Building community partnerships is at the core of the place-based approach. Over the years, the Cottonwood School has created strong relationships with local organizations, agencies, and individuals. Through these partnerships, students have gained greater access to authentic curricular content, career knowledge, and audiences for their culminating projects. Students have also provided services to partners, such as creating educational materials and collecting valuable data.
Several of our classes have “adopted” parks, refuges, and greenspaces owned by Portland Parks and Recreation. Students visit their adopted location several times over the school year. Some of the visits focus on restoration work and other trips offer teachers an opportunity to connect the place to classroom curriculum.
Our first and second grade students visit Mirabella every month to meet with their reading buddies. Kindergarten visits throughout the year to celebrate holidays. Several seventh and eighth grade students volunteer in the spring to offer tech tutorials, help out in the library, and assist the activity director in the memory care unit. Our partnership with Mirabella is primarily organized and maintained by passionate, involved residents.
BES consistently provides environmental education to our students both in the classroom and as part of their restoration efforts in their “adopted” places. BES has also helped to create and connect us to resources around watershed education.
Our students travel to this nearby forest to learn about salmon, water quality, and ethnobotany. Tryon Creek is the fourth and fifth grader’s adopted place; they visit at least six times a year to explore, learn, and provide service work.
Every spring, our third grade students participate in the Archaeology Roadshow hosted by PSU’s archaeology department. The class researches and designs an educational exhibit to help educate the public. Our students are the only participants younger than the undergraduate level.
Our third grade class has repeatedly partnered with the Rice Museum on service-learning projects; students created an educational scavenger hunt based on museum exhibits and designed and created a timeline of geologic history for the museum to display.
Andersen Construction has generously donated hours of volunteer hours to help build playground structures and our Little Free Library. Jeff Slinger of Andersen Construction teaches first and second graders about design elements and fourth and fifth graders about architecture.
The Fair Housing Council supports our sixth graders as they learn about the African-American history of Portland. The Council has also offered invaluable professional development opportunities for our staff.
We are excited to learn more as we build this exciting new partnership!
Confluence is a community supported nonprofit that connects people to place through art and education.
http://www.confluenceproject.org/
Jake comes to us with great experiences and passion that directly relate to this diverse position. Over the years, through work with Playworks, at a Montessori school, Outdoor School and with the Boy Scouts, Jake has gained experience in teaching games, delivering lessons, and actively keeping kids engaged in fun, physical movement. He has had the opportunity to build skills that support children’s social emotional well being alongside their physical health.
Liza joined the Cottonwood staff in 2018 as the full-time special education teacher. She holds a bachelor’s degree in History from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut and a dual Master’s degree in Reading & Special Education from the University of Michigan. Liza grew up in a large family in the Northeast that included a special needs sibling. Before getting her masters, she worked in administrative positions at schools in Boston and Southeastern Michigan. After grad school, she and her husband relocated to the Northwest for access to all of the outdoor activities in the Cascades and Oregon coast. In Portland, she has taught special education at Beaverton High School, Peninsula Elementary and Portland Village School. She is thrilled to be at Cottonwood where she appreciates the close knit community of staff & students along with the school’s place based education mission. In her free time, Liza enjoys spending time with her family in the mountains or at the coast, buzzing around in her EV, and enjoying the many great coffee houses in the Northwest.
Nancy joined the Cottonwood Special Education team as a half-time learning resource teacher in the Fall of 2020. Over the years, she has evolved as an individual that sees great value in education. In her generation, there were no additional supports for students to develop their areas of weakness. She was a high school drop-out that yearned to be equal. Throughout her life, she strived daily with small challenges that propelled her forward.
Joe joined the staff as a long-term substitute in the Winter of 2020. He received his Bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University, and his Master’s of Art in Teaching from SUNY Cortland in 2010. He is a passionate reader, writer, and outdoor adventurer who has been teaching and exploring the Pacific Northwest for the past ten years. In addition to several years working with underserved and homeless youth in downtown Portland, Joe has also taught at an American International School in Guatemala City. Joe feels that successful educators must be constantly searching for newer and better ways to connect with and engage their students and be willing to meet and interact with young people in the spaces that they find comfortable. This means being tech savvy and culturally aware, but it also means simply having the confidence and the integrity to treat all people with respect, and approach every learning opportunity with an open mind. He is looking forward to learning more about place-based learning as the year proceeds.
McLean came to Cottonwood in the fall of 2019 as a teacher candidate in Morgen’s 4/5 classroom, before moving to the middle school. He recently earned his Masters in Education from Portland State and works to incorporate music, theater, and storytelling in the classroom each day. Prior to his time at CSCS, McLean served as a classroom assistant and after school teacher at The Ivy School, a summer camp instructor/Earth Mage at Trackers Earth, after school care bus driver, field educator at an environmental non-profit, and Expressive Arts Program Coordinator. Originally from Juneau, Alaska, McLean enjoys backpacking, playing the guitar, looking at maps, creating art, sports, video editing, playing board games, long road trips, and crossword puzzles with his morning coffee.
Kimberley has spent the last ten years teaching preschool through third grade at Trillium Charter School and spent the past three years in a K/1 blended classroom. Kimberley is committed to relationship-based education and inclusive classroom practices. She became interested in place-based education while working with a colleague who did their student teaching at The Cottonwood School. The next year Kimberley devoted her time to a year long study with her students of Washington Park and the importance of this place to the Portland Metro community. Kimberley has a BA in Early Childhood Education and Human Development from Washington State University. In her free time, Kimberley loves spending time with her daughters, friends and family, reading, hiking and riding her bicycle. 
Elizabeth joined CSCS in 2016. She recently graduated with a MAT from the Arbor Center for Teaching in conjunction with Marylhurst University. As part of this program, she had the privilege of co-teaching for two years in a K-1 classroom at the Arbor School of Arts and Sciences, as well as teaching language arts and math units in a 5
Lisa joined the teaching team at CSCS in 2007. Prior to teaching at SWCS, she worked with the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) where for four years she developed science curriculum and taught students of all ages around the state. Her love of science and exploration began back in Michigan where she and her sister would explore their neighborhood, looking for insects and tinkering in their father’s work shed. That interest would take her to study at the University of Michigan where she discovered she had a talent for teaching and received a Bachelor of Arts in Education with High Distinction. She recently completed her Master’s degree at Concordia. She has taught in a variety of educational settings from large group assemblies, which encouraged a love of theater, to small group classrooms, where she can give individualized attention. Her strong science background is accented by a passion for storytelling, folklore & mythology from around the world. Inspired by those tales, she creates visual art, plays with the Stumptown-Jugthumpers as a washboard player, and is learning how to make puppets. Lisa brings her enthusiasm and talents to share and loves discovering and honing the talents and skills of each of her students.
Chris joined the staff as the 7/8 Math and Science teacher in 2014. Chris received his Bachelor’s degree in Biology Education from Ithaca College. He has completed Master’s level work in Educational Technology at Walden University. He spent four years teaching Middle School science at Lower Manhattan Community School in New York City. Chris feels that every interaction and situation presents an opportunity to learn. He has a passion for outdoor education and learning through community. Chris believes that knowing the children we teach is as important as knowing the content we teach. 
Emily Conner joined Southwest Charter in 2016 as our 7/8 Humanities teacher. Emily has a Masters in Teaching at Lewis & Clark, where she focused on social justice education and promoting an inclusive and inquiring classroom community. Her interest in place-based education began when she lived in Alabama, working toward her MFA in creative writing and farming in Coker on weekends. In her free time, Emily likes to bake bread, doodle, and go on long walks with audiobooks and her dog Ellie.
Her teaching journey actually began at our school as a student teacher for Sarah Anderson while earning her Master’s in elementary education at Antioch University. While there she specialized in integrated learning with an emphasis on science and environmental education. She has spent the last four years teaching a blended 2/3 class at Trillium Charter School where she has been committed to creating engaging and relevant projects that connect students to their place. She is passionate about building strong relationships with students and creating a collaborative and inclusive classroom community. We are glad to have her back at our school.
Daniel has a Masters in Education from Portland State University. He spent last year in a 4/5 classroom at MLC where he gained experience with this age group, used the Storyline Method during several projects, infused the school day with music, and more. He is passionate about incorporating the arts into each school day; He plays guitar for the children every day and has begun a novel writing project with the class. He has been hard at work building solid routines in math and other areas of classroom life.
Natalie recently graduated from Oregon State, grew up in Coos Bay, and is an avid horsewoman. We are excited to have her with us full time as a PE Teacher and Recess/Classroom Aid.
Melissa studied early childhood education before having her own children and moving from California to Oregon in 2012. She worked for several children’s art companies including Kiwi Crate where she designed over 400 of their art tutorials and wrote for their child centered art blog. Melissa’s oldest child started at CSCS her kindergarten year in 2012 and Melissa naturally fell into the art program of CSCS by volunteering in a parent-led art program for two years before coming on board officially as the k-5th grade art instructor in 2015. When she is not teaching art at school and hanging art throughout the halls, Melissa leads a girls group, enjoys cooking, painting and spending time with her family. Coming from a family of 9 siblings she thrives around the energy and the children at CSCS.
Kathy Price, a former preschool teacher, has been working with CSCS since the opening in 2007 (as Southwest Charter School). In addition to teaching preschool, Kathy has worked with Neighborhood House’s SUN program teaching after school classes to grades K-8. Kathy has a coached many sports over the years including soccer, basketball, gymnastics and dance. Outside of school, Kathy enjoys reading, hiking and long walks on the beach. Kathy has lived in Portland for most of her life and is proud to be bringing up her son in the same neighborhoods in which she grew up. Kathy has taken great joy in raising her teenage son and is grateful she gets to spend time with the amazing kids of CSCS.
Amanda joined the faculty at Southwest Charter in Fall 2010 as the kindergarten teacher, during the 2014/15 school year she began her transition into administration, becoming the Executive Director in 2016. After being away for 22 years, Amanda returned to her hometown of Portland in 2008 to raise her two boys. Amanda received her Master’s Degree in Education from the Claremont Graduate School, Claremont, California in 1992. With her degree in hand, she has taught in a number of small alternative schools, designed a successful children’s clothing line using recycled materials, and started her own Place-based school in rural Montana. Amanda believes strongly in the power of Place-Based Education and getting children out from behind their desks and into active, hands-on learning! She loves children and is enthusiastic about the outdoors, her community, family, cooking, and crafts.
Sarah K. Anderson, was previously our 7th/8th teacher specializing in language arts and social studies, was originally lured to Oregon by its waterfalls. She spent most of her childhood exploring rivers and forests near her rural Vermont home- experiences which provided inspiration for a passion for nature and all things wild. After graduating with a degree in American Studies from Bard College in New York, Sarah served as an AmeriCorps volunteer for Metro Parks and Greenspaces in Portland. Since then, she has worked as a crew leader at an educational farm in Vermont, a Teacher Naturalist in the California Redwoods and a Middle School Humanities teacher at The 