More than 4,500 elementary students in 12 schools across the Klamath County School District crunched locally grown carrots Thursday (Oct. 25) in the district’s seventh annual Crunch at Once event celebrating National Farm to School month. The fresh carrots grown from Farmer Patrick Homa, owner of Red Buttes Farm in the Applegate Valley, were delivered to the district last week as part of its Farm to School program. Read more. See all photos HERE

For the 10th year in a row, the Klamath County School District has received a Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting from the Government Finance Officers Association of the U.S. and Canada for its Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. Read more

Dear KCSD families,

Welcome to the 2024-25 school year!

We are excited about the opportunities your students will have this year as we continue to invest in hands-on instruction and robust school experiences at all grade levels.

In our high schools and middle schools, our career and technical education (CTE) programs are aligned with Sky Lakes Medical Center, Klamath Community College, Oregon Tech, and others. This is providing many students extra motivation to be successful in their studies.

In our elementary schools, we will continue small-group instruction in reading and math as well as our project-based learning classes that provide an opportunity for students to explore subjects such as science, robotics, and art. After incorporating this model over the last two years, we are seeing success: Nearly 90% of last year’s kindergartners will enter first-grade this fall reading at grade level or above.

This year, we again will have social emotional specialists in every school. A focus will be dealing with and preventing bullying, harassment, and racism. Our SEL team will work with our teachers specifically to handle these issues, and we will teach our students the skills they need to do the same.

As we begin the school year, I also want to introduce our community to 11 new administrators -- some are new to our district, others are new to their positions – who will take the reins this fall.  Read about them HERE. Please welcome them to your communities.

Together, let's work to ensure every student grows every day. Here's to a great school year!

Sincerely,

Glen Szymoniak
Superintendent
Klamath County School District

As school districts around the state enter the budget season, many are struggling with decreasing enrollment and funding issues. Despite the state’s struggle to adequately fund public education, Klamath County School District remains vibrant and healthy, planning for increases in student enrollment and thinking ahead to future needs.

The Klamath County School District Board of Directors outlined its priorities for the development of this year's proposed budget during its February board meeting. Some of these priorities are continued focus on reducing class sizes, retaining pre-school and the Play 2 Learn programs, expanding Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs, ongoing facility upgrades at our outlying schools, continuing free meals for students, and maintaining our teacher mentoring program.

Our 2024-25 budget reflects those priorities. We do not anticipate any staffing cuts and plan to present a healthy, vibrant budget proposal to our 10-member KCSD Budget Committee at its first meeting May 2. That committee includes five appointed community members -- Diana Otero, Bill Jennings, Jacen Jespersen, Melonie Parrish, and Tonia Miller – and our five school board members.

The committee reviews the budget, takes public input, and votes to recommend a budget to the school board for approval. Before June 30, the Board takes public input, approves a budget, makes appropriations, declares the tax levy, and categorizes the tax levy. Adoption of the budget is expected at the June 20 board meeting.

We are proud of the work we have done over the past fiscal year. Our budget message highlights numerous accomplishments from 2023-24. Capital project highlights include a construction trades building at the Henley Complex, a new gymnasium at Bonanza, and the Lost River Community Center. Another spotlight is our continued expansion of Career and Technical Education programs. This expansion includes programs for our middle school and junior high students as well as new community partnerships with industry and pathways into pre-apprenticeship programs in construction and medical science.

As always, funding public education is challenging. Currently, Oregon's investment in K-12 education is 39th in the nation, a decline from its previous position at 34th. Our challenges include continued funding of PERS (Public Employee Retirement System), recruitment of highly qualified teachers and staff, keeping inflationary increases in line with revenue increases, and major cost increases for insurance.

If you are interested in following the budget process, please attend one of our budget meetings or go to our website - and click on the link to the 2024-25 proposed budget.

We appreciate your support. As always, please reach out with any suggestions or comments.

Sincerely,

Glen Szymoniak