Albany High School varsity and junior varsity dance teams competed at the Philomath dance competition.

Dance team coach Amanda GaVette said she was proud of both teams and provided the following recap of the competition:

“Although we were the only teams in both the 5A and JV division, resulting in first place finishes, I wanted to share what I think were our true successes.

Our varsity team had the second highest score in the entire event, coming in second to the perennial powerhouse, Stayton High School. We started the state season out with a score of 80.52 which almost rivaled our final score at state last year (80.94). This is the highest score any of my previous teams have achieved at this point in the season.

We went into Saturday knowing we were the only ones in our respective division, so our goals were to compete against ourselves, raise our scores between rounds and have varsity finish in the top three of the entire competition. Both teams achieved that goal!

JV raised their score by 1.6 points, and varsity raised their score by 2 points from round one to round two.”

The next competition is Feb. 11 at South Albany High School

Statewide graduation rates were released last week by the Oregon Department of Education (ODE), and GAPS high school results are among the best four-year graduation rates in the state, beating the state average of 74.83 percent and showing improvement over last year.

West Albany High School’s graduation rate at 97.48 percent ranks third only to Henley High School in Klamath County and West Linn High School in Wilsonville.

Principal Susie Orsborn said her goal is to reach 100 percent and has set up programs to catch struggling students and help them stay on track for graduation.

At South Albany High School, the four-year graduation rate was 88 percent, an increase from 86 percent last year.

ODE measures graduation rates for a number of subcategories. This year’s report includes graduation rates for students who took at least one career technical, or vocational, class during high school. The report found that those student had a higher graduation rate than students who did not take those course.

The District is seeking to add more career technical classes at the middle and high school level. If the May 16 bond measure passes, new classrooms and programs are planned for all middle and high schools in the District. Find more information about the proposed bond on the bond information page.

Read more about the recent high school graduation reports in the Democrat-Herald story.

Registration is now open for the annual fundraising run to benefit Albany Public Schools Foundation on March 11. The annual event is one of the main fundraisers to support foundation-sponsored programs for GAPS students.

Participants can register for a 5K or 10 mile run. There will also be a kids dash for the youngest kids.

Register online. 

See the event poster for more information.

Watch the video of last year’s event.