Oregon Trail Regional Educator Network (REN) -

Our Administrative Coaches provide mentoring, coaching, and professional support for administrators in the region. Coaches meet both individually and in small, role-alike groups with administrators on a monthly basis. Administrators receive support to work through problems of practice, share ideas, and improve their craft.

Administrator Collaborative started as a partnership with COSA to provide ongoing training to new administrators in our region. It has since evolved into a partnership with Right Time Coaching/Mike Scott to provide professional support for administrators in the form of relevant and timely conversations and collaborative trainings that are aligned with needs that occur at different times of the school year. OTREN provides evening trainings, full day trainings, and monthly virtual support.

Counselor Connection started as a twice yearly gathering of regional counselors and has since expanded to include monthly PLC virtual gatherings (organized into K-8 and 9-12 groupings) and twice yearly in-person PD gatherings. Our REN counseling Leads organize monthly gatherings to discuss hot topics and best practices in counseling.

Classified Connection is a quarterly offering designed to provide specific training to paraprofessionals and classified staff. The training is responsive to educator need and is offered after-hours at a local restaurant to facilitate collaboration, networking, and connection.

Design Teams were created in 2021 to create ongoing systems change in schools. A structure for each team was created in alignment with goals that were elevated by team members. Educators on these teams build their professional capacity by serving as mentors, providing internal PD to staff, and advancing other goals to improve systems and instructional practice.

Ed Tech Huddles provide opportunities for regional educators to learn new strategies and best practices in the information technology realm. IMESD Instrutionnal Coach, Ayla Olson, provides training that is responsive to regional needs and educator requests. The trainings occur in-person 3 times per year. In conjunction with these trainings, Ayla provides 2 accompanying virtual "Tech Talks" to support PD.

The EOU Reading Clinic provides practical training and experience for the region's practicing and pre-service general and special education teachers, as well as aspiring reading specialists. It also provides research-based structured literacy instruction to children who struggle to meet reading benchmarks. Teachers are trained in structured literacy, and children receive intervention twice per week, either through online or face-to-face instruction for approximately 10 weeks per session. Currently, OTREN has committed to funding 30 teachers and 15 mentors per academic term.

The G.R.O.W. Beginning Teacher Series supports teachers in years 1-3 by building their professional capacity as beginning teachers, providing a monthly professional learning community in which they learn new skills and strategies, and providing support coaching. It is designed to be a support modality for novice educators.

Our partnership with the Core Collaborative Impact Teams training is designed to provide responsive, relevant, and authentic professional learning to educators and administrators in our region via redesigned professional learning teams. Specifically, teams will learn how to comprehensively implement the formative assessment process across school systems. The goal is to help teachers restore rigor, create empowered learners, and improve instructional practices.

The OTREN provides mentorship to new teachers and administrators throughout our 21-district region. The OTREN Mentorship Grant Program pairs mentors with mentees and is designed to provide support for educators as they build their professional capacity, receive specialized coaching, and engage in monthly learning sessions.

The MTSS training series provides responsive, relevant, and authentic professional learning for school teams looking to implement an intervention system to support student growth. Schools can determine focus, grade levels, and goals to suit their needs.

The Professional Development Summit is hosted by our REN/IMESD in partnership with a neighboring school district every October. The Summit is designed to provide professional learning to all 21 REN districts on a variety of topics. Session offerings are thoughtfully planned to provide learning opportunities for all target audiences--from paraprofessionals to administrators--across all content areas and focuses. This year's Summit boasted 110 session offerings and 80 presenters.

The Oregon Trail REN partners with the IMESD School Improvement department to offer summer professional development to educators in our region. A core team within the IMESD/OTREN works together to curate offerings that address requests received throughout the prior calendar year through surveys and feedback from participants in offerings. Presenters come from our team of instructional coaches, practicing educators from OTREN districts, and through contracted partnerships. OTREN worked with Eastern Oregon University to provide undergraduate and graduate credit for participation along with helping address other barriers for attendance at multi-day events such as lodging. Trainings were offered at the Pendleton & La Grande IMESD offices, regional school sites, and virtually.

Women in Leadership dinners provide an opportunity for female educational leaders to network, share ideas, and engage in lightly facilitated programming designed to nurture relationships and build capacity. The no-host dinners occur 4 times a year.

Literacy expert Yolanda Westerberg provides high-leverage professional development to districts to support districts' literacy goals. This PD is responsive to educator need, relevant, and authentic, relying on the most up-to-date best practices for promoting growth. In an effort to eliminate the barrier of access to this offering, districts can sign up to receive training with Yolanda that occurs at their school. Yolanda models lessons for educators, providing resources and support to engage in professional learning that improves instructional practice. Because districts can choose from a menu of literacy PD offerings or indicate the specific training need that they have, Yolanda's PD is designed to meet teachers' needs; it is also ongoing, as districts can choose to engage with the offerings as a series over long periods of time.