May 10th - Today! Ms. Stahlecker's Kinder Class Plant Sale 3 pm to 4 pm
May 17th - FINAL Principal's Coffee, 9 am in the cafeteria
May 19th - CSS Clark Arboretum Welcome Event, 2 pm - 3 pm in the Arboretum
May 27th - No School
June 12th - 5th Grade Promotion 2-3 pm
June 13th - Field Day - Volunteers Needed!
June 14th - Last Day of School
Clark Families,
Happy May!!! I hope this message finds you well and you are enjoying the beautiful sunshine. I can’t believe the end of the year is around the corner and that we have almost finished our first year together as a school community. As we are moving into warmer months and hot weather, we have a few friendly reminders. For safety reasons, please don’t send your child to school in flip-flop sandals, and if you can, send a water bottle to school with your child so that they can stay hydrated. We have drinking fountains with water bottle filters throughout the school. In addition, please ensure that students wear appropriate clothing for the warm weather.
Students in 3rd-5th grades are taking the required Oregon State tests for the next few weeks. We assess all 3rd-5th grade students in English Language Arts and Math and 5th grade students also take a Science test. Please make sure your child gets a good night's rest and eats a healthy breakfast in the mornings. We encourage our students to take their time on the tests and to do their best. These summative assessments are important and give our teachers and school information about what our students have learned and what we as a school can do a better job teaching. I will be taking all of the 3rd-5th grade students on a bowling field trip in June to celebrate their hard work this school year and for completing the state tests.
Our last day of school this year will be on Friday, June 14th. Summer break will be June 17-August 26th. The first day of school for 1st-5th grade students will be on August 27, 2024. The first day for all kindergarten students will be on September 3rd, 2024.
Early Kindergarten Transition (EKT) is a three-week summer program to help you and your child have a great start to school.
Students attend July 15-26 (Monday thru Friday) from 8 am to 1 pm and July 29-August 1 (Monday thru Thursday) from 8 am to 1 pm.
Families/caregivers are provided with educational training twice a week during EKT.
Child care for siblings is available during family/caregiver sessions.
Students receive free breakfast and lunch, books, and school supplies.
Sponsored by Portland Public Schools in partnership with Schools Uniting Neighborhoods (SUN).
It is currently field trip season! Please make sure that before you volunteer to attend a field trip you have submitted a volunteer background check to PPS. Information can be found here. Security Services needs two weeks to process your check but once cleared, it lasts three years! Volunteers who have not completed this process will not be allowed to chaperone field trips. Please check in with Kelly in the Clark Office if you need more details. kmcknight@pps.net
Final Principal's Coffee!
Join our Principal Tara Bourland in the cafeteria for coffee and treats! We will discuss current happenings at Clark Elementary. We look forward to seeing you!
Friday, May 17, 2024, 09:00 AM
Clark Elementary School, Southeast 92nd Avenue, Portland, OR, USA
5th grade promotion will be from 2pm - 3 pm on Wednesday, June 12. We will start out with a ceremony in the cafeteria at 2 pm then move to refreshments outside on the playground. Parents and families are welcome! Please sign into the office when you arrive at the building.
Field Day will be Thursday June 13th! Please prepare to send your students to school with sunscreen on, water bottles and a change of clothes in their backpacks. We will be playing outside with with water and there is no covered area. We also need volunteers for this event! If you would like to help us out on field day please make sure you have summitted your background check and email Ms. Flores at aflores2@pps.net
REMINDER: If you would like to bring store bought treats for your child or their class, please make arrangements with your child’s teacher ahead of time. All staff emails can be found on our website HERE. At Clark, we maximize instructional time and although celebrating birthdays and other special events are important to us, teachers have tight schedules and any treats brought from home that could disrupt teaching and learning time need to be pre-arranged so that teachers can account for the time in their day. If you bring treats during the day and have not checked with your child's teacher, the office will hold on to the treats and deliver them to the class at the end of the day after instruction. Please feel free to reach out to the Clark office. Thank you for understanding.
Great job Clark! We raised a total of $2101.96 which was way over our goal of $500. A total of 25 students participating online. Ms. Foreman, Ms. Skye, and Ms. Brey had the most participation and will get a glow party in PE.
CSS Clark Arboretum Welcome Event
🌳The CSS Clark Arboretum Welcome Event will be on May 19th in the Arboretum! This event is co-sponsored with The Montavilla Neighborhood Association and Portland Parks. There will be refreshments, a map/legend of the 50 trees, a tree bingo game, possible items for sale to raise money to replace some of the trees and more! Join Portland Parks Tree Steward Lisa Wilcke and the Montavilla Neighborhood Association Parks & Garden Committee to have a fun day in the sun and learn about our Arboretum! Below is a map of the original trees and more information here. We hope to see you there. Meet us in the Arboretum off SE 89th Avenue 🌲
Sunday, May 19, 2024, 02:00 PM
Southeast 89th Avenue, Portland, OR, USA
The Clark community will be selecting a Social Emotional Learning (SEL) curriculum for next school year. The choices are Wayfinder and Caring School Communities. Please check out the websites forWayfinderandCaring School Communities.
We would love to hear from you if you have a preference for either curriculum. Please completethis google formwith your preference.
Counseling lessons for Quarter 4 will start with executive functioning skills and finish with career cluster information. Spring is a great time to review and strengthen skills like organization, flexible thinking, time management, and planning. We will finish the year strong with lessons about community helpers, career paths, and education options. In 5th grade, we'll focus on the transition to middle school.
As always, I love to partner with families so please reach out to me anytime atankennedy@pps.net.
Please note that last month PPS released this message about the change to bell schedules for next year.
Next year’s bell schedules will change for many students.
Beginning next school year, we added 15 instructional minutes for elementary and middle school students and provided all middle school students with a seven-period day. Accommodating these changes while supporting 410 minutes per week of teacher planning time and aligning our transportation systems requires us to adopt common start and stop times:
At K-5 schools, students will now start at 8:00 AM and end at 2:30 PM
At K-8 schools, all students will start at 8:45 AM.
K-5 students will end at 3:15 PM.
6-8 students will end at 3:30 PM
At middle schools, students will now start at 9:15 AM and end at 4:00 PM
At high schools, students will now start at 8:26 AM and end at 3:30 PM
More particular variations of these schedules (e.g. early-dismissal or late-arrival) will be available in the coming weeks on your school’s website. Multiple Pathway to Graduation schools (alternative, charter and treatment schools) develop their own schedules and will be sharing those later.
Our summer registration is now open! We are offering 6 weeks of summer camp starting on June 24th! The last day of Summer Day Camp will be on August 2nd.
Stephanie Vera
HabloEspañol
she/her/ella Before and After School Assistant Director
School Starts at 8:45 am Please make sure to arrive on time for school. This helps our classrooms get started on time for the day to not miss instruction and fun activities.
School Ends at 3:00 pm Please make sure to pick up your students promptly at 3pm. The Clark Office will begin calling guardians and emergency contacts at 3:10 pm for students. Our office closes at 3:30 pm.
Please do not drop off your students prior to school opening unless they are supervised by a parent/guardian. We have no student supervision until 8:38 am. Thank you!
Two exceptional PPS educators, Ricardo Barber and Hang Jones, were recently named OnPoint Educators of the Year for 2025.
As part of this prestigious honor, both teachers will have their rent or mortgage paid for an entire year, and their schools also receive a $2,500 donation.
Ricardo Barber teaches third grade at Faubion, and Hang Jones serves as a social worker at Marysville Elementary.
The OnPoint Prize for Excellence in Education celebrates educators who embrace innovative teaching techniques that ignite enthusiasm in their students.
Congratulations to Ricardo Barber and Hang Jones! And thank you both for everything you do to make a difference in the lives our students.
The assignment their teacher gave them was simple – make a short film that begins with a phone call and ends with someone hanging up. Benson first-year students Dylan Martinez-Torres and Dariel Soriano Zamora ran it all the way to a small city populated by two very big and rather iconic monsters – Godzilla and Hedora.
The result, Sorry, Wrong Number, is one of the more than 90 films entered into the annual Best of PPS Film Festival. The festival is a celebration of exceptional student filmmaking that includes a showcase at the historic Hollywood Theatre.
The fourth annual installment of the festival took place on May 21 and included a screening of 13 standout films. The films came from all over PPS and ran the gamut from Dylan and Dariel’s monster short to documentaries, film noir, and broadcast journalism.
If you are a passionate student or community member that wants to make a difference at PPS, apply to join the Climate Crisis Response Committee! This is a committee that reports to the PPS Board of Education.
On the committee you will learn about how PPS is making progress towards our climate justice and sustainability policies, provide input and recommendations to the PPS Board on how to better support PPS staff as we advance these policy goals, and connect with other passionate members of our PPS community from diverse backgrounds, knowledge areas, and lived experiences.
No previous professional experience in climate change or sustainability required! Students can apply via this form. Community members can apply here.
Each year, special education students from across the region gather at Portland's Crystal Ballroom for a truly unique and uniquely joyful high school dance.
Earthstock began in 1992 at the request of a young student who was confined to a wheelchair and was disappointed he couldn’t attend the high school dances because of transportation issues. There were 60 kids at the first event. Earthstock now entertains more than 700 students, staff and volunteers, and is rapidly becoming one the largest events of its kind in the country.
