On February 24, the district held the second annual State of the District event. While the evening was filled with gratitude for our staff and families, the overarching theme was clear: This is a story of progress. Despite challenges, Salem-Keizer is moving forward. As a district, we are seeing the results of a tireless dedication to our core values—students at the center, equity, excellence, relationships, and community. We are not just holding steady; we are leveling up.
A special shoutout goes to the school teams from Liberty Elementary, Claggett Creek Middle School, Crossler Middle School, and the Behavioral Health Center. Their presentations brought real classroom stories to life, providing a true picture of the transformative work happening in our schools every day. These stories captured both the complex challenges our families face and the incredible bravery of our students in sharing their journeys.
Chapter 1: Leveling Up Literacy
Progress begins with the fundamentals. Literacy is the central focus of our mission to elevate academic excellence, backed by board priorities and significant investments in time and systems.
Unified Focus and Systems
The team at Liberty Elementary shared how they reimagined their school day with a dedicated “Foundational Skills Block.” By aligning schedules across all grade levels, they have unlocked deeper teacher collaboration and more intentional small-group instruction, leading to strong vertical alignment from kindergarten through fifth grade. This shift ensures every student, whether in general or special education, has consistent access to the support they need to become thoughtful and engaged readers.
Systemwide Consistency
During the program, Deputy Superintendent Olga Cobb highlighted that this progress is being scaled district-wide. We are building a literacy foundation in every school to ensure every child’s experience is supported by research-aligned, proven strategies.
Chapter 2: High-Quality Instructional Materials
We are halfway through a five-year process to modernize our core curriculum, ensuring our educators have the high-quality tools they deserve to drive student success.
- Moving Toward Coherence: We are moving away from outdated materials and the burden of staff-created curriculum. By implementing district-wide high-quality materials, we guarantee that every student, regardless of which school they attend or which classroom they are in, has access to rigorous, grade-level instruction.
- Collaborative Success: Through Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), teachers collaborate weekly to analyze student work and develop interventions. The mission has shifted from individual instruction to a collective responsibility: “What are our students learning, and how do we ensure no child is missed?”
Chapter 3: We Are Climbing Together
We maintain a laser focus on five measurable goals. Through disciplined work, we are seeing steady, upward progress:
- Regular school attenders: Showing improvement
- So far this school year, we have been averaging about 87% daily attendance. But that isn’t enough: we need our students to attend school on time, every day, and we are making progress. Right now, about 57% of our students attend school almost every day, meaning 43% missed 10% or more of the last school year.
- 9th grade on track: Showing improvement
- Nearly 85% of our ninth-graders earned at least six credits during their freshman year. High school students need 24 credits to graduate.
- Third-grade literacy: Showing improvement
- Last year, Salem-Keizer made our first progress on 3rd grade literacy since the pandemic. At 25.4% for third-grade ELA proficiency, there’s a lot of work ahead of us, but every success stories starts somewhere, and we have started. Despite a difficult budget year, we are making new investments in elementary literacy with new curriculum and training and improving instructional conditions in kindergarten and first grade classrooms.
- Graduation rates: Showing improvement
- Graduation rates have continued to inch up for the past two years. Five of our six comprehensive high schools exceeded the state average, and at nearly 80%, we are a few points shy of our annual target.
- Student sense of belonging: Holding steady
- Year over year, elementary and secondary rates held steady. Our secondary students remain above our annual target, while elementary is below our annual target.
Chapter 4: Accessing Education
Progress is only possible when students feel safe and supported. To ensure every student can access instruction, we have bolstered our internal support systems.
- Behavioral Health Gains: Our Behavioral Health Coaching & Training Academy has supported over 2,500 team members, and we recently opened the Behavioral Health Center at Straub Middle School. The team from Crossler Middle School shared the story of Kaden, a middle school student who embarked on an incredible journey to belonging through the support of the Behavioral Health Center.
- Rapid Response: New Rapid Response Teams have completed 35 deployments across 31 schools to stabilize classrooms and empower our staff with immediate support.
Chapter 5: Progress & Pressing Issues
We remain absolutely clear: every student is welcomed, protected, and respected in our schools—no exceptions…