Corbett chalks up honors

Magazine names district’s high school best in Oregon, while leaders bring home other awards

By Rob Cullivan

The Gresham Outlook, Jun 1, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (3 Reader comments)

Carole Archer / The Outlook

Corbett Elementary School students leave school Thursday, May 31. The elementary school is located on the same campus as the district's middle and high schools. Parent involvement and high academic standards have made Corbett one of the best districts in Oregon, according to various observers.

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CORBETT – Most school districts would love to have just one of the honors bestowed upon Corbett School District this year. This year, however, Corbett – which serves approximately 600 students – has earned an almost embarrassing slew of riches in recognition.

In February, the Confederation of Oregon School Administrators named Randy Trani, principal of all three of the district’s schools, High School Principal of the Year. That same month, the Oregon Music Educators Association named his superintendent, Bob Dunton, 2007 Outstanding Administrator.

In March, the Oregon Middle Level Association honored Dunton, Trani and Lori Luna, a seventh- and eighth-grade teacher, with its prestigious John Spence awards for their dedication to middle school education. Luna is also a finalist for the Oregon Small Schools Association Teacher of the Year Award, Dunton said, adding that the winner will be announced later this month.

And last month, Newsweek essentially named Corbett High School, home to more than 220 students, the best public high school in the state when it ranked Corbett higher than any other Oregon public high school, and 212th in the nation.

The national magazine stated its rating was based, in part, on 2006 data showing the number of Advanced Placement exams taken by students divided by the number of graduating seniors. Corbett administered 115 AP exams in 2006, with 43 seniors graduating.

The school increased its AP exam number to 169 this year and is planning on expanding its AP program even further next fall, Dunton said. The school’s high AP participation rate is illustrated by the fact that 10 percent of Oregon’s AP physics students attend Corbett.

And if that wasn’t enough honors, the high school symphonic band earned first place in the Oregon School Activities Association 2A/1A Band Division during a tournament May 9-12 at Oregon State University in Corvallis.

It would take a book to fully record what’s going on at Corbett, but you can glimpse what’s taking place there through the eyes of staff, students and school parents who make up a tight-knit community that seems intensely focused on continually improving itself. In this article, the first of a two-part series, The Outlook examines what makes this East County school district tick.

Parents and pie

Trani stood in the Corbett Elementary School gymnasium wiping the remains of pie off his face.

It’s the afternoon of Thursday, May 10, and more than a handful of his students were allowed to paste his puss with pie as a reward for having worked to raise more than $15,000 during an April jog-a-thon organized by the Corbett Elementary Parent Teacher Association, in the gym. The money will be used to purchase new computers and playground equipment for the students.

“I’ve always wanted to throw a pie in Mr. Trani’s face!” said Chyanne Marble, a kindergartner.

Fellow kindergartner Cole Rolens added that it was “fun because we worked hard at the jog-a-thon to get to do it.”

“I was really excited and happy when I threw it,” noted second-grader Regan Mandzij.

The jog-a-thon is one of a number of fund-raisers organized by school parents, who are a vital part of why Corbett is such a successful school district, Trani said.

“You can get a little sense of the parent involvement by walking through the primary end of the grade school where you see parents volunteering all the time to help in classrooms,” he said.

Nancy Gyerko works as a substitute classroom aide at the school, and is also president of the elementary school’s parent teacher association. She said about 30 parents regularly assist teachers by tutoring, administering exams, reading to children, helping with art projects and doing other activities.

Gyerko herself has two children at Corbett: Riley, her son, in kindergarten and Ella, her daughter, in fourth grade. She said parent involvement is crucial to the Corbett elementary school’s success, a notion seconded by parent volunteer Lisa Noreen, whose daughter, Peyton, is in kindergarten.

“Your children see you involved, and then they feel important,” she said. “They know you think (school’s) important.”

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