• A note from the Superintendent
  
• Upcoming School, Community Events
  
• New Student Information System
• Student Success Corner
  
• Sky Lakes Wellness Center Lifestyle Medicine Facts
  
• KUHS Alumni
  
• Phone App Download for District Website
  
• Join Our Team
  
• KFCS Board of Education
  

A note from the Superintendent;

We want to thank all of our students, parents and staff for your patience as we started

the 2023-2024 school year while implementing our new student information system (Synergy).

We had some major bumps in the road in the first few weeks with the migration of information

from the old system to the new system. We are working diligently to get everything working

well to support our students, families and staff.

Increasing student daily attendance for all students is a major goal for us in KFCS this

school year. A missed school day is a missed opportunity for our students to learn. Students

who attend school regularly have higher academic achievement than students who do not. We

want to make sure that our families with our youngest students fully understand the impact of

a missed school day on your child’s education as they build the academic foundation that is

necessary for them to progress successfully in grades 3rd through 12th.

High student attendance is imperative in grades Kindergarten through 2nd as they learn how to read. Reading proficiency by the end of 3rd grade is the highest indicator of whether the student will graduate high school. We want to encourage all of our KFCS families to ensure that all of our students are attending school 90 percent of the time or greater this year.

Keith A. Brown

Superintendent

Klamath Falls City Schools

Every student, every day, whatever it takes!

The KFCS district office has switched over to a new Student Information System (Synergy). Registration is now live and can be done through the ParentVUE portal. This allows you to enroll your children as well as update/verify your information. If your student was previously enrolled in one of our schools, you should have received an email letting you know when you can login and register.

Please follow the screenshot mentioned below if you come across any issues registering.

When registering, click on "More Options" and then "Request Account Activation." Fill out the form and you'll be registering in no time!

By Joaquin Aguilar-Flores, KFCS

Klamath Union High School has its Klamath Basin Potato Festival contestant this year. Senior Dakota Age has been busy representing and promoting herself as this year’s Miss Klamath Union.

This year will be the 86th annual potato festival in Merrill. Every year, KU has a representative. Klamath Union counselor Jennifer Spicher encouraged Age to participate, who did not hesitate. Age’s focus has been promoting herself and the rigorous task of selling raffle tickets for $2 apiece.

The KU senior has spent time during passing time, lunch time, as well as before and after school, seeing if her peers and KU staff, would help her raise money to sell the most possible raffle tickets overall.

“I did not think it would be as difficult as it is but I definitely like it,” Age said. “I have posted on Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat that I am in this festival. It is OK if students are not able to buy a ticket. Teachers have the money and students don’t but I have had people be very generous.”

Though selling the most raffle tickets does not guarantee her to win the competition, Age has a goal in mind of selling as many as she can. She has to reach the quota of 750 tickets. Ultimately, Age will be judged on her poise and personality, along with how she competes in a talent show, where she will eventually find out if she will be crowned queen.

The festival’s talent show and coronation will be held at 4 p.m. October 14 at the Merrill Civic Center. The event provides a dinner for $25. Tickets can be purchased at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/klamath-basin-potato-festival-queen-coronation-talent-show-and-dinner-tickets-722987353637?aff=ebdssbdestsearch until October 8.

She has already participated in three parades for the festival, along with participation in the Lost River Bluegrass Festival and the Tulelake-Butte Valley Fair. The festival's parade, along with raffle prizes, music and food, will be October 21.

Age has devoted hours of volunteer work as part of Integral Youth Services. As a Klamath Falls City Schools student, she has been in an Advancement Via Individual Determination class since the seventh grade. She has always been adamant about giving back, and desires to be an elementary school teacher someday.

By Joaquin Aguilar-Flores, KFCS

Part of Rip City Rally, the Portland Trail Blazers organization visited Mills Elementary School and Ponderosa Middle School today.

Blaze, Douglas Fur and members of the BlazerDancers took part in an assembly to start the day at Mills where several students and teachers participated in an exercise through the Mills Auditorium.

Over 34 students at Ponderosa then participated in a PE Takeover with youth basketball coaches from the Blazers. Moda Health provided a water bottle for each student in the class, which had students participate in basketball drills.

The theme of the day echoed by representatives of the Blazers was good health and positive behavior in school.

Todd Bosma, the Blazers’ Director of Game Operations, encouraged students to stay healthy by eating adequate food and staying active during school.

Bosma organized a visit to Mills with the school’s Dean of Students, Jeff Haudenshild.

“I talked with Mr. H before coming here about bringing Blaze and activities to have an assembly here but I told him I wanted students who were deserving to be in an activity with us,” Bosma said. “I asked Mr. H to find students who payed attention in class, did their assignments, were respectful to classmates and are interactive, kind to their teachers.”

Haudenshild gave Bosma a list of deserving students, and drew four students out of a hat to participate in an exercise.

Ponderosa Physical Education teacher, Joel Woodley, helped bring a set of basketball classes with Blazers personnel to Ponderosa.

Ponderosa students changed into their gym clothes and were able to get one-on-one instruction with three youth basketball coaches, who helped students work on their dribbling, footwork and stability as well as basketball shooting.

Klamath Falls City Schools is asking for your input through ThoughtExchange. We want to hear from you regarding student dress code.

We will utilize the input of KFCS staff, students, parents and community members to make decisions on student dress code in the future.

The ThoughtExchange will run Tuesday, Sept. 12 through Tuesday, Sept. 26, and end at midnight. Follow the link to participate in this ThoughtExchange: https://tejoin.com/scroll/276295192

Dearest KFCS Partners!

It's that time of year again where we here at Friends of the Children gear up to be a support to our youth, their families and to YOU!

What is Friends of the Children? In case we're new to you... Friends of the Children–Klamath Basin is the local chapter of a nationwide organization dedicated to breaking the cycle of generational poverty and walking with youth as they overcome significant childhood adversity.

You will see our Friends in your classrooms! Friends are salaried and professional mentors who partner with families, schools, agencies, and community partners to support youth from K/1st grade through 12th grade. For our elementary youth, we show up in class for two hours each week to help our youth develop goals, skills, and sparks. For junior high and high school, we serve as an extra advocate, chauffeur, cheerleader and homework helper. A big part of our role is partnering with you so please don't hesitate to reach out regarding any youth in our program!

Friends will be reaching out to individual teachers to introduce themselves in the next week or so and our organization has an MOU with the district AND we get a release of information signed for every youth we serve, every year. It will be filed with your front office! So please don't hesitate to share information and use our mentors as a supportive resource!

Kidneys

Pancreases are just silly. I say this because, much like many organs, it does more than one thing, but in the case of the pancreas it seems like the things it does have nothing to do with each other. The pancreas is in the upper left portion of your abdomen, behind the stomach and tucked up next to the spleen, which is further to the left. It is responsible for some important parts of digestion, but by far the most important thing it does is create and secrete hormones like insulin. When you eat food your pancreas releases chemicals called enzymes. Enzymes break down things into smaller, more digestible things. Amylase breaks down starches into sugar, which you can use to make energy. Lipase breaks down fats into smaller bits of fat, and protease breaks down, you guessed it, proteins. If you don't make enough pancreatic enzymes, then you basically have diarrhea...until you start making enzymes again. If you cannot digest the stuff you eat it kind of just keeps on going out the other side. The amazing stuff is the hormones.

The pancreas makes four basic hormones: insulin, glucagon, gastrin, and amylin. Gastrin cues your stomach to start making acid, thus helping digestion. Amylin is one of the many hormones that regulate your appetite. If your pancreas doesn’t work well...then your satiety doesn’t work well either. Glucagon works if your blood sugar gets too low – it tells your liver to release a little stored sugar to keep everything even. This is the first clue as to one of the pancreas' superpowers – second to second evaluation of your blood sugar levels. Blood sugar that gets too low is also a problem and is common in people who take medications to control their blood sugar, like people with diabetes. Speaking of diabetes, the last pancreatic hormone is insulin, which is perhaps the most famous of the bunch. Insulin is the way that blood sugar gets from the blood into the cells that use them for energy.

Diabetes is when you either don’t have any insulin (because the pancreas cannot produce it any longer), or your body is no longer paying attention to insulin (because it has seen too much of it over your lifetime). Insulin is by far the most common disease to affect the pancreas, but not the only one. While rare, pancreatic cancer can be quite deadly, and pancreatitis is an inflammatory condition affecting the pancreas that is caused by alcohol, elevated triglycerides, gallstones, and, strangely enough, certain scorpion bites. Thus, the best things you can do to protect your pancreas is eat mostly vegetables, drink less alcohol, and avoid mysterious looking scorpions.

Thanks for reading! If interested in hearing more about our programs and resources, please call us at 541.274.2770 or visit our website at www.SkyLakes.org/Wellness

Have a question? Submit yours by emailing us at SkyLakesellnessCenter@skylakes.org

Information provided by

Stewart Decker, MD, MPH, FAAFP, FWMS

Jeanette Rutherford, MA, LPC

Jennifer Newton, RD, LD, CDCES, MPH

The new district website has an Alumni page for graduates of KU. This past week, six KU alumni sent us updates on their lives since they graduated. Take a look on the KU Alumni page on the district website. And, if you are an alumni, be sure and send us YOUR update!

Read about our alumni

Send us your information

EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES - JOIN OUR TEAM!!

Apply for a District Job Opening

Become a Substitute Teacher or Paraprofessional in our District

PARENT LINKS
Click Here for the Family Friendly 2023-2024 School Year Calendar - English

Click Here for the Family Friendly 2023-2024 School Year Calender - Spanish

Synergy SIS Portal

Electronic Flyers for Your Students School
Thrillshare

How Will I Know if School is Cancelled?

Andrea Jensen, Zone 1, Roosevelt - andrea.jensen@kfcityschools.org

Andrew Biggs, Zone 2, At-Large - andrew.biggs@kfcityschools.org

Vanessa Bennett, Zone 3, Conger - vanessa.bennett@kfcityschools.org

Kathy Hewitt, Zone 4, Mills - kathy.hewitt@kfcityschools.org

Trina Perez, Zone 5, Pelican - trina.perez@kfcityschools.org

Patrick Fenner, Zone 6, At-Large - patrick.fenner@kfcityschools.org

Ashley Wendt-Lusich, Zone 7 At-Large - ashley.wendt-lusich@kfcityschools.org