At a crossroads, teachers create new school
After Crossroads school closes, new Hera Community School begins
By Ellen Spitaleri
The Oregon City News, Jul 30, 2008
Ellen Spitaleri / Clackamas Review
From left, Anna Meyrick, Carol Hohman and Carol Whitten inside the Oregon City house that will be the home of the newly formed Hera Community School.
It was a bad-news, good-news situation for a group of parents, students and staff, when they learned that Joey Zarosinski had decided to close the Crossroads Alternative School in Oregon City.
When she heard about the closure, Kelly Bissett said, “It was really upsetting. My son Shane will be a junior next year ... I had no idea where he was going to go.”
The good news is that after parents and students contacted the Oregon City School District, the Hera Community School will open this fall.
The Crossroads School was a non-profit alternative school, serving grades seven through 12 – students had to be referred by school counselors.
The closure left about 16 students without a place to go.
Anna Meyrick, the art teacher at Crossroads who had been there for 10 years, is the driving force behind the opening of the new school.
When she learned that Zarosinski was retiring, she was worried about her own job prospects, but more than that, she was worried about what would happen to the students.
So she made an appointment with Roger Rada, the Oregon City School District superintendent, to talk about options.
“In the meantime, parents were calling the superintendent telling him there is no place for their children to go, and some of them have severe problems,” Meyrick said.
Even former students expressed concern about the school closure.
“I had attended Crossroads for three years and [students and staff were] like my family to me. I didn’t want them to get split up and go to different schools,” said Ashley Osborn, a June graduate from the school.
The process begins
By the time Meyrick met with Rada, he told her the district was already looking at alternatives, and said if she could come up with a non-profit organization, the district would support her efforts to start a new school.
Meyrick already had a non-profit called Hera International Community, and Oregon City administrators helped her find the paperwork to file an order to get a provisional education license for three years; she sent the paperwork in and is now forming a board of directors.
She and the other two staff members, administrative assistant Carol Hohman and English and social studies teacher Carol Whitten, are anticipating that the school will open in September.
“We haven’t worked out the details of the contract. For now, I think you could say that we’re anxious to get the school up and running and will be developing a lease that will meet both our needs,” Rada said.
The formation of Hera Community School is good news for Bissett and her son.
Shane has Tourette Syndrome and had experienced problems early in his freshman year attending Oregon City High School, she said, adding that when he enrolled at the much smaller Crossroads School, it “turned out to be the best thing that ever happened. [Meyrick, Hohman and Whitten] care so much about the kids – to do this is amazing. I want to thank all of them for caring about our kids and potential students.”
Shane has gained confidence since attending the Crossroads School, Bissett said: “Everybody is like family; everybody accepts everybody.”
Hera school
Meyrick said the school district has been “helpful and supportive” in her effort to set up the new school, which will be located in a house near the old high school that was formerly home to the Sage School, an alternative school.
The house is small, but Meyrick, Hohman and Whitten believe the environment will work well for their students. Meyrick anticipates morning and afternoon session with fewer than 15 students.
Potential students in grades seven through 12 “have to talk to their counselors at their regular schools” to be referred to the Hera Community School, and districts pay the tuition for each student, Meyrick noted.
“When we get kids from [school districts] there is something going on; either they are lacking credits or they have been expelled or there are behavior problems. We get them after things are not working at a public school,” Meyrick said.
The curriculum will be “art-based and project-based,” Meyrick said, adding that the theme this school year will be Oregon’s 150th anniversary as a state.
“A key component is literacy and there will be a lot of integrated instruction and a lot of writing. We’ll be doing some public ceramic work and quilts and some video essays with local cable access television,” she said.
Future of the school
Meyrick said she picked Hera as the name for the school, because it is an African name that means “teamwork,” and teamwork is something she, Hohman and Whitten plan to integrate into the curriculum.
“I want to see [the school] expand and get more involvement with the community – we want to partner with the community; we can learn from the community,” she said.
Summer lineup: art, social studies, English
Roots in Mexico - Canby High students join a program that goes beyond the classroom
Thursday, July 31, 2008
JANET GOETZE
Special to The Oregonian
CANBY -- When Sonia Lopez, 16, began designing her art project at summer school, she blended a love of music, sports and her family in her mixed media work.
Jose Cabello Ledesma's love of soccer and admiration for the Brazilian athlete Pele led him to design a mosaic depicting the natural beauty of Brazil.
Sonia and Jose are two of about a dozen Canby High School students attending summer classes in English, social studies and art. The high school program is new this year, but summer courses have been offered for several years to Canby elementary and middle school students.
Such courses are paid for by a variety of funds, including federal money for students whose parents meet guidelines as migrant workers.
The high school program was developed this year after two artists, Anna Meyrick of Oregon City and Sher Davidson of Portland, received a $2,848 grant from the Regional Arts and Culture Council.
They proposed summer art classes at Canby High, where English teacher Annie Wolfe and social studies teacher Robert Hammitt developed a curriculum combining the three subjects.
The high school teachers wanted their students, who all have family roots in Mexico, to explore the history and culture of the country through research, essays and creative expression, said Wolfe.
The program will go beyond the classroom. The student artists will show their work in a "First Friday" event from 5 to 9 p.m. Aug. 1 in Wallflowers Gallery, 288 N.W. First Ave., Canby.
Other nearby shops will be open for the event, which will include music and refreshments, said Pam Casciato, the gallery owner.
"I'm excited about the community connection," said Anna Haberlach, Canby High's art teacher, who was a summer school assistant. "This is special for the students to have their own show and a special medium."
The special medium is the glass mosaics that Meyrick uses in her own work and in other teaching positions. The small squares of glass are applied over paintings, magazine pictures or copies of photos that are meaningful to the young artists.
The artwork of Melinda Duran, 16, features copies of family photos, including one showing children in bright costumes at a festival. "It's on the street where my grandma lives," she said, recalling her family's visits to her grandparents' home each December.
Many of Canby's students visit family members in Mexico during December, Haberlach said, but some trips last longer than the school district's vacation period. Teachers try to help students get caught up after the holiday visits, Haberlach said, but some students struggle through the school year.
The summer program is intended, in part, to help students catch up in their studies and to keep them in school through graduation, Wolfe said.
Duran recognizes that the summer classes are insurance that she will have all the necessary credits to graduate in another year, then attend Clackamas Community College. In addition, she's pleased that her artwork will be in the gallery exhibit.
"I'm really excited about having people see what I do and where my family is from," she said.
Janet Goetze: jgoetze@earthlink.net
