COTTAGE GROVE – During an April 6 South Lane School District Board meeting, Dorena School was nationally recognized by Solution Tree as a Promising Practices School.
A professional development company that publishes educational materials and offers various services and products, including books, videos, consultations, online courses, workshops, and conferences for educators, recognized Dorena for having strong evidence of student achievement growth, clear evidence of improved student learning, and explaining the school’s culture, practices, and structures.
A formal presentation about the recognition was held during a school board meeting last week in Cottage Grove.
“Solution Tree is the organization that we have worked with for over five years now to help guide us through our professional learning community work,” said Jeremy Smith, district office administrator. “They’ve provided coaching, workshops, professional development frameworks, and literature for us to read. This sort of recognition is pretty exceptional.”
Dorena principal Devin Pixton shared what this recognition means to the school and how they worked to achieve it.
“It is a direct result of our hard work, our dedication, our remarkable flexibility,” Pixton said. “We lead a unique school, one where it’d be easy to lean on alibis. Alibis are what we call excuses for why a child cannot learn. … We could point to our blended classrooms, our limited resources, our distance from town, or even our lack of cell service at our building as reasons why excellence is out of reach, but instead our team five years ago chose to really have hard conversations about how we will not accept any alibis for why a child cannot learn at a high level,” she said.
“That came with a lot of sacrifice and dedication and a lot of changes that happen all the time. We decided that reading, writing, and math are life skills as well as being a good human. Having good communication skills, being empathetic, being able to collaborate, being able to advocate for yourself, that is the foundation of why we have this academic growth.”
Pixton said the award is not the finish line; it is the foundation the school is building to continue adapting to students’ needs. Dorena School teacher Emily Mallory discussed the school’s culture and how it helps achieve academic goals.
“We show our students that our community is a sanctuary where shared humanity comes first. This commitment stems from the fundamental belief that all children are our children,” Mallory said. “They’re not just names on a roster. They’re our collective future.”4
School board member Tammy Hodgkinson shared her pleasure with the outcome of Dorena.
“I knew when you guys started on this road so many years ago that it was going to pay off if we just let you have the time,” Hodgkinson said. “It’s so gratifying to see that with the time and the space, the miracles that you guys have created out there. So gratifying.”
