Bulldog Bulletin

Dear Richmond Families,

Please read the message below from our district leaders, then complete the Budget Feedback Form after reviewing our school's needs that I have listed below. Thank you in advance for helping me make our voices heard at Richmond! 🙏

In solidarity,

Principal Stacy Eto

Message from PPS leadership: Thank you to everyone who took time to attend and take part in the Community Budget Engagement sessions this week. As we continue in the planning and engagement phase of the 2026–27 budget process, we encourage you to share any additional thoughts through the Budget Feedback Form. We’re reviewing feedback as it comes in—from staff, students, families, and community members—and using it to inform and refine our finance team’s preliminary recommendations.

We also encourage you to check the PPS Budget website, which is being updated regularly with new information, including FAQs, engagement opportunities, and the preliminary report on budget recommendations.

Richmond families, please consider including these key points in your budget feedback form. Feel free to copy-paste my text, if that helps:

• Additional info needed on 4/5 blends - How did PPS include DLI program needs into their decision-making process for creating 1/2 or 4/5 blends? Did district leaders take into consideration the unique programming needs of a 50/50 DLI school like Richmond when considering grade level blends, especially at the higher grade levels? In 4th & 5th grade our students' Japanese language skills advance significantly, and in each grade level students must learn over 50-100 new kanji characters, which cannot effectively be taught in a blended classroom.
• Additional info needed on 4/5 blends & DLI teacher workload issues - How will the district ensure that our educators of color who are being asked to teach two languages at two different grade levels are being properly compensated and supported for their increased workload? If we are a district that values racial equity and the retention of educators of color, especially those who bring racial representation to our DLI programs, we must make budgeting decisions that truly reflect those values.
• Disagree with the multilingual learner staffing model ratios - The English Language Learner needs of a 50/50 DLI program are very unique and come with complicated scheduling needs. Please further reflect on the proposed staffing model and find ways to offer more full time ELD teacher positions to schools instead of spreading multiple part-time staff across multiple schools. This type of fractured part-time staffing model directly impacts the level of services an English Language Learner can receive during their day in a DLI school, which is intended to specifically support multilingual learners.
• Other proposals to be considered - If we are increasing class sizes by reducing teachers, but adding back "school-based staffing FTE", will the principal be allowed to use that FTE however they'd like, or will that FTE be restricted to what the district decides are our top priorities? Please provide principals with full decision making rights when utilizing this "extra" FTE because 50/50 DLI schools have unique program needs that cannot be compared to the needs of a non-lottery based monolingual neighborhood school.

When will we know about staffing at Richmond for the 2026-2027 school year?

• District leaders will be providing principals with their staffing info for the 2026-2027 school year on Friday, February 6th. This was recently delayed from the original release date of 2/2 so that district leaders can gather more community input about the budget for next year.
• Richmond staff will be notified of the staffing info for next school year on Tuesday, February 10th during our after school staff meeting.
• I will meet with our Site Council Team on Tuesday, February 17th at 4pm to review our staffing info and seek input on what questions the community may have.
• I will be having individualized conversations with any impacted staff members between February 17th and February 27th.
• After all impacted staff have had the opportunity to meet with me to discuss their placement for the 2026-2027 school year, I will share out our staffing info with families in the Bulldog Bulletin.

We will have our February Fire Evacuation Drill on Wednesday, February 4th at 1:45pm. As always, I will make an intercom announcement to prepare students for our drill and to reassure them that drills are for practice only (no real danger is present).

We have continued to meet our goal of fully evacuating onto the field in less than 4 minutes, but our ongoing new goal is to also evacuate using Voice Level 0 (silent) so that staff can hear any emergency announcements needing to be made during the evacuation.

Volunteer sign up: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0A4CACAA2FABFCC43-61667146-newyears Still have some spots open! Please sign up to help make this event happen!

Our annual Japanese New Year’s Festival is coming on Jan 31st, 2pm-5pm, at Richmond!

Green Team is hosting another Buy Nothing table at the New Year's Festival this weekend. Our hope is to keep items in use through sharing and reuse, supporting a circular economy and minimizing waste while building community and encouraging generosity. As always, bring your Richmond and Oya No Kai gear, Japanese ephemera, and kiddo rain gear and shoes to share. For this event, our special category is books, puzzles, and board games! To ensure this remains sustainable for the organizers, please only bring items that fit within the listed categories.

Earlier this month, Green Team focused on cleaning up the front of the school to get ready for the Kindergarten Open House. We love coming together for Breakfast in the Garden and the satisfaction of peeling back a year of grime with a pressure washer, but we know those monthly events don’t work for everyone’s schedule or preferred way to pitch in.

Here are three quick ways you can be part of the Green Team and help keep Richmond looking great any time you have a few minutes at the school:

1. Pick up litter as you walk in or out, even a few pieces of garbage makes a difference.

2. Do a quick lost & found sweep and bring abandoned water bottles and jackets to the lost & found area in the cafeteria.

3. Pull a few weeds along the fence lines. If you aren't confident about a plant's weed status, reach out to Claire or Michelle (you can find us in the Green Team group on Konstella) and we'll point out our fenceline nemeses that are always ready for a fight.

Small actions add up fast. Thanks for helping our school look cared for, friendly, and ready for learning!

The first (virtual!) round of this year's Oregon Battle of the Books (OBOB) reading competition is coming up in just a few weeks: Sunday, February 1st.

Volunteer sign-up: https://forms.gle/BZYvS5oLYqqaz4tM7

OBOB depends on family/community volunteers to fill the many volunteer roles necessary to run the online battles. Please take a look at the volunteer roles and reach out with questions.

Here are a few quick FAQs - and there’s tons more information on the website!

• TRAINING is provided. Volunteer orientation via recording available on the website, along with extensive printed guidance; plus optional live training Wednesday 1/28 @ 6:30pm.

• SHIFTS are 2.5-2.75 hours long and take place on Sunday afternoon, 2/1. If you can only take a portion of a shift, let us know - we can probably slot you in!

VOLUNTEER ROLES:

• Moderator: Reads the questions, determines acceptability of responses per OBOB rules, documents answers given

• Scorekeeper/Zoom Facilitator: Scores the battle, manages Zoom logistics (needs to be on a laptop or desktop computer); troubleshoots answers with Moderator

• Backup volunteer: Troubleshoots, steps into other roles as needed.

We are also looking for support from anyone in the community who has a professional Zoom account that might be willing to let us use it to host one of our competition rooms.

Got a kid participating?

• You CAN be a Scorekeeper/Zoom facilitator for your students' battles.

• You WILL NOT be placed as a Moderator for your students' battles.

Volunteers will need to be on their own device if their student is in the battle.

• Check out more on the website:

https://sites.google.com/view/richmond-obob/volunteer

• Sign up form link:

https://forms.gle/BZYvS5oLYqqaz4tM7

Thank you!!

📅 Friday, February 6 | 6:30–8:30pm

📍Richmond Cafeteria (Enter Door #6)

🎥 My Neighbor Totoro

Doors open 6:30pm • Movie starts 7:00pm

🎫 Tickets

• Free for adults & children 4 and under

• $10 per child (suggested donation)

• Children must be accompanied by an adult

🍕 Food

Pre-order pizza ($4/slice) • Snacks & drinks available

👉 Purchase tickets and pizza here

🧸 Bring

✨ We can’t wait to see you for a magical night with friends and family!

We are excited to announce that we will welcome 11 new interns coming to the JDLI program in April, 2026! There will be 8 interns at Richmond!

If you and your family are interested in hosting one of them, feel free to contact Haruka Takanuma, intern coordinator, at haruka.takanuma@oyanokai.org with your questions, concerns, or anything! We will host “Host Family Information session” soon, so stay tuned!