Certified union president Steve Thorpe, a math teacher and wrestling coach at Sweet Home High School frequently delivers comments about the district’s teachers and students to School Board members, but he went deep at their meeting Monday, May 12.
Thorpe provided the board with some extended commentary on recent activities at the high school, which culminated with the May Week Track Meet Friday, May 9.
He said the leadership and organization he’s seeing and the commitment to providing opportunities for students, particularly Career and Technical Education programs, are helping to build community and serve young people.
Thorpe told board members that, in his 32nd year of teaching, “this year is one of best years I’ve ever had.”
He said that the May Week activities “flipped the switch” on what often can be a very negative time of the school year for teachers and students.
Thorpe cited the marching band-led student parade down Long Street to Husky Field on Friday, May 11, and the Lip Dub video production on Wednesday, May 7, as particular examples of how the events brought students and teachers together.
The approximately 11-minute SHHS Lip Dub video had drawn some 8,500 views as of the beginning of this week. Posted on the district’s Facebook page, it can be found by Googling “Sweet Home Lip Dub 2025.”
“There’s something going on that’s positive,” Thorpe said. “If you don’t get to be around and see it, you need to go there and see this, because we steal a little something from you people who come to make it better.
“I don’t know how kids did on solving dysfunctional equations by substitution last week because I don’t really care. We did have some work going on, but the community and team-building that happened during that week.”
He particularly cited the high school band’s role in bringing students together in the march.
“We had a matching band. We marched down the street. In 1983 we were second in the state in a big competition, and we marched the band down both sides of the street.
“(This year) we marched down together and came in (to Husky Stadium) together in our classes. The community on the final day of that was just incredible.”
Thorpe credited organizer Tomas Rosa, the high school’s Leadership instructor, for the success of the event.
He quoted Rosa: “Kids are excited to go to school and be part of something bigger than themselves,” Rosa said of the week-long celebration that included community service projects, a “lip dub” music video, assemblies, and inter-class competitions that culminated with the May Week Track Meet on Friday afternoon.
“The community was excited. I had multiple adults text me that they wished they were back in school.”
Thorpe credited staff and students for participating, particularly in the lip dub video.
“We had buy-in from the staff,” he said. They listened to Tomas.”
He said students had one run-through during Home Room period the week before May Week, and then Rosa and his Leadership students concocted a schedule that gave them an hour to film the video on Wednesday..
“What was fun for me, I was in it and my wrestlers were in it, but I only had that 20-second piece,” Thorpe said. “I didn’t know anything else that had happened in that lip dub until I watched the whole thing for the first time on Friday.
“None of this happens without great leadership and we had great leadership,” he added. “In sports programs you’ve gotta have to have leadership. Success in business happens because of leadership. Anything that’s successful, you’ve got to have leadership.”
He noted that the first Lip Dub happened in 2017 when then-teacher Melissa Klumph did it with a cellphone and a CD player playing music. It got better in 2018 “because now we knew what we were doing,” Thorpe said.
“We were going to do it again in 2020 but we couldn’t because of COVID.”
Rosa and the Leadership class pulled this one together and Ramil Malabago took care of the technical side of things, he said.
Thorpe told board members that he’d had a conversation with a younger teacher who quoted her husband saying that “it seems like Sweet Home is 20 years behind in education – in the best possible way.”
Providing “context,” Thorpe said the two had taught in school districts that “systematically” eliminated electives, replaced student academic intervention with “special interests,”
“prioritized punitive behavior over building relationships,” and cut programs in response to No Child Left Behind mandates.
Thorpe said the younger teacher told him it was “an absolute breath of fresh air” to see electives such as wood shop, metals, forestry, animal science, culinary arts and more thriving in Sweet Home.
“That’s a pretty strong statement,” he said.
“I love that teachers in our district are here to serve kids,” he said.
Getting down to business after Thorpe’s presentation, board members Jason Redick, Mike Adams, Amanda Carter, Jim Gourley, Dale Keene, Mary Massey, Floyd Neuschwander and Jenna Northern unanimously approved a three-year contract with classified staff that includes salary increases of 3.5% to 5% over that span, based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI). It also will increase the district’s insurance contribution by $65 a month for classified employees, according to Velma Canfield, union president.
In other action, board members:
- Approved Body Shop health curricula for elementary and junior high students. Martin told board members the district has been using Body Shop for “20-plus” years. He said that if new standards are announced, covering topics not addressed in the curriculum, that teachers will be able to create new lessons to address those.
Massey noted that parents have the ability to review the curriculum and opt out if they want to.
- Heard a report from Supt. Terry Martin about the high school’s CTE Day on May 8, in which special education students from five other schools were able to participate in “an engaging hands-on experience” in a variety of CTE activities, including pole climbing, choker setting and axe throwing in forestry; creating hanging flower baskets and meeting farm animals in agricultural sciences; welding hanging basket holders and sunflowers in the metal shop, making screen-printed T-shirts and more.
Martin said one student from Newport told him during lunch that he had always wanted to try welding but had never had a chance to so until that day and that the experience left him with the determination to pursue that as a career goal.
“Man. that just hit me like a lightning bolt,” Martin told board members. “Here are all these other districts where they can’t or haven’t done this for their kids.”
- Engaged in an extended discussion of bullying and how much of a problem it is in the district’s schools.
Multiple administrators and principals told the board that though bullying certainly exists, the situation is sometimes complicated by the fact that parents and students can misunderstand exactly what “bullying” means.
Brian Brands, Student Services director for the district, said that the district “spends a lot of time” on the problem.
“We’re constantly working on anti-bullying with the kids,” he said.
Those efforts include home room sessions that focus on social and emotional learning (SEL), which is state-mandated, said Ralph Brown, high school principal.
Brands said that parents often don’t recognize the difference between bullying – which is persistent intimidation – and peer-to-peer conflict, which can be name-calling or just a disagreement.
Sweet Home Junior High Principal Nate Tyler said “we don’t wait until it turns into bullying – we deal with all of it.”
He added that he would much rather talk with a student about a problem early on than deal with something that’s “been going on for three months.”
Brown said that at the high school, especially if parents or students can provide screenshots of problematic messaging, that provides evidence that can be acted upon.
“We call the police.”
He said administrators want to hear from students and parents about potential problems and that the school will either “take care of it on our end” or “we say, ‘Let’s go to the police on this one.’”
Board Member Floyd Neuschwander asked how prevalent cyberbullying is in the district.
“Every district has this,” Brands responded. “All schools have to do with this.”
Martin said there is “quite a divide” between public perception of what is going on in schools and the actual realities.
“Students deserve to be safe,” he said. “We work on that continually.”
- Accepted the resignation of Donna Dipietro, temporary special education teacher at Foster Elementary, effective April 18.
- Accepted the resignation of Leah White Hagan, art teacher at the high school.
- Approved the hire of Calvin Koch, advanced math teacher at Sweet Home High School.
- Approved the hire of Amber ArceoBigoni, who will teach CTE agricultural science at the high school.
- Approved the hire of Kaley Schneider, intermediate teacher at Foster Elementary.
- Unanimously approved strategic priorities for the district that included the mission statement: “A district where all students are valued, inspired and belong,” and an accompanying vision statement: “Give each student every opportunity to achieve their potential.”
The board also approved a “Portrait of a Graduate” that includes efforts to develop students into productive citizens, continuous learners, critical thinkers, ethical learners and effective communicators.
- Unanimously approved board policies with updated language, required by the state, addressing suspected sexual conduct with students and reporting thereof, educators’ ethics, nondiscrimination and civil rights, sexual harassment complaints and procedure, pregnant and parenting students, and medications.
They agreed to table policies relating to family and medical leave, admission of resident students, and medications until September.
“Hopefully, we’ll have some clarity on where everything is between the federal government and the state at that point,” said Board Chair Jason Redick.