We celebrate the milestone of another year in the books. But before we get too excited about calling it a year, we have some important cultural and identity celebrations to shout out for JUNE! I hope each of us can find a quiet moment or two to look back over the last school year and reflect on the growth we've seen. It's common knowledge that humans tend to have a negativity bias, where negative information sticks to our brains more tenaciously than positive information. This can be challenged with celebration! When we take the time to notice, name, and celebrate the good things, we are rewiring our brains in ways that bring hope and positive energy.

Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, and announced that all enslaved people in the state were free. This event marked the effective end of slavery in the Confederacy, even though the Emancipation Proclamation had been issued two and a half years earlier. Juneteenth is now a national holiday celebrated in the United States. See linkd for more: https://nmaahc.si.edu/juneteenth-digital-toolkit

Juneteenth "Freedom Day" Celebration juneteenth 2025 save the date June 21. Date: Saturday, June Time: 2:00 PM Location: End of the Oregon Trail .

We celebrate every student and staff member identified with the LGBTQIA+ Community at DDSD as a wonderful representation of our diversity and unique and beautiful and representation of our collective community. Shout out the full humanity of each individual showing up in our schools, staff and students alike. Let's be people who honor and celebrate each other even in the even in our different iterations.

Portland Pride Waterfront Festival & Parade

Portland Pride Waterfront Festival
Saturday, July 19, 2025 12:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Sunday, July 20, 2025 11:30 AM - 6:00 PM
$10 Suggested Donation

Portland Pride Parade
Sunday, July 2o, 2025
Parade begins at 11AM from the North Park Blocks and ends on Naito Pkwy at the Festival

Pride FAQs

Portland Pride Accessibility Guide -

DID YOU KNOW?

Pride month started as a riot against police brutality at a small dive bar in New York City called the Stonewall Inn. At the time there existed outdated “masquerade” or “cross-dressing” laws that suggested a “man” or a “woman” must be wearing a certain number of clothing items that matched the gender on their state-issued ID. The police took advantage of these laws to raid drinking establishments and arrest transgender and gender non-conforming individuals. Just after midnight on June 28, 1969, the police raided the Stonewall Inn like they had many times before. Only, this time, something unusual happened: Stonewall patrons fought back.

Police force people back outside the Stonewall Inn as tensions escalate the morning of June 28, 1969. Photographer: Joseph Ambrosini of the New York Daily News.

Why was this time different — why did people fight back?

In Martin Duberman’s excellent historical account of Stonewall, he cites a chorus of voices, those people that were there that night, like the activist Sylvia Rivera, who was bereft over the death of Judy Garland—whose body lay in state on the afternoon of June 27 on the Upper East Side.

In fact, there are several accounts of that evening and of the five or six days that proceeded to make up the Stonewall Riots. One account suggests that the tipping point came when police tried to arrest a gender-nonconforming “butch” lesbian—that some people credit as Stormé DeLarverie — who somehow evaded the police and began to push against a police car in protest, screaming out to their peers, “Why don’t you do something? Why are you just standing there?” Other accounts suggest it was a Black trans woman, Marsha P. Johnson, that famously threw the first “brick” at Stonewall — though, Johnson has said in interviews that she didn’t get to the Stonewall Inn until two in the morning, after the uprising had already begun.

So, even today, there are still conflicting narratives about Stonewall?

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in 2019, the New York Times released a short documentary film called, “The Stonewall You Know Is a Myth. And That’s O.K.” The film brings together historians, queer, trans, and media studies scholars, and people that were actually there on the night the riots began. The short film coalesces a collective, studied, if not contradictory, set of memories of that night. One of the most important takeaways comes from the writer Chrysanthemum Tran who says, “Stonewall was a messy evening. LGBT. histories are very messy. I think naming that doesn’t take away from the importance of what happened.”

Does it really matter who threw the first brick? The film’s producer, Shane O’Neill says, “Stonewall was about people reclaiming their own narratives from those that told them they were sick, or pitiful, or didn’t even exist.”

This story originally appeared on American University's College of Arts and Sciences website on June 10, 2022.

Marginalized people have always needed to stand up, advocate for, and fight for their rights to even be acknowledged, and oftentimes with the threat of violence present. It can be helpful for us to remember the fights others are in for their humanity. It can help increase our compassion and understand that a threat to anyone's humanity is a threat to everyone's humanity.

Congratulations 2025 GYO Graduates and Program Completers!

See photos here (Caption: David Douglas GYO Graduates Completers honored at Multnomah GYO’s Rise Up Ceremony)

Being a part of the Grow Your Own program is no small feat. Participants have to juggle working in our district with college coursework and the complexities of life. Considering this, completing the Grow Your Own program is an incredible achievement. It has meant years of evening zoom classes, late nights doing homework, missed family and social events, self-doubt and sacrifice. Throughout it all, it has meant a commitment to our students, community. This year, we are celebrating the largest number of GYO graduates and completers since the beginning of the program in 2019. Please join us in congratulating the following Grow Your Own participants on their graduation and program completion:

• Alex Sierra (DDHS): ESOL Endorsement (PSU)

• Aline Alvarez (DDHS): Master in Social Work (PSU)

• Becca Rich (DO): Master of Arts in Teaching (Pacific University)

• Carrie Harris (WP): Bachelor in Elementary Education (Warner Pacific University)

• Cassy Wood (DO): Bachelor in Elementary Education (Warner Pacific University)

• Craig Brown (FLMS): transferring from PCC to PSU to complete a Bachelors of Art

• Danielle McGahey (MN): Bachelor of Child, Youth, and Family Studies, transferring to Master of Arts in Teaching (EOU)

• Donovan Reyna (WP): Bachelor in Elementary Education (Warner Pacific University)

• Isaac Zendejas (MECP): Associates of General Studies (PCC), transferring to Bachelor in Elementary Education (Warner Pacific)

• Jessie Radcliffe (RRMS): Master of Arts in Teaching (Pacific University)

• Jane Korneychuk (LP): Master in Education (PSU)

• Jazzy Griffin (FLMS): Bachelor of Arts (PSU), transferring to Graduate Teacher Education Program (PSU)

• Johnny Isaac Martinez (DDHS): Master of Arts in Teaching (Western Oregon University)

• Kenna Moore (CP): Associates of General Studies (PCC), enrolled in Master of Arts in Teaching (Pacific University)

• Kenny Chavarria (CP): Bachelor in Elementary Education (Eastern Oregon University)

• Lily Enbysk (RRMS): ESOL Endorsement (PSU)

• Martha Guyo (GP): Bachelor of Arts (Warner Pacific), transfering to Master of Arts in Teaching (Warner Pacific)

• Nelly Muñiz Ocampo (DDHS): Associates of General Studies (PCC), transferring to Bachelor of Arts (George Fox)

• Susii Garcia Niño (MN): Bachelor in Elementary Education (Warner Pacific University)

• Stefan Stackhouse (MN): Master of Arts in Teaching (Lewis and Clark College)

If you are or you know a David Douglas student, family, or community member who is interested in pursuing a career in education, please contact Andreina Velasco (andreina_velasco@ddsd40.org), Grow Your Own Pathway Navigator or Taye Spears (lashawanta_speras@ddsd40.org), Assistant Superintendent of DEI.