Lucas Gage arrives by bus for the first day of in-person kindergarten at Richmond Elementary on Tuesday, March 2. (Amanda Loman/Salem Reporter) Megan Kamna thought she had a plan for her daughter’s after school care in the fall. Her five-year-old starts kindergarten at Cummings Elementary School in Keizer. Kamna, who[Read More…]

Al Stefan, superintendent of Western Christian School, stands inside the main hallway on June 1, 2021 (Rachel Alexander/Salem Reporter) As Oregon’s public schools shed students over the last year, Al Stefan said a handful came knocking. Stefan is the superintendent of Western Christian School, a K-12 school on Highway 221[Read More…]

More than 4,600 Salem-Keizer high school students – about 39% of the total – failed at least one class during the second and third quarters of the school year. That’s slightly worse than the first quarter, when about one in three students failed at least one course. And for all[Read More…]

Denisa Kraynick, center, overturns a shovel full of dirt during the groundbreaking at West Salem High School on Friday, May 28, 2021. (Amanda Loman/Salem Reporter) Salem’s newest high school will be expanded starting this summer with a $34.5 million construction project to add more classrooms and space for career technical[Read More…]

By 7:10 a.m., there’s usually a line of cars stretched outside the main entrance at Sprague High School as parents wait to drop their students off. Principal Chad Barkes said the morning back-up is so bad that parents have to arrive almost a half hour before classes begin to guarantee[Read More…]

Members of the Association of Salem-Keizer Education Support Professionals protest high workloads outside a school board meeting Tuesday, May 11, 2021 (Rachel Alexander/Salem Reporter) The custodians who clean Salem’s schools say they’re overworked and understaffed. The district’s classified employee union, the Association of Salem-Keizer Education Support Professionals, objected to what[Read More…]

Aztec dancers perform at a protest organized by Latinos Unidos Siempre outside a Salem-Keizer School Board meeting on Tuesday, May 11, 2021 (Rachel Alexander/Salem Reporter) As the Salem-Keizer School Board began a meeting Tuesday night, air horns sounded and Aztec dancers began a ritual dance in the parking lot outside.[Read More…]

The Salem-Keizer School District will add more counselors and social workers to district schools and create a middle school alternative education program under a $1.5 billion budget proposal Superintendent Christy Perry presented Tuesday to the district’s budget committee. The budget assumes local schools will resume full-time, in-person classes in the[Read More…]

Students tour Houck Middle School on the first day of in-person sixth grade on Tuesday, April 13, 2021. (Amanda Loman/Salem Reporter) Since Salem-Keizer schools resumed in-person classes for middle and high school students, a small sliver have contracted Covid and white students have been slightly more likely to return to[Read More…]

Brayan Quevedo, right, a senior at Sprague High School, and teacher Jamie Ellis, left, on April 23, 2021. Quevedo is one of about 175 Salem-Keizer seniors taking college courses through the new Senior Launch program (Rachel Alexander/Salem Reporter) Melissa Espinoza, 18, had planned to graduate from North Salem High School[Read More…]