Newly hired Scappoose School District Superintendent prepares for his first year

In his first year as superintendent of the Scappoose School District, Stephen Jupe plans to do a lot of observing. By monitoring academic achievements, graduation rates and student and staff satisfaction, the longtime educator hopes to see what is working in the district and what needs improving.

Jupe was hired on a three-year contract in April and said he is thrilled at the prospects of bettering what he considers an already strong district. Before coming to Scappoose he had been principal of The Dalles-Wahtonka High School.

What follows is a conversation with Jupe one week before the start of the new school year.

What are you looking forward to in your first year as Superintendent?

I’m looking forward to really learning about the community, the staff and the teachers and the kids. And getting a feel for how well Scappoose is doing in terms of learning and kids being successful and leaving the district to move onto their next life well prepared.

I love to learn, I love experiencing new things. I’m expecting this year to be a great year to meet and greet and experience. And to try and formulate some strategies and plans that will help everybody move forward. One thing that’s really true of education is you cannot afford to ever stand in one place.

Why is that?

It very quickly stagnates. Because kids don’t stand still and society doesn’t stand still. I mean especially now, it’s a faster and faster pace.

What are your thoughts on schools’ use of technology?

I think that educators have to be leaders in technology and to stop playing catch up to our kids. It’s highly dangerous when people who are still forming decent decision-making processes are making crucial life decision that could ruin them. That’s always been the case, but technology (such as social media) gives you the opportunity to be dumb and ruin your life.

Some of the things you see kids doing with social media you know darn well in 20 years time somebody is going to look it up and say “You want what job?”

We are under a state mandate this year to educate them (students) in safe practices on the net. Every student should be doing a course that involves net safety. And we have to be observant.

You mentioned you were aware of Scappoose before you were hired here, what is the reputation of the district?

The district for some time has been using a model for education called proficiency-based learning. And there are some teachers in the system who are very skilled in that. They are often used as instructors for other districts.

That’s something that I’ve been doing with my past job, developing that model. It’s got great potential for kids, not only to help kids get through, but get through with some real learning.

My contention is a lot of stuff that has traditionally been done in school, has very little to do with learning. I call it “stuff.”

How will the district adapt to dwindling resources?

I will be looking toward opportunities to maximize our resources, because that’s one of the biggest issues for education. Ways to find money. Ways to extend our technology.

For instance these things (an iPad) can be one of the most amazing tools in the classroom. But how do you get a class-load of them? And how do you make sure that class set of iPads or tablets gets in the hands of a teacher who is going to use them creatively and properly, so they are not just reading machines or adding machines. There are ways to do that.

One of the ideas that’s kind of cool I think is to have a competitive bidding process. If you have three classroom sets of tablets, and you (a teacher) think you have the ability to really make use of them, we’d like you to apply for the grant. An inter-district competition. And then set up a committee of people who understand the creative and valid use of technology and even make it a public demonstration of what you would do with that to enhance your classroom.

My intention will be to try and hold on to what we’ve got. If it’s working.

What other plans are in the near future?

We’ve got the brand-new auditorium. I’m really keen to see that maximized by the school system. And right now that’s kind of an issue because it’s hard to get everything going in terms of finding the staff to do what has to be done.

This is going to be another negotiation year (with the teachers’ union). Obviously I would like that to be satisfactory for everybody. I will be waiting to hear what the government forecast will say.

Staff have been held to a freeze now for several years. I’m hoping when we get together everybody can at least walk away feeling they are appreciated.

What are your thoughts on the state academic statistics for the district?

Most of our schools did OK. We’ve got one focus school (Petersen Elementary) which means they have a lot of support to improve in the area the state wants them to improve in.

Throughout this year we’ll be paying attention to how kids are making out in the state testing. Because we get a constant score, the reading, the math and the science. By about the Spring we should have some idea of how kids are progressing.

What have the recent graduation rates been like?

They need to go up. There is no doubt. In talking to the high school administration, we need to find ways to make sure kids get there in a successful way. We have to look at each kid individually and the groups of kids who might become dropouts. Why are they becoming dropouts and what can we do to support them in the future?

Those kids that could do better aren’t being challenged enough or the work isn’t inspiring enough. I would claim graduation is about kindergarten as much as it is about grade 12, what they think about school, whether they are excited about learning.

I’m trying to maintain a focus on K-3, but I’m also trying to connect with Early Intervention, Head Start.. It’s very clear in the data. Those counties that have kids ready for school when they hit kindergarten have higher graduation rates, what a surprise.

This is a horrible generalization, but the handoff to the school system is clumsy, or has been in the past. I think we need to do a lot more to take that work done at the early ages and use it more effectively in kindergarten. We need to work (grades) 1, 2, 3 and know where our kids are all the time.

How do you inspire kids to want to learn in the current education environment. I think of those classes where the teacher plops down textbooks on each desk and reads from it front to back.

That can’t happen anymore. First of all, the 30 books would break the bank. And the 30 books don’t adapt or change... I’ve just been through a social studies (curriculum) adoption process and I fought like the Dickens to make sure we didn’t end up with classroom sets of books that we had the digital rights to. So a teacher, especially in social studies, every time they switch that machine on, it’s updating and upgrading... the textbook changes daily. That’s the modern age.

Textbooks, oh my gosh, what a waste of money.

Has there been any thought yet on how to go about renaming the Indians mascot after the state’s decision this year to force schools like Scappoose to retire their Native American iconography by 2017?

There has been some thought. This year we will be trying to put together a process to start this. It will involve the community, absolutely.

I’m culturally sensitive, don’t get me wrong. Whenever there is an abuse of an ethnic symbol it needs to be changed. I’m not saying there was, because I’m not saying anything.

By the way, it’s all over the Internet (falsely) that I have authorized the new mascot. It’s the “Scappoose Moose.” Somebody picked that up as real. We’ve had people coming to the desk saying “Did Mr. Jupe really change the mascot?”

I say, “Yes, of course I did!” (Laughs).

This interview has been edited for style and clarity.