#EducationMatters

This year marks the fourth year of Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) Framework in Plumas Unified. PBIS is a proactive approach to establishing the behavioral supports and social culture needed for all students in a school to achieve social, emotional, behavioral, and academic success. PBIS is a framework, not a curriculum or program, which means it can be applied differently to fit each school’s needs. The Portola Student Services Coordinator Shannon Harston compared it to a parenting book. Harston stated, “similar to how parents adopt various practices from a parenting book, schools are in essence homes that can use the PBIS framework differently for their individual needs.

Published on 9-07-17

With summer coming to a close, students say goodbye to the end of carefree days, parents rejoice at the return of the routine, and teachers prepare to educate and inspire incoming and returning students. Each new school year brings excitement, anticipation, and expectation. This year the class of 2018 embarks on their last year of secondary education, the incoming kindergartners welcome their first, and everyone moves one step further in both academic and personal growth. Our theme for this school year is “Together is Better.” Superintendent Terry Oestreich explains, “As we embark upon a new school year, we are excited to fulfill our Governing Board’s mission to collectively inspire every child in every classroom every day. Our district wide training “Eliminating Barriers to Learning” provided our team with the opportunity to explore strategies expanding access to learning while reinforcing the many assets we already have in place to ensure student success. The chosen theme is our commitment to honor relationships with all our stakeholders as we open the doors to the 2017-18 school year.”

Published 8-24-17

February 28th through March 3rd, John Muir Laws, the naturalist, educator, and artist, visited each elementary school in PUSD and challenged students to “be intentional about turning up the curiosity in their brain.” John Muir Laws is a wildlife biologist, a Research Associate of the California Academy of Sciences, the author and illustrator of multiple books and field guides about nature and natural history, a regular contributor to Bay Nature magazine, and the founder of the Bay Area Nature Journal Club. Additionally, he is a primary author and editor of the interdisciplinary curriculum: Opening the world through Nature Journaling. As his biography states, “He teaches nature study and natural history workshops that incorporate illustration and scientific note-taking as a means to greater observation, memory, and curiosity.” Laws is as Rob Wade introduced him to the students “the ultimate master of field journaling”.

Published on 3-15-17

Due to the transforming and pioneering partnership between the Feather River Land Trust (FRLT), Plumas Unified School District (PUSD), local landowners, and generous sponsors, every school in Plumas County has access to an outdoor classroom 10 miles or less from their campus. Right after the Feather River Land trust formed in the early 2000s, PCOE's Outdoor Education Coordinator Rob Wade approached FRLT's Executive Director Paul Hardy with an idea.

Published on 3-1-17

Individualized and personalized learning is being redefined in PUSD classrooms through the rollout of 1:1 computing technology. Through the roll-out of individual student laptops this year, learning is being transformed into an interactive, personalized, and engaging 21st-century platform that increases the possibilities for both students and teachers. As Carol Bernard stated, “One of the roles of educators in the 21st century is to teach students the skills that will help them be competitive in an ever increasing technological world.”

Published on 2-22-17.

Plumas Arts has long been a PUSD collaborator through the Artists in the Schools Program, providing rich interactions between local artists and students. In order to build on this successful partnership, Arts Education Program Manager Cary Walters Dingel from Plumas Arts wrote a grant, and received funding from the California Arts Council, a state agency, to develop an art workshop for teachers. Plumas Arts hoped that increasing artistic proficiency in teachers would also increase the amount of art taught and utilized in everyday classroom lessons.

Published 11-23-16

For thirty years the Plumas County Office of Education’s Outdoor Education Program, now affectionately known as Outdoor FREd (Feather River Education), has been providing Plumas County kids with the opportunity to embrace and craft their mountain kid identities. Although there are outdoor camps in many school districts, there is only one Outdoor Feather River Education camp and experience.

Published in October 2016.

Outdoor Core Information.
Published Septemeber 2016.