Nyjah Angeles raises a hand during the first day back to school at Richmond Elementary on Tuesday, March 2. (Amanda Loman/Salem Reporter) Salem and Oregon education officials said the recent spike in new Covid infections and hospitalizations haven’t changed plans to hold school in-person, five days per week in the[Read More…]

Teachers in the Salem-Keizer Afrocentric summer program serve a West African lunch of jollof rice, fried plantain and chicken to students on July 23, 2021 (Rachel Alexander/Salem Reporter) Ayman Wamala learned about Harriet Tubman’s work leading enslaved people to freedom on the Underground Railroad in his regular classes at school.[Read More…]

Nyjah Angeles raises a hand during the first day back to school at Richmond Elementary on Tuesday, March 2. (Amanda Loman/Salem Reporter) Federal and state health authorities are now recommending even vaccinated Americans wear masks while indoors in public, but it’s unclear how the change will affect 40,000 Salem students[Read More…]

Chase Allen, 12, lets go of a lego car that he and a group designed during the Robotics Wiz enrichment camp at CTEC on Wednesday, July 14. (Amanda Loman/Salem Reporter) After students in Salem – and across Oregon – saw their school buildings closed for over a year, Oregon legislators[Read More…]

Salvador Luna, 13, scrapes batter off of a mixer as Stella Pedersen, 12, washes her hands while the two work on a cast-iron dessert during the Farm to Fork enrichment camp at McNary High School on Wednesday, July 14. (Amanda Loman/Salem Reporter) A line of kettle grills smoked outside McNary[Read More…]

Newly elected members of the Salem-Keizer School Board for 2021, from top left: María Hinojos Pressey, Osvaldo Avila, Ashley Carson Cottingham and Karina Guzmán Ortiz. Salem’s educators face a daunting task in the fall: helping more than 40,000 local students return to classrooms full-time, and addressing the academic and mental[Read More…]

Grace Caldwell sits in the Salem-Keizer School Board’s meeting room on June 22, 2021 (Rachel Alexander/Salem Reporter) Outside of school, Grace Caldwell’s passions are playing tennis and swimming. But with sports on hold during the pandemic, the McKay High School student spent much of her junior year in meetings with[Read More…]

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…]