In this episode of Learning in Lake Oswego, we explore the strong partnership between the Lake Oswego School District and the Lake Oswego Police Department. Superintendent Dr. Jennifer Schiele sits down with Police Chief George Burk and School Resource Officers Bryan Sheldon and Oscar Fregoso to discuss how this collaboration benefits our students and strengthens our community.
Dr. Jennifer Schiele, Superintendent, LOSD
Mary Kay Larson, Executive Director of Communications, LOSD
George Burk, Chief of Police, Lake Oswego Police Department
Bryan Sheldon, School Resource Officer, Lake Oswego Police Department
Oscar Fregoso, School Resource Officer, Lake Oswego Police Department
MICHELLE ODELL:: [00:00:00] Welcome to Learning in Lake Oswego, a podcast providing educational insights for an engaged community. Lake Oswego School District Superintendent, Dr. Jennifer Schiele, will discuss what's important to our learning community. She'll be joined by experts examining various topics, answering important questions, and sharing upcoming events and activities you won't want to miss.
And now, it's your host. Lake Oswego School District Executive Director of Communications Mary Kay Larson
MARY KAY LARSON:: Welcome to learning in Lake Oswego. I'm your host Mary Kay Larson. I'm here with our superintendent. Dr. Jennifer Schiele today We're sitting down with our partners in the Lake Oswego Police Department Discuss our two organizations our relationship and how it benefits our students and our community.
Police Chief George Burk and our school resource officers Brian Sheldon and Oscar Vergoso join us.
JENNIFER SCHIELE:: Thank you so much for ensuring our safety and our security in our schools. [00:01:00] I work really closely with the chief and of course our SROs here in our schools and I'd like to start with Chief Burk to help provide perspective on the support of our local police department in our broader school
Speaker 4: community.
Speaker 3: Hi Chief Burk.
GEORGE BURK:: Dr. Schiele, how you doing?
Speaker 3: Fantastic. Thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
Speaker 3: Before discussing the department, please share your journey as a police officer and what brought you to Lake Oswego.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure we have enough time to get through all of it, but we're going to try. So my journey really started in college when I went to Western Oregon State College, which is now Western Oregon University, and I majored in criminal justice, had a real passion for actually wanting to be in education to begin with.
And when I did a little bit of student teaching in high school, I realized that I wanted to do something where I could educate as well as work with people and work in an environment where it's different every single day. And I went on a ride along one day and decided that law enforcement was really going to be the future for me when I took a look at wanting to do something different, [00:02:00] educate our community, because that's how I see law enforcement.
is working to educate and then went to college from there. Loved my time at Western Oregon and got out of college and got my first job with the city of Forest Grove and worked there for about three and a half years before I saw the bright lights and the stars of the city of Portland and went to work for Portland where I worked for 25 years.
So pretty exciting time there, left as a commander at North Precinct and retired actually and ended up getting hired as a deputy chief down in Salem, Oregon. Where I worked in Salem for a little over five and a half years. Never thought I'd be a chief and then ended up seeing an opportunity here in the city of Lake Oswego and meeting with some folks up here and talking to a former chief Jorgensen.
I realized that this was really, really the place that I wanted to be.
Speaker 3: We're so excited that you're here. Can you describe for our listeners the relationship between the LOPD and then the Lake Oswego School District?
Speaker 4: I look at the, I mean, that's really the big thing. It's all about relationship, right? I see it as a partnership between both the school [00:03:00] district and the police department and the city as a whole.
I think we've shown that relationship and partnership in so many different ways. where we've collaborated on a lot of different projects. We've worked together not just on school issues and not just public safety issues, but community related issues as well. When you take a look at, you know, the years past, you know, we, we've all gone through some kind of rough times from 2020 to today.
And I think the, the work that we've done to work with our communities and continue to develop and work together, I think has made each of our programs that much better.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree. What do you see as those key factors that contribute to the strength of our partnership?
Speaker 4: Well, again, it's relationship, right?
And it's about understanding that no, no part of it is bigger than the other. Kind of when you take a look at the role, when we see our SROs in the schools and what we're doing and focusing on the fact that it's, it's, we look at it from such a different perspective than just enforcement related. It's, it's really when you take a look at things as a three legged stool and you start looking at.
What exactly are the role of the SROs and how do [00:04:00] they contribute to safety? How do they work as mentors within the school and how do they also work to educate? I think that is kind of the the big partnership from our side is is how do we get outside of our comfort zone and Actually work to enhance and create a more safe environment as well as being a resource to develop further relationship With our future community when you take a look at our students They are the future of the city of Lagos we go And anything we can do to enhance that relationship with them and enhance it with the school and in the rest of the community, I think is a benefit to all the different programs.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And that brings me to how do you collaborate with us to ensure safety and security in our schools?
Speaker 4: I'd look at some of the, I mean, we can take a look at our student threat assessment programs where I think we work pretty closely together. We're having open lines of communication. We work really, really hard to keep kids out of the justice system and we look at factors things like restorative justice, where we're, you get a typical police response to a, to an event at a school, most officers are going to [00:05:00] work as quickly as they can to resolve the problem, move on to the next one.
The relationship in the schools isn't like that. We're working more closely to actually find ways to resolve problems without actually getting kids into the justice system, which I think really goes against the thought of what I think a lot of people think an SRO does. But they have the ability to have the time to develop that relationship, to work closely with the school, to find a best solution, and if the best solution is to enter into the system, then that's what we need to do.
But I think there are so many other times where that relationship exists that allows us to work with the school and the student and the parents to find a more restorative way of dealing with the issues.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that makes good sense. How does community policing play a role in the work of your officers, particularly in the context of schools?
Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think we've come a long way since, you know, the 1980s when we kind of started in the, in the concept of community policing, which really involved community and police working together to solve problems, identifying problems, solving problems. We've moved more into an engagement aspect, and I think engaging community and really, truly [00:06:00] being a partner and listening.
The old community policing, I think, was really, really good in creating dialogue, but I think law enforcement still focused as law enforcement, and they, they kind of I don't know. We gave, it's almost like people had a voice, right? We always gave people a voice, but I'm not sure that voice was actually heard as well as it is today.
When you take a look at, and I try and stay away from buzzwords, but when we talk about principled policing, you know, the, the concepts of procedural justice. It's about developing trust. It's about developing a relationship. It's coming in from a position of neutrality. So really focusing on those issues I think helps with how we do our work within the schools and how we focus on community policing as a whole.
And understanding that the school district and the schools themselves are their own community and they all focus and function differently depending on which one you're in and understanding the You know, the culture of each one of those I think is really important and spending the time to develop those relationships to understand that helps us be successful.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. Can you discuss any specific programs or [00:07:00] initiatives the police department has implemented in partnership with school district?
Speaker 4: We went down to the Museum of Tolerance. The work that we did down there as a group, I mean, it was, it was the school district, it was the city, it was community members, and the collaboration that we had there, I think, carries over to the work that we do here in the city, focusing not just on, on the school district aspect, but also the whole community, collectively.
I think when you take a look at Word as Bond, I think is really another good example of how we're working with our communities, especially our communities of color, our underrepresented communities, goes back to that concept of giving people a voice, giving people a seat at the table and being part of it.
The work that we've done with the Equity Council and the Black Student Union and all the different things that we do to be involved at the school and being, again, a partner, not just a partner to sit there. But a partner to actually participate, listen, problem solve, maybe identify solutions outside the box.
There's just so much that we can do as long as we're working [00:08:00] collaboratively.
Speaker 3: Very good point. What impact do you believe police presence in schools has on our students and our staff?
Speaker 4: Well, the impact I think it has is that it creates a, in most cases, I think it creates a feeling of safety. It creates that, I think it helps to actually break down some of the barriers that we've had between police and community.
especially with our younger communities, it, it kind of fights against maybe some of the preconceived notions each has of the other. And the more time that you spend actually building a relationship at that level, it's really easy to look across the country and see the things that happened someplace else and think, well, that happens there, but here's my experience here in the city of Lake Oswego.
And here's what I have from my own personal experience. And maybe even just boils down to the individual officers that we have that are assigned to the schools. They get the benefit of the doubt a lot of times because of the relationships they have. Where in other places they may look and say, well, you know, I don't have that relationship.
So it's, it's like that there, right? But it's, it's different here. It's different because we, we know [00:09:00] our, we know our officers, we know our community, we know our kids in the school. And I think they have that level of they just have that reputation and they have that relationship with each other.
Speaker 3: Yeah, next I'm speaking with the SROs specifically about how they build those relationships with our students.
And I've watched it happen over years. It's fantastic how our SROs do work with our students and staff. What do you think are some of the challenges that your department faces in maintaining school safety? And then how are those addressed?
Speaker 4: Well, one of the big challenges we have is just keeping our staffing where it needs to be.
You know, we're at a time where we have a lot of people my age, or maybe a little younger, who are deciding it's time to retire and go do other things. So our, our ability to recruit is really, really difficult. We are constantly in a hiring process, trying to keep our staffing numbers up. So working to make sure that we have the adequate staffing to keep working in the schools.
We can talk about funding all day long. It's, I think we have a very good relationship when it comes to how we structure that kind of stuff with the school, within the district. But those things can [00:10:00] always become a challenge. You just, you can't anticipate when those are going to happen. It's just trying to work through those.
When you take a look at, again, kind of where we've come over the last couple of years, I think there's a lot. That we've had to dispel and try to work through when it comes to that relationship and reputation and work that we do and what the what the role is of the SRO and to continually work against that and work to support the real work that gets done and to highlight those issues and find those ways to push the positives to how we help resolve conflict or how we help solve problems at the school or how we can just be there to be a mentor to develop the future of our community and It wasn't that long ago we had an event at one of the, one of the grade schools, I believe, you'll correct me if I'm wrong, but the way that we worked through and I'll just, I'll just refer to it specifically when we had a bomb threat at the school that we, we took very seriously.
And I think it was really, really important to see how we worked both with the school district, as well as within our own office and how we were [00:11:00] able to dedicate resources, both from the school, as well as from the police department and from the fire department. And truly create the safest environment for our kids and for the faculty at the school.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that experience was really scary and we were so happy to have that partnership and know the people by name and, and already have a relationship built with them. So that's a really good example. Can you share any other success stories or positive outcomes resulting from the collaboration between the police department and the school district?
Speaker 4: Well, I just look at, again, when we focus on safety, right, and you, and you look at The drills, the level of practice that we do in the schools to make sure that our, any response that we have to any school event, that people know what their role is and know what they need to do and know how to keep themselves safe and know what to expect, rather than just trying to figure it out in the moment.
You know, I'd never actually gone through one of the lockdown drills at the schools until until I came here. And I've done a couple different ones and to watch. Both the faculty at the school truly [00:12:00] understanding the expectations, the students living up to the expectations and understanding where they need to go and what they need to do.
And then the officer's roles as they work through to make sure that people have put themselves in a safe position. I, I think that's one big highlight of of some of the work that we've been able to do within the schools.
Speaker 3: I just want to thank you so much, George, for coming down and being in the studio today, but also just for keeping us safe.
I feel, I feel great having you as a chief in Lake Oswego and I look forward to continuing our relationship.
Speaker 4: Well, I appreciate that. Thank you. Thanks for the invite.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely. Now let's turn our attention to our school resource officers who are in our schools daily. Officer Brian Sheldon, you have been with us for many years.
For those of who do not know you, can you please share how you became a police officer and what brought you to Lake Oswego?
BRYAN SHELDON:: I'm heading into my 19th year with Lake Oswego Police Department. I was first hired in May of 2006 after service in the Marine Corps. [00:13:00] And I became a Lake Oswego resident back in 2013.
My wife and our two twins moved here for the school district. So it was really convenient, obviously for work and the school resource officer position came open in 2017. I was selected as an SRO and I'm heading into my eighth full school year. So.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Brian. Now, Officer Oscar Fragoso, this is your first year as one of our SROs, but you're not new to LO or LOSD.
Please share your journey as an officer and what made you want to become one of our SROs.
OSCAR FREGOSO:: So this is going to be my first year going into the LOSD as a school resource officer. I have four years with the City of Lake Oswego as a patrol officer. Before becoming a patrol officer, I actually interned for the police department for about eight months.
That was what really helped me decide where to apply and go through the process of applying for a [00:14:00] police officer. The reason I wanted to become a police officer was because growing up I had a really good relationship with my SROs. Both, which are still in law enforcement, Officer Christopherson from Malala, and then now Detective Alexander for the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office, they just had great relationships and respected, we had a mutual respect for one another, which.
Kind of help make my decision as to what I want to be when I grow up. So they really contributed a whole lot to that.
Speaker 3: That's great that you figured out what you want to be when you grow up. Cause I'm still trying to figure that out myself. Either one of you, could you please explain the roles and responsibilities of a school resource officer?
Speaker 5: Our roles and responsibilities really is. Just, it's kind of, it's in the title School Resource Officer, so that middle word resource is the foundation of, of what we do. Not only are we just a liaison between the school district and the police department, but creating a safe learning environment is obviously one of the priorities for the school district, but it, that's what school resource officers [00:15:00] provide as well.
But I honestly think the biggest part of that is just building relationships, not just with the students, but also with the staff and the extended family of the Lake Oswego school community. So enforcement is probably the least of our roles and responsibilities because we take a partnership with the school district and think about what is the, what's in the best interest of each student.
Whether we're directly involved with that student or group of students or indirectly. So making sure all of our emergency services are available for the school district, the protocols that we have, you know, with drills and physical safety features that the, the school district currently has and that they, you guys plan on producing here in the future.
So it's just, we wear many hats, you know, mentorship, you know, a lot of advice. And just kind of a, we're an extended arm of, you know, like the teaching staff and the parents and just kind of guiding kids into becoming great adults as they transition from high school to adulthood. [00:16:00]
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's absolutely true, Brian.
You've given me so much great advice over the years. What are some of the other ways you build relationships with students, families, and our school personnel?
Speaker 5: There's so many ways, I mean, one, just being present at the school, you know, we're recognizable obviously because we are certified police officers in the state and we are hired by the Lake Oswego Police Department and it's a, it's an agreement between the police department and the school.
So we're in uniform. We have a special. Mark police trucks. So those are a little bit different than regular patrol vehicles, but we want to be recognizable by the community and the students and the staff and the families so that there is no question if, if a student or anybody else in our school community needs our assistance, we can be pretty easily recognized.
recognized. No one's going to confuse us for a teacher or a school counselor or a special education assistant or anything like that. So being present is certainly the biggest thing. But whether it's in the high school or the middle school or any of our elementaries [00:17:00] going around, you know, just being available.
And being around the kids and just having casual conversations and saying hi and introducing ourselves to everyone that we can in the buildings and they can, you know, the students, we encourage them to ask us questions or talk to us because you never know, like Officer Fregoso, his relationship that he had with his SROs was a positive thing.
And that's kind of what led him into becoming a police officer and an SRO himself. If we can impact one kid throughout the course of our duties that is going to help them with their future decisions and their employment or career path or anything like that, then we've, we've had a successful job as an SRO.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. Oscar, how do you plan on getting involved with our schools and our extracurricular activities?
Speaker 6: Going back to kind of what Sheldon said, just being present, being present at those athletic events, those theater events, the other events such as whether it be a science fair or whatever events [00:18:00] being held by the school, I think it's important to be present to kind of establish yourself as someone that supports every extracurricular activity that the school offers big or small.
I think they all deserve the equal amount of attention and time from an SRO just so we can show to the students and the families that we're here with a genuine desire just to build those bonds.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's great. And I know the kids love seeing you all at plays and games. And so it's nice that you're able to come and make that time.
Brian, how do you support the school district in ensuring safety and security of our students?
Speaker 5: Well, our function as police officers is public safety. It kind of started before Oscar and I were even selected as SROs. That's a huge piece of what we do in our profession, but more specifically to schools, not that it's a requirement in the state of Oregon, but.
Oscar actually just finished the National Association of School Resource Officers basic course, which I completed also when I first became a, an SRO. There's constant training. I, I [00:19:00] actually have been attending our Oregon School Resource Officer Association Conference. It's a school safety conference annually every summer that SROs from across the state attend.
And it's a lot of good training through speakers from around the country. local speakers, and it's not all just dissecting past events or anything like that, but try to continue to improve the best practices that occur throughout the country, but also locally, because every state has very different laws when it comes to schools and law enforcement investigations and things like that.
So it's not just the physical safety either. It's you know, digital safety with technology and social media. I've been a guest speaker in a number of our classes from the elementary level all the way through high school and youth leadership groups, not just to students, but to also parents, just because it's such an important resource that our students use with their cell phones, they're on their cell phones a lot, you know, and 90 percent of the time it's really [00:20:00] helpful, but there is always the temptation of how social media can either become addicting or kind of desensitize them the students from things that they do see online, whether it's YouTube So that's it's an important piece that wasn't necessarily there when I was in high school, that's for sure.
Yeah, and then behavioral safety assessments, you know, if there's a, a student that really needs some, some assistance with life decisions, you know, if it's getting in the way of their student learning or it's impacting other students. What is the best way that we can provide support and support?
And help and what resources can we provide, not just the student, but the family to assist these kids and, you know, continue to grow because those are important life lessons that aren't necessarily law enforcement related. So the safety is, it's a broad spectrum of. How we can keep our, our schools in a safe learning environment.
And it's very, we don't do it on our own working with you, Dr. Sheely and your [00:21:00] staff, the principals and the assistant principals and the counselors. It takes, it takes a village and it's a lot of teamwork. So it's never just one person doing all the work.
Speaker 3: Definitely takes a village. I agree with you on that one.
How do you assist schools in preparing for emergencies, including planning drills and managing incidents within the schools?
Speaker 5: For the last several years, we've had a safety and security coordinator. We also have our training officer in our police department officer Mike Brady, who you know very well.
So, and it starts, you know, well behind the scenes, just scheduling all the drills earthquake drills, fire drills, lockdown drills, secure drills. And while the lockdown secured girls are relatively new across our country, obviously in the last 10 to 15 years, they become a little bit more prevalent and preparing our student body and our staff and the parents alike, because thinking about some of those emergency preparedness scenarios can be scary, but I think through training and repetition.
And making it [00:22:00] a little bit more normal piece of our learning environment here in Lake Oswego, the 7, 000 students and, you know, however many staff that we have, it becomes easier and easier. And every year we field questions, not just us as SROs, but I know you do as well, Dr. Sheely, and the principles of why we do those drills and how we do those drills.
And it's very transparent, you know, that it's never going to be any secret. We're happy to have. Parents come in and even observe the drills and see why we do it. And. Hopefully we never have to experience any of those things in the real world, but if the kids are prepared, it's very similar to, you know, testing and doing homework.
The more that they, they focus on the best practices, then the better they're going to perform in the event that we ever have to, to do any of those things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very good point. Can you think of any examples that Specific examples where your involvement has been particularly impactful.
Speaker 5: I think this is the one area as an SRO that [00:23:00] is very unique to the police department.
On patrol, Oscar knows this as well. I mean, nobody's calling the police because things are going well. You know, it's a hundred percent of the time people are Calling us for response because something negative happened. And that's not always the case as a school resource officer, because it's a lot of the involvement that we have with a shop with a cop around the holidays, going to, you know, a lot of athletic events or extracurricular activities and the relationship building.
We get to know. And if there's something that we can do to help impact one student or their family or a group of students I certainly do everything in my power that I can to help that student or family. So there was a few years ago, it was a shop for the cop event that we were doing and one of the students at one of our elementary schools really wanted a bike.
And that's, you know, they're not cheap. And it was, it was a little challenging trying to explain to this, you know, younger student that, yeah, I don't [00:24:00] know that that's what the, the gift card allows for, but I felt compelled to just kind of go out and do something on my own and, you know, Gift this child with a bike.
So we actually brought it over to his, his house a couple of days before Christmas and the look on his face, I will never forget. I mean, that was amazing. You know, mom's super thrilled about it. And it's not something that was really known to the public at the time or ever. Really. But I, I thought it was the right thing to do.
And those little things that we can do to provide support and show the kids that we genuinely care about their wellbeing, not just safety, but just their quality of life, that's really important. I, it goes a long ways of building trust and rapport and credibility that we actually do care. It's not just something that maybe we were, this isn't a profession that we, we were told to do.
We have to want to do it. So.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's beautiful, Brian. I can only imagine as a mom, if someone brought my child a bike, how I'd be. Full of tears in my [00:25:00] eyes. So that's fantastic that you went that extra mile. What are the main goals as SROs in the Lake Oswego School District?
Speaker 5: I mean just really fulfilling not just the mission of our police department with excellent service and but the partnership between Us as SROs and the school district, and just ensuring that the, all of our students are being provided the best education service and the safest learning environment as possible.
You know, every day it's, it could change, but the foundation of creating that safe learning environment and building trust with our kids and with our staff and with our school community has got to be first priority. If kids don't feel like they have a safe learning environment, it's going to be really hard for them to learn and achieve the goals that they want to.
So our goals are. Really, they're the, the student's goals and when the students are starting to achieve their goals, the teachers can also provide the best support and best education services to those students and we're just kind of an extension of that as well.
Speaker 3: Oscar, I know you're brand new, but how do you [00:26:00] envision the future of the SRO program?
Speaker 6: For me, it's having the students here and the families have a face when it comes to law enforcement. A lot of times when, like when Sheldon said earlier, Families call for police when things are going bad or they need help with something. If we can be the face of law enforcement knowing that they have a known face that they can call a trusted face, that's gonna help.
The students that come here to school, we want to make sure that they thrive. Whether it be us or a counselor or a teacher, knowing that we've created this environment that they can come and just thrive with their studies and their extracurricular activities, and just their overall growth. I just want to be able to help them however I can, and it may be just where they want to say hi every morning, but it's where they Or we're on their way out there, just feel comfortable saying goodbye to me.
I want to be able to connect with these kids the same way I did growing up with my SROs where I knew walking out of school they were going to be there, I could talk to them and joke around with them. But I also knew that when I needed something, they were there for me. Without a question, they'd show up.
So I want to do the [00:27:00] same thing. I want that, I want that feeling of, I'm contributing to the growth of these students and later on they can say like, I had this SRO and he did this or he told me this and it just contributed to their growth.
Speaker 3: That's awesome. Have you been gifted your first pacer blue shirt yet?
Speaker 6: I have not.
Speaker 3: Not yet. So you gotta get used to wearing that baby blue.
Speaker 6: Oh, I'll wear it every day.
Speaker 3: Being on the south side there. So is there anything else you guys just want the community to know about your work or the SOR program?
Speaker 5: This is a position that we sought out. This isn't something that the police department or the school district told us that we needed to do.
The selection process, it's something that we volunteer for. It's a special assignment through the police department and it takes a very unique person. kind of a personality and someone who really wants to do the good work, just like, you know, being a teacher or a principal or a counselor. I mean, it takes a certain person to actually want to do this for all the right reasons.
We're part of the restorative practices goals that the school district has. These kids are still learning. They're [00:28:00] still developing. And if we can just be a part of that growth process, then that's, then we're achieving our goals as school resource officers. So we are here for you. The students in the school that's really the basic of of why we do what we do and whatever we can do to, to make this one of the best districts in the state of Oregon, if not the country, then we'll continue to, to partner with the, the school district to make that happen every single day.
Speaker 3: I love that. And so lastly, how do our students and parents best connect with you or seek your assistance or how do they find you?
Speaker 5: Well the school district has part of their website safety and security section that there's an SRO page that you can certainly find on the LOSD website. There's some resources and Guidelines and things like that, that our community can learn about.
Certainly email out, obviously not just through the police department, but as we're selected for this position through the school district, we're provided school emails. There's a number of different ways. I mean, phone [00:29:00] numbers, you know, we have office numbers through the police department. But we also do give our work cell phone numbers out on occasion, depending on the case.
If everybody had my cell phone, sometimes it feels like that. But
Speaker 3: Sometimes it feels like that for me.
Speaker 5: Yeah. So obviously, because we don't really have offices, we have, it's constantly an open door policy. So if people see us in the community, whether we're driving around in our trucks, or they come into any one of our schools and they know that we're there, They can certainly say hi, we encourage that, and we're going to try and say hi and be as friendly as we can and available.
And if nobody really knows how to get in touch with us and they want to see us face to face, they can go into any one of our schools, talk to a principal or administrative staff in the main office, and someone's going to know how to get in touch with us. And that's important, because if we're not available, if our school staff don't know how to get in touch with us, then we're not really doing our job.
Every school year at the beginning of the year Oscar and I, you know, just in a couple in August, we always get together with all of our staff during their professional development and make sure that they have all that they [00:30:00] need from us. That way they can also be a kind of a liaison between the students and us as well.
Because we just want to make sure that we're always available.
Speaker 3: And, and you all are. I, I always feel like Sunday night at midnight I can call either of you and you answer the phone and I feel that same way about Chief Burk. So, what a great relationship we have with our LOPD especially our Very personal SROs that we have.
So thank you so much for being here today. It really means a great deal to us that you took time to introduce yourself to our community. And please everyone out there listening know that you can reach out to these two anytime. They are here to help. They are our resource officer. Thanks.
Speaker 5: Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Chief Burk and Officer Sheldon and Fergasso. In my role, I have the opportunity to work with all of you, and you are an invaluable resource to our community and really appreciate the relationship that we have. Before we wrap up this episode of Learning in Lake Oswego, Jen, please tell us where you're going to be in the upcoming [00:31:00] weeks.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. The fall is always a busy time in schools, but October is one of my favorite months. favorite months. And not only because it's my birthday, but because students and staff start to settle into a nice routine. Tomorrow is our dedicated testing day in our high schools. We have our pre A. C. T. R. P.
S. A. T. And the S. A. T. Assessments will be available for all of our high school students in the morning. Students will be dismissed at one p. m. After this optional testing. We used to do this and we're so pleased that we get to offer it again to our students who really need to be able to do this during the school day.
We also have our district wide advisory committee meeting on October 7th when we bring together over 100 family and staff representatives serving our advisory committees to discuss key initiatives for our school year. This meeting is always open to the public. Later that week on October 11th, schools will be closed while our teachers participate in a statewide day dedicated to professional development.
I think our community appreciates knowing that our [00:32:00] educators are continuously learning, dedicated to developing their professional skills for the benefit of our students. And we're so fortunate to have the greatest teachers and they keep getting better and better and better.
Speaker 2: We do have awesome teachers and staff and really appreciate that we have that day for some real quality learning.
It's amazing all the things that they cover in that day. That wraps up this episode of Learning in Lake Oswego. Next time we will discuss how our students learn about the Holocaust and other critical historical events in our schools.
Speaker 3: Until then. Keep exploring and stay engaged. Class dismissed.
Speaker: We hope you found this episode informative and helpful.
While our discussions are general, we understand each family's experience is unique. If you have specific questions about your child, please contact your school principal. To learn more about the topics we discussed, Ask a question or share ideas for [00:33:00] future episodes, please visit LOSDSchools. org. And remember to like and follow us wherever you get your podcasts.
Thank you for engaging with Learning in Lake Oswego. We appreciate your support and look forward to having you with us for our next episode.