Native American Heritage Month
November is Native American Heritage Month. CTUIR shared some of their traditions, including drumming and dancing, at each of the schools. Thank you, CTUIR singers and dancers.
National School Bus Safety Week – October 20-24, 2025
National School Bus Safety Week – October 20-24, 2025
The Pendleton School District and First Student, the transportation company that transports PSD students, will focus on safety during National School Bus Safety Week, October 20-24.
First Student has a whole week, called Safety Stand-Down Week, to reinforce their focus on safety and their mission to provide the safest ride to and from school. A Safety Stand-Down is an event where leaders pause to talk directly to employees about safety and provide education and training on specific safety topics. Some activities they will do during the safety week are Mirror Grid Monday, Turning Tuesday and Wind-y Wednesday (serpentine route set up), safety meeting and pledges.
“It is a learning and reminding week, but also a fun week as well,” said Patrick Phillips, Senior Location Manager at First Student.
Here are some safety strategies First Student and the district are using this school year:
First Serves – a positive reinforcement coaching for students instead of a referral, disciplinary system. Bus drivers utilize Bus Bucks to reward appropriate behavior on the bus; each school has a reward system for the bucks.
Kindergarten bus tags –students at the Pendleton Early Learning Center wear bright orange tags attached to their backpacks that have their bus route number clearly visible. These youngest students also must be put on the bus and taken off the bus by a family member.
FirstView — an app that parents can download on their phones that tracks their student’s bus. Parents can also set a boundary around their stop that alerts them when the bus is near the stop. “On our side of the app, tracking the buses looks like a whole bunch of green ants going and we can see where all of our buses are,” Phillips said.
Tiffany Jennings, First Student Location Manager, said there are about 2,000 Pendleton School District students registered to ride the bus.
What do Phillips and Jennings want bus-riding students to remember?
SAFE – sitting back to back, seat to seat, floor on floor & body parts and belongings inside windows
RESPECTFUL – hands and feet to yourself, voices at a whisper
RESPONSIBLE – follow adult directions, food and drinks in backpack
What about parents? Phillips said it’s helpful for parents to remember that sometimes traffic issues arise, like a train blocking several railroad crossings in town, which necessitates buses routing around, which takes more time.
“We have a great working relationship and good communication with the Pendleton School District,” Phillips said, “which makes it easier to ensure bus safety for students every day.”
National School Lunch Week
As part of National School Lunch Week, October 13-17, 2025, Pendleton School District is celebrating the district’s nutritional services. First, some numbers:
How many meals does the district provide every day to students in schools?
Pendleton Early Learning Center: breakfast 166, lunch 221
McKay Creek Elementary: breakfast 85, lunch 142
Sherwood Heights Elementary: breakfast 149, lunch 301
Washington Elementary: breakfast 168, lunch 324
Sunridge Middle School: breakfast 179, lunch 397
Pendleton High School: breakfast 116, lunch 246
How many nutrition services employees work in PSD schools? 22 employees
Suzanne Howard, Director of Nutritional Services, works for Sodexo, the company that PSD contracts with for food services in all its schools. Howard recently highlighted a few new things for the 25-26 school year.
The first is a new menu site called Nutrislice (https://pendleton.nutrislice.com/menus-eula), which gives parents more access to information about the food that is being served in their students’ school. “In one click, they can look at the ingredients, the nutrient label, the allergens, and carb counts to make decisions for their child’s meals,” Howard said. Parents can filter by allergens to see which meals their child should not eat that week; nutrition services will work with parents to adjust menus for allergens for students.
Another new item is in the elementary schools – a new Bright Bites menu. Over the summer, Howard and her team re-decorated the kitchens at the schools to make them more colorful, engaging, and kid friendly. They also adjusted menus to include more of the food items that kids like to eat, including some new items. Elementary students recently tried Texas chili, which the kids loved. Nutrition services are also increasing options for fruits and vegetables, including more cooked vegetables like roasted squash, roasted broccoli, seasoned carrot coins, and parmesan green beans, which students have enjoyed.
At Sunridge Middle School, they added a pizza line, which has decreased congestion in the serving area. New at Pendleton High School is Chopsticks, grab-to-go Chinese food, which has been extremely popular.
What does Howard want people to know about today’s school meals? “This is not the old lunch program. We really pride ourselves on the quality of our food, and the students are our customers.” Howard said she wants students to use their voices to make suggestions about the food program. She also encourages parents to have lunch at their child’s school to experience the meals (check with your school about how to do this).
The mission of the nutrition services program is to provide healthy meals to students so they can do their best learning, Howard said. “Students who are hungry cannot focus as well and could potentially have behavior challenges.”
Breakfast and lunch are free every day for all enrolled students in the Pendleton School District, with no paperwork or sign-up required.
To provide feedback about Nutrition Services, email Suzanne Howard or provide information to nutrition services employees at your child’s school.
Superintendent Message – September 2025
A video message from Superintendent Jensen.
District Recommends New Assistant Principal for Sherwood Elementary School
We are thrilled to announce the recommendation of Mindy Barron as the new Assistant Principal at Sherwood Heights Elementary. Mindy brings a wealth of experience and a deep commitment to fostering a safe, inclusive, and engaging learning environment for all students.
Mindy’s journey in education began as an Instructional Assistant and has included the roles of classroom teacher, instructional coach, technology coach, career coordinator, and dean of students over the last 20 years.
Mindy’s focus on building relationships, commitment to growth, and her experience with diverse school communities will be pivotal in continuing to move the dial for Sherwood and the Pendleton School District.
Join us in welcoming Mindy Barron to the Pendleton School District at Sherwood Heights Elementary!
PSD District Art Show
The Pendleton School District had another successful district-wide art show in spring 2025. The event began with a community opening night, followed by two days of art viewing by students and the public.
Abbey Prevot, Art Teacher at Pendleton High School, coordinates the show with John Bradt, Media/Tech Teacher at Sunridge Middle School. Every student in the district creates a piece of art in their class, and it’s displayed at the show. Pieces included paintings, sculpture, paper mache and more.
Prevot said the setup went smoothly this year; they had seven PHS students who helped, and they were great workers. She appreciates all the district teachers who work with their students to create the art, put name tags on every piece, and adhere them to the large paper displays.
“The art show is one of the only community events where all the schools participate, so it’s a great celebration together,” Prevot said. She said art is the first language we learn; before a child learns how to write, they are drawing. “Art is a natural skill people pick up as kids, so fostering and keeping that creativity alive for students is essential,” she said.
The Pendleton School District thanks the Education Foundation of Pendleton for funding the art show and Altrusa of Pendleton for giving out free books on opening night.
2025 Crystal Apple Award Winners
CONGRATULATIONS to the Pendleton School District 2025 Crystal Apple Award Winners!
Nicole Kuza – Lead Secretary at Sunridge Middle School
Jess Cooper – Science Teacher at Pendleton High School
Emma Sims – Paraprofessional at Sunridge Middle School
Carol Aldrich – Title I Teacher at the Pendleton Early Learning Center
