Director's Letter April 11, 2025

Shelly Smith
Apr 11
6 min read

Dear ACA Community,

We’re just coming down off the excitement of a super fun week at ACA! Three of the year’s best events all took place in a matter of days!

Lunch times have been riotous with Leadership’s Pie-in-the-Face Prom fundraiser. Twelve staff members took whip cream pies to the face tossed by raffle winning students. Thanks to the Leadership students who ran the show. It was so much fun!

On Wednesday there were two Interactive Music Assemblies, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Our Choirs, Orchestras, and Band sounded amazing! It was a great reminder of the strength of ACA music program when so much of the gym floor was filled by performers. Mrs. Johnson made every group fun custom t-shirts so everyone looked sharp! Thanks to her, Mr. Edson and Mrs. Trobaugh for putting on a joyous show!

But wait, there’s more! ACA’s Science Fair was bigger and better than ever! A record-breaking number of students brought their projects and shared their scientific outcomes. I learned so much! Thank you to Ms. Castellano and the volunteer judges for sharing your time. Congratulations to the student winners:

1st place:

Elliot Uzunov (K-2)

Austin Bower (3-5)

Gabriel Castellano (6-8)

Ben Mills (9-12)

2nd place:

Tigress Lakeman-Michaelson (K-2)

Gabe Messinger (3-5)

Nora Surenok (6-8)

Bennett Yates (9-12)

And Monday, April 14, ACA will hold a 'Scout Recognition Day'. This is a day where students who are, or have been, part of any scouting or similar type organization can be recognized and recognize each other. Plan to wear your uniforms and meet at the flagpole at lunch for a group photo!

Mrs. Filippello has arranged a great opportunity for our 3rd - 5th grade students to visit Champoeg State Park on Friday, April 25th. There will be a ranger led tour of the Visitor’s Museum and a wheat threshing activity. After the tour enjoy Disc Golf, the Nature Playground, or a visit to the Butteville General Store. The event is limited to 30 guests so please stop by the office to sign up. The guided tour is free but parking at Champoeg is $10 per day.

In true ACA Community fashion, the parents of our elementary age Drama Club are helping the members put on a performance. Everyone is invited to the free show! There will be one showing of the Spring Play ‘Distractions’ on April 16 at 4:00pm. Come support our young thespians!

PickleBall anyone? Join Mr. Snyder and Mr. Holland for a free six week community Pickleball meet-up! New and experienced players are welcome to join and equipment will be provided. This fun opportunity is open to ACA’s middle and high school students and ACA parents. There are 20 slots available so sign up HERE and meet at the pickleball courts at Hillendale Park in Oregon City on Fridays April 18 through May 23 from 2:00 to 4:00pm. (No meetups on rainy days). Questions? Email acapickleball@gmail.com

Looking for a way to get your volunteer hours logged this year? We need your help! ACA’s staff Safety Committee has planned a Reunification Drill on Friday, May 9 at 9:00am. Our neighbors at Park Place Church nearby have graciously offered to serve as ACA’s emergency reunification site. We need students, staff, and families to walk through the drill and test the plan. Click the LINK to sign up to join us. Snacks will be provided!

Just a couple of simple reminders to parents of students who will be coming in for State testing: if your child is grades 3-5 you must remain on-site during testing and be available to monitor your child during test breaks. Morning sessions begin promptly at 9:00 and afternoon sessions begin at 12:30. Students can’t join a session after it begins so please arrive on time.

Tickets are on sale now in the office for the Spring Dance. Students grades 6-12 are invited to attend on Friday, April 18, from 6:00 to 8:30pm. Tickets are $5 in the office or can be purchased for $10 at the dance. Since this is a middle and high school dance, outside guests are not permitted. Chaperone volunteers are welcome!

Also, Juniors and Seniors, save the date of May 2 for the 24-25 ACA Prom “Stellar Night”. Prom will be held at Lakeside Hall on the Clackamas Community College campus. The dance is for Juniors and Seniors, Sophomores by invite only. Food and beverages provided! Presale tickets are $10 and will go on sale April 9th. Tickets are $15 at the door.

Speaking of our Seniors and impending graduation events, the ACA Graduation Committee needs your help! The Graduation committee would like to invite parents, especially Junior parents, to volunteer to help with Graduation. There are a variety of ways that volunteers can be a huge help in making graduation weekend special for our Seniors June 5-7th. Here’s the LINK to sign up. It’s a really fun way to contribute to our school as we send our Seniors on their way!

ACA is hosting an event presented by Oregon City Together and The Children’s Center. The movie ‘Angst’ will be shown on Thursday evening, April 24, at ACA. Dinner and childcare will be provided. Check out the flyer below for registration details. Register for the event HERE.

A very important way to serve ACA is by joining our School Board. Please consider applying for a two year term. Here is the link to the APPLICATION. The deadline to apply is May 14th.

In the next newsletter you will see links to parent, staff, and grade band surveys. These Spring Surveys have been administered every year since ACA opened and provide very valuable longitudinal data about our school and how we are serving students and families. Please take time to fill out the survey and help our students get connected with the appropriate survey as well. Your time and input is very valuable!

Gentle Rule Reminder: Please pick up students promptly after their last class or activity of the day. We love them, but need them to go home when their ACA day is over!

And from the World’s Greatest PTO:

4/15- 4/26 • Spring Bottle Drive • BottleDrop

We are participating in the Spring Bottle Drive this year! BottleDrop will match up to 20% of all cans and bottles dropped off (in our blue bags with stickers) between April 15th- 26th. Ready to bring your bags now?! Please do so! There is an option to donate to ACA PTO directly from your own account, which will also give the matching 20% during this time. You can find our blue bags placed by the front doors and at the PTO desk.

Pizza Pre-Orders

It’s been fun watching so many students redeem their pizza tickets from the Read-A-Thon lately! We want to make sure we have enough pizza for everyone who wants some. You can order on our online form or any time at the PTO desk. Cutoff is the Tuesday before each pizza Thursday.

Remember to check the calendar on our website often, AllianceCharterAcademy.org and don’t forget to log your Volunteer hours here Volunteer Time Log.

There are a lot of great flyers below, so keep scrolling for some nice events and opportunities!

Have a wonderful weekend, and thank you for being part of the ACA family!

Go Eagles,

Shelly Smith

ShellySmith@aca.k12.or.us

24-25 Executive Director

“Our mission is to personalize learning through a collaboration of family, community and school; to nurture the innate curiosity of all our students; to ignite their passion for learning; and to prepare them for lifelong success.”