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Superintendent outlines summer projects, Attendance Awareness Month initiatives and policy topics including cell-phone rules
Summary
Superintendent Owens reviewed summer facilities work, meal and transportation operations, attendance initiatives including a Shadow Project partnership, an upcoming ODE visit to Pleasant Valley Elementary, and previewed work session topics such as the cell-phone policy and budget committee vacancy.
Superintendent Owens delivered the district's opening-year operations report at the Sept. 10 Centennial School Board meeting, summarizing summer facilities projects, student supports and district priorities for the academic year.
Owens highlighted completed and ongoing facilities work: purchase and renovation of a Centennial Transition Center, seismic upgrades at Oliver Middle School (classroom wing, media center, main entry, cafeteria and office), renovated learning spaces at Park Lane Elementary (including ELD rooms and a music room) and new playgrounds and paint work across multiple sites. Owens said water-bottle filling stations were completed or underway at several schools and the CHS gym floor and main hallways received upgrades.
He also reviewed operational summer work: dining services served more than 3,000 breakfasts and 13,600 lunches; the transportation department routed summer programs and prepared drivers and staff; IT installed new Chromebooks, upgraded the district network and Office installations; campus safety liaisons received scenario-based safety training; and summer academic offerings produced more than 210 completed credit-recovery courses, an increase of 72 from the previous summer.
On attendance, Owens said September 2025 is Attendance Awareness Month (a gubernatorial proclamation noted in his remarks) and described the district's Everyday Matters partnership with the nonprofit Shadow Project, funded in part by the Oregon Lottery. Owens said the Shadow Project supports sensory spaces, reading mentors and staff training; he credited Pleasant Valley Elementary with a feature by the Oregon Department of Education and Oregon Lottery for attendance and belonging work. He said ODE plans a back-to-school visit to Pleasant Valley on Wednesday, Sept. 17, from 9 to 10:30 a.m.
"The Shadow Project helps to support our sensory space. It helps to train our teachers and our educational assistants, and it helps with reading supports for kids," Owens said.
Owens previewed other administrative items: the district will examine class sizes after the 10-day attendance reporting process (the "10-day drop"), added one kindergarten teacher at Pleasant Valley so far and will continue to monitor hot-spot class-size areas. He also previewed a board work session agenda item on cell-phone restrictions in schools tied to a governor's order and said the district has begun enforcement protocols at secondary levels.
Owens announced the budget committee application window will open Monday, Sept. 15 and close Wednesday, Oct. 16; board interviews with candidates are planned for the Oct. 22 meeting. He reminded the board that homecoming will be Friday, Oct. 3, beginning with a parade that will start at Centennial Middle School this year.
Board members asked clarifying questions on class-size hot spots, equity committee representation on the budget committee and early feedback on cell-phone rule implementation; Owens said staff would follow up and that some policy guidance from OSBA is under review.
