After nearly losing their district, Gervais teachers prepare for a new school year

This spring, voters in the small Willamette Valley town of Gervais were faced with an ultimatum — vote “yes” on a much-needed construction bond to salvage the run-down local schools, or say “no” and allow the entire school district to close.

Voters said yes. By approving a $28 million capital construction bond, the district avoided closing its doors and online programs to roughly 1,260 students.

Passing a bond felt far from a sure thing: After eight failed attempts, the 2024 measure was the first bond passed for the Gervais School District in more than 30 years.

Construction hasn’t started yet. Over the next year or so, district leaders will be deep in preparation — designing changes, picking contractors and securing materials and equipment.

“There’s just a ton of prep work, but you do the prep work in advance really well, and then that helps everything [moving] forward,” explained Creighton Helms, director of Student Services and Federal Programs for Gervais.

“Some people get anxious as to why shovels aren’t in the dirt yet, but it’s just kind of a game of patience at first,” he said. “Then it happens fast and loud.”

In the meantime, students will return for the new school year after Labor Day. And Gervais educators are deep in their own prep process to make sure they’re ready.

Many educators across Oregon are concerned about widely shared challenges facing schools today — declining enrollment, student mental and behavioral needs, budget crises and more.

But Gervais stands out as uniquely not worried about some of these things.

Not only will the district get a significant makeover over the next several years, but Gervais’ enrollment is up — Superintendent Dandy Stevens said more students are transferring in, largely from Woodburn and Salem-Keizer, and they’re already above the number they budgeted for this year.

Stevens said families are attracted to the quality staff, small class sizes and extracurricular options.

The district is actively hiring right now, in some cases bringing in teachers from neighboring districts hit by massive layoffs this spring.

OPB spoke with a handful of teachers as they set up their classrooms earlier this week. Each talked about what they’re looking forward to this year.

Investing ‘time and effort and money’

Stacey Helm was still in the early stages of set-up Wednesday afternoon. She had a bookshelf filled with stuffed animals, Russian nesting dolls, board books, paperbacks and a flip book that helps kids identify their moods. Twinkly lights wrapped around the trunk of a potted tree. Warm, soft-colored sheets covered harsh fluorescent lights.

Helm said she wasn’t sure the bond would pass, but it was a big deal when it did.

“You sometimes hear all the negative; the negative people tend to be the loudest,” she said. “For a while, we were just hearing the negative, and it was really discouraging and disheartening. So, when the bond passed, and when it passed so well, it was not only a sigh of relief but just encouraging.”

The special education teacher works at Gervais Elementary School in the learning resource room. She’s got about 36 students on her caseload, ranging from kindergarteners through fifth graders, who typically work one-on-one or in small groups with Helm, depending on their needs.

While other teachers set up individual desks in a way conducive to their lessons, Helm is also thinking about her students’ emotions. Many of her kids have experienced trauma and come to her when feeling emotionally escalated.

“The goal was muted colors — homey and comfortable,” she said. “We want this to be the safe place they want to come to.”

Helm has taught in Gervais for eight years, but this is only her second year as a learning specialist.

“I do feel like there’s been an increase in students who need support,” Helm said, but the special ed teacher struggled to pinpoint the cause, whether it’s a result of COVID, rising use of smartphones or better identification of student needs.

“But as a mom and as a teacher,” she said, “it feels like there’s a higher percentage than probably there was eons ago when I went to school.”

Related: Gervais School District looks to be saved after voters strongly approve $28 million construction bond

Helm said Gervais, from her experience, is doing a lot of the things educators elsewhere have pleaded for.

“I think Gervais, in general, is feeling really excited right now because of the bond, and we have amazing admin,” she said. “They notice, they hear us when we’re like, ‘Hey, we need help with students who are struggling with behavior,’ or, ‘Hey, I need another instructional assistant to help provide the support for students.’ They actually hear us, and then we get those resources.”

Helm has an instructional assistant to help her with students, for example, and the elementary school has a “Student Success Center Room,” where students can learn about how to be a good friend and how to be a good student, she said.

That doesn’t mean everything is perfect, though.

“There’s never enough time,” Helm said. “You can always use more people; you can always use more time. You can always use more coffee,” she laughed.

“But in my limited experience in different places,” she continued, “[Gervais puts] their time and effort and money towards supporting us and doing the things that need to be done to help meet the needs of not just the kids but the staff too.”

The bond helped people realize ‘how much we offer here’

Jayme Poissant, a fifth-grade teacher and teacher mentor at Gervais Elementary, is especially excited for the new school year.

Poissant has been teaching in Gervais for about 20 years, but for her, the bond is a game-changer. That’s largely because, she said, her room is the “hottest room in the school.”

“I am very excited about the upgrade to the HVAC and the possible air conditioning,” she said with a laugh. “It gets pretty toasty in here, and that little air conditioning unit tries, but yeah.”

Poissant went around town, knocking on doors, to get people to vote on the bond this spring. She said it was validating for the community to back it and made her think that people are “realizing how much we offer here.”

“This building is just so old and just needs some love,” she said. “There’s only so much you can do over the years with no budget for that. And I’m just glad that people are finally coming together and really appreciating what we do here.”

Gervais students get engaged and make academic strides

Gervais Middle School teacher Lucas Hill is excited about the bond projects but knows they will take time. In the more immediate future, he’s excited about the transformation he sees every day in his adolescent students — and what he learns, himself, while teaching.

Hill says when he was in school, his teacher talked, students took notes, and then they took a test.

“I remember my social studies teacher basically sat at a little podium in front of the classroom and just told us the information that we were supposed to write down and learn,” he said. “And what we’re doing now is very different from that.”

If his former teacher was the “sage from the stage,” the Gervais Middle School social studies and leadership teacher considers himself the opposite — a “guide from the side.”

While Hill teaches his students about Mesopotamia, the rise of Islam or the Middle Ages, he’s learning right alongside them.

“This happens all the time: The kid will ask me, ‘What about this? What did these people do? Or why did this thing happen?’ ” he said. “And I just have to say, ‘Well, let’s find out.’

“I never give up on my own knowledge acquisition, too,” Hill added. “So, I guess that’s what I am — I’m more of a co-learner than a teacher.”

This will be Hill’s ninth year teaching in Gervais; he’s been teaching overall for 13. He’s always taught middle school.

“Middle schoolers are,” he paused, “they are not sure who they are yet, right? But they’re curious, and they’re trying to figure it out. And so, it’s a time when they need guidance … it’s an opportunity to do something positive for them. And that’s kind of my focus, I guess.”

Hill says he’s encouraged by the progress he’s seeing from his students — including in recent test scores.

“We found out about [Wednesday] that our English Language Proficiency Assessment [ELPA] scores for English language learners and our reading scores are just going up like crazy,” he said, “which is really, really exciting because, well, in this class, obviously, we’re reading a lot, and vocabulary is a huge part of studying history and culture.”

The Gervais School District also has higher graduation rates than statewide averages, according to state data.

Related: Voters to decide the future of Gervais School District in next week’s election

Hill said students came into his classroom last year more advanced than he expected. He also worked last year with the students on being more engaged in the material and with each other, a skill that he expects to push up through the grades as they continue.

“I think that’s going to be a trend in the future where Gervais kids are just going to be getting more and more ahead,” he said.

Learning to grow through challenges

While bond construction remains a future reality, the rising ELPA scores mean a lot to teachers like Liz Lopez.

Lopez spent a good chunk of time over two days this week working with her instructional assistant, Jenny Rodriguez, to create a board outside their classroom at Gervais Middle School.

The sign reads: “Mi corazón late en varios idiomas. My heart beats in various languages.”

Lopez is an English language development specialist. She works with students who are new to the country and speak other languages, such as Spanish, Russian or the Mayan dialects of Mam and Chuj. About 56% of all Gervais students are identified as Hispanic or Latino.

When students show up for Lopez’s class next week, they’ll make hearts to pin up on the board with the countries’ flags or languages.

“We work with our kids, and we remind them that in the end, many of them are going to be multilingual people, and that is a skill,” Lopez said. She and Rodriguez have been a teaching duo since 2019. They both speak English and Spanish, and Lopez knows Japanese as well after living there for four years.

“It’s not a deficit that you speak another language,” Lopez said. “It’s a ‘wow,’ like, look at how many people you can speak with if you’re a Spanish speaker and an English speaker.”

The two were still in “move-in day” mode Wednesday. Lopez was at the school until about 6 p.m. the night before, getting her bookshelf ready. She wanted to ensure everything was unpacked from storage and her students’ headsets were numbered and organized.

She has more than 60 students on her caseload. Like special education teachers, Lopez and Rodriguez work with groups of students or individuals who need the support. Students are tested through a federally guided program to show their proficiency in English.

Heading into the new year, Lopez said they’re focused, as always, on getting the students ready to take on the future.

“I think we’ve really got a lot of our students on board with ‘school is important’ and also… ‘I can do this, and I can do hard things.’

But, she said she thinks society often tries to “soften” everything for kids — something she doesn’t always agree with; some things in life are just hard.

“We have to help them to realize, ‘How do I meet this challenge?’ ” she said. “ ‘How do I face these things that maybe aren’t easy for me to do?’”

These teachers and their colleagues will welcome students back next week. Sixth and ninth graders will start the new school year on Tuesday, followed by the rest on Wednesday.