Lebanon School District students, teachers and families generally say that the district offers a good school climate and a sense of belonging, Supt. Jennifer Meckley reported to School Board members Thursday, Jan. 9.
During the board’s monthly meeting at the Santiam Travel Center, Meckley reported the results of a survey that has been circulated among families, students and both instructional and non-instructional staff that asked respondents’ opinions on the importance of attendance, the level of engagement, the sense of belonging, the school climate and school safety.
Board Chair Tom Oliver was participating remotely, so Vice Chair Nichole Piland led the meeting for the most part. Also present were members Melissa Baurer, Aubree Molina and Clyde Rood, along with student representatives Eric Natterer, Hannah Savedra and Finley Vandiver.
Meckley acknowledged that she was disappointed with the percentage of families (15%, which totaled out to 586 families) who responded to the Safety and Belonging Survey, but noted that 71% of students and 80% of staff responded.
Riverview School, which had a 24% participation rate, was the most responsive, she said, adding that the school library received new books as a reward. But she said that most of the schools participated at roughly the same levels.
“There weren’t any outliers.”
Among students, roughly 90 percent across the grade levels agreed on the importance of attendance.
Meckley noted, humorously, that although 90% of high school students said attendance was important, “we do not have 90% attendance.”
Students younger than middle school rated their sense of engagement (72%) over older students (55%) and that held true for school climate (85% to 76%), and sense of belonging (83% to 71%). School safety ratings by students were closer, 65% for younger students to 62% for those in middle school and up.
Staff ratings for the three non-safety categories hovered around 90%, with certified staff showing particular enthusiasm for their sense of belonging – 95%, which Meckley said she thought was “wonderful.”
She said some key takeaways were that teachers were “exhausted, overwhelmed and stressed” and although she acknowledged that the district “can’t take that away, we would like to work on ways to remove barriers, take things off teachers’ plates so they don’t feel overwhelmed.”
The fact that almost the percentages of confidence in school safety hovered in the 60 percentile among students and families was not surprising, she said, noting that news coverage of school safety issues may result in less confidence in that area.
Meckley said the district can increase communication about what it does to improve safety in schools.
“I think there are things we could do to let people know what we do to keep their kids safe.”
She said she wants to conduct similar surveys twice a year to gauge progress.
Superintendent Evaluation
Also at the meeting, board members addressed how they should conduct Meckley’s annual evaluation.
Oliver led the discussion, noting that last year the board used a framework provided by the Oregon School Boards Association, along with a self-evaluation from Meckley and input from staff members in completing her evaluation.
Rood suggested that the student representatives, Vandiver, Savedra and Natterer, might be able to get input from students and staff members at school, which, he said, “could provide us with checks and balances with what we’re doing.”
Oliver cautioned that because the evaluation is an “employee-management personnel matter, the same weight (of input from students) would not be appropriate in my mind.”
Rood said he was thinking that if students asked their peers about the superintendent and teachers were to overhear the conversation and weigh in, their feedback could be included along with students’.
Oliver remained cautious about the idea.
“In some ways, it’s difficult to ask a staff member specific things about a superintendent’s performance because the reality is there’s not the same visibility into what it is that the superintendent does on a day-to-day basis, what that role is,” he said.
The point of the evaluation, he added, is “to provide Jen useful feedback about her work as superintendent.”
“I think the OSBA questions are very well thought out and focused in that regard.”
“I agree with that,” Meckley said.
Piland said the same questions could not be asked across the board because students may not be able to answer the same questions that staff members might.
Baurer said she would like to get student perspectives and Piland suggested that the student representatives could provide helpful feedback.
Meckley said she could provide the students with the nine standards that she is evaluated on.
“I think it’s good experience for you to see the process, what it entails,” she told the student representatives.
Board members agreed that they would finalize the evaluation process at their Feb. 13 meeting.
District Policy Concerns
The board unanimously approved a first reading of updates to district policies, with a caveat after Rood said he wanted to add language to proposed revisions regarding sexual harassment complaints.
He cited recent news regarding a music teacher at St. Helens High School whose behavior, Rood said, was known to other staffers at the school, who didn’t report them “like they were supposed to.”
He said he wanted to strengthen the language in Lebanon’s policy to “personalize it for our school district, actually make it work for our school district.”
He said he wanted to “go the extra mile” to protect our students and have staff engaged in protecting our students.”
Oliver suggested that the board could approve the policy changes and then agree on additional language later, to which Rood agreed.
Oliver asked about another policy in the list, dealing with nondiscrimination and civil rights, inquiring who would be serving as the district’s civil rights commissioner.
Meckley said that recently arrived Communications Director Michelle Steinhebel would handle that.
“She’s already had training,” Meckley said, noting that district staffers are often required to wear “multiple hats.”
Agreement for ESD Services
The board also approved a Local Service Plan, an agreement for services to be provided by the Linn Benton Lincoln Educational Services District for 2025-2027.
According to a report provided by the Albany-based LBL ESD, Lebanon is the fourth-largest in student enrollment of the 12 served by the ESD.
Services provided to Lebanon by the ESD include:
– Speech pathology and audiology services to Lebanon for students who demonstrate significant difficulty in communicating. In fiscal year 2023-24, 821 audiology hearing screenings were performed for Lebanon students.
– Early intervention-early childhood special education specialists who can evaluate children suspected of having developmental delays or disabilities. The district received 48 such evaluations in 2023-24. The ESD provided 38 severe disability supports during that period.
– Occupational and physical therapy for children who need such services, including direct consultation, coaching, modeling, making adaptations to the environment and tasks, and providing in-service training to staff. In 2023-24, the ESD provided 14 physical and occupational therapy grants to Lebanon.
– Special education services, which include technical assistance and materials, financial compensation, consultation and access to materials.
– Crisis prevention services, designed to support students whose behavior is “challenging,” with “person-centered and trauma-informed approaches,” including “multiple levels of prevention and intervention strategies for managing escalated behaviors.”
– Support for home-schooled students, including registration and enrollment record-keeping. Home school parents have the full responsibility for their student’s education, including all curriculum choices, record keeping, and testing compliance.
– Family support services that include behavior consultants, family support liaisons, home school, MAC Survey (a method of identifying and accounting for the time spent by public school staff on Medicaid-related activities), crisis response, grant exploration and coordination, and collaboration with youth serving agencies specifically addressing health and social services.
– Administrative services and a wide variety of technology support for school districts.
In other action, Meckley reported that the district’s Care Solace program, which connects individuals to 560,000 health care professionals and, she said, de-complicates the process of finding mental health help, has been “successful.”
Meckley said that posters advertising the program have been posted in all the district schools.
“We literally just implemented this in November and we’ve had 20 referrals so far and five appointments. It’s been really exciting,” she said, adding that the program is available to staff as well.
Meckley also reported that the Lebanon Schools Foundation had awarded a total of $5,020 to 11 teachers for 12 classroom projects: $400 to Jessie Quetschke at Hamilton Creek; $140 to Ryan McWayne at Cascades; $500 to Susie Phillips at Lebanon High School Brick House; $500 to Jodi Howell at LHS; $500 to Amanda Gaskey at Cascades; $480 to Andrew McAteer at Seven Oak; $460 to Michael Swindle at Seven Oak; $480 to Ashley da Silva at Seven Oak; $400 to Emily Latimer at Seven Oak; a total of $660 to Jessica Gadue for projects at Hamilton Creek and Lacomb; and $500 to Luis Daniel De Luna at Lebanon High School.
Meckley said she would ask the teachers to report their results at the end of the school year.