News

NOTICE OF BUDGET COMMITTEE MEETING

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, that a public meeting of the Budget Committee of the Greater Albany Public School District 8J, Linn and Benton Counties, State of Oregon, to discuss the budget for the fiscal year July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2018 will be held at 718 Seventh Avenue SW, Albany, Oregon 97321.  The meeting will take place on Monday, May 1, 2017, at 6:00 p.m.

The purpose of this meeting is to receive the Budget Message, the Proposed Budget Document, and public input on the budget for the fiscal year 2017/2018.

A copy of the Proposed 2017/2018 Budget Document will be made available at the time the Budget Message is delivered.  After that time the document may be reviewed on or after May 2, 2017, at the GAPS District Office, 718 Seventh Avenue SW, Albany, Oregon, 97321 between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday.

This is a public meeting where deliberation of the Budget Committee will take place and to take public comment.  Listed below is the time of additional Budget Committee meetings that also will be held to take public comment.  Any person may appear at the meeting and discuss the proposed programs with the Budget Committee.

• May 15, 2017 Public Input/Approval of Budget
• May 24, 2017 Approval of Budget if necessary

The above meetings will be held at the GAPS District Office at 718 Seventh Avenue SW, Albany, Oregon, 97321, and will start at 6:00 p.m.

Russell Allen

RUSSELL ALLEN

Budget Officer

South Albany High School sophomore Mersadies-Lynn Crum has been named the Boys & Girls Club State Youth of the Year.

She has earned a total of $6,000 in scholarship money for the local and state titles. She will compete in the regional competition in California in June

Read the story in the Democrat-Herald.

Photo by Democrat-Herald

If approved, Ballot Measure 22-165 would make improvements at every school in the District. It would also add new classrooms to accommodate growth and relieve current overcrowding.

The bond would fund the first phase of a replacement of West Albany High School school. Architects would design the complete project, and phase two would be part of a later bond proposal.

West Albany High School, built in 1953, is aging and is not suitable for today’s educational requirements. Phase 1 would include constructing a new commons, auditorium, performing arts classrooms, eight regular classrooms for vocational/technical programs.

Those pieces make up a little less than half of the overall replacement for the entire high school campus.

West Albany High School has had 10 major additions or renovations since it was constructed. The quality of the original construction is lower than many buildings that are much older and still serve a useful purpose, such as Central Elementary School.

The proposed school construction projects will be funded with bonds sold in two separate series. Half  of the bonds will retire after ten years, and the other half will retire after twenty years.

The community will have an opportunity to approve additional capital projects without increasing taxes after the first series of bonds retire in 10 years. If that is the case, projects could include completing the entire West Albany High School replacement project in 10 years and with only one more phase.

See photo gallery of West Albany High School in the Democrat-Herald.

See architectural conceptual designs for WAHS.

See the school project profile for WAHS.

Each month, the world-wide First Lego League organization selects one school robotics team as its CELEBRATION and SHOUT-OUTS featured team.

This month, the Fin-tastic Fish from Oak Grove were recognized for their recent Oregon State Championship honors in FLL CORE Values, research project, and technical programming abilities. The team is coached by Oak Grove teacher Mark Gullickson.

Read more about this recognition.

It is a tremendous honor. There were approximately 32,000 FLL teams and 255,000 students world-wide that participated in FLL this season.

Pictured: Championship photo of Fin-Tastic Fins with a representative of corporate sponsor Autodesk, a leader in the world of 3D printing technology. 

South Albany High School has won the 2016-17 “We Are #1!” Student Section Contest for receiving the most votes on social media. The award recognizes school pride, sportsmanship and creativity.

The school will receive a “Best Student Section in the State” banner and lunch for 300 students. The video will also be displayed on the OSAA Sportsmanship page.

The video entry was produced by students in Andy Winn’s digital media class.

Principal Brent Belveal congratulated staff and students for winning the award and recognized the contributions of all Rebel staff with the following message:

I want to give a huge shout out to Andy Winn and his awesome work with our video students. Their video submission is getting rave reviews from members of the OSAA and others as they’ve viewed the video.

While we tend to focus on academic improvement and graduation requirements in our jobs — I think it’s important to also know that our kids are demonstrating their personal pride and connection to our school through their actions outside the classroom. It all goes together.

For some kids, involvement and success in athletics or activities is what helps them to feel like part of the school and to engage more rigorously in their academic efforts. For some kids, getting to be part of a huge student crowd at events allows them to feel like they are a part of our school and contributors to our success, which tends to impact their classroom efforts as well.

I want to thank our coaches who work directly with our athletes but also each and every staff member who invests daily in our kids. Whether it’s in the classroom, in the hallway, at a game or event, supporting a student club, coaching, volunteering for Saturday Success of Rebels Rising — every single investment contributes to the overall growth of our individual kids and in the bigger picture, our entire school culture.

So thank you Andy for taking the risk to enter this competition and putting yourself and your students “out there” so to speak. Every time we do this, I believe we get better. Thank you each for all that you do every day to impact our kids and to literally change their lives!