The first full week of March is designated as Classified Employee Appreciation Week. At Clackamas ESD alone, we have more than 60 types of classified jobs. These are people who touch every corner of our agency’s work and the districts we support, from providing hands-on help to teachers, children and families, to filling endless behind-the-scenes roles to keep buildings and teams safe, cared for and high-functioning.
This Classified Employee Appreciation Week, we’re highlighting five of our more than 270 classified staff members and contractors, to provide a peek into the diverse ways this large group of employees lives our mission of service. We appreciate our entire classified team and the meaningful work they do.
Melanie Inns is our student services support assistant. Students, families and educators have needs beyond the classroom that must be met to ensure students’ academic success. Clackamas Education Service District’s student services team helps school districts support their communities’ mental and emotional health, physical health and safety, and student and community engagement through a variety of services. Melanie is a vital member of the student services team who helps keep their operations organized.
“I appreciate my team a lot. It’s a small but mighty team, and the positivity of everyone is just amazing. I’m always in awe of the work they do and how much they help our students and educators,” Melanie says.
In addition to managing the student services team’s bookkeeping and supply ordering – no small task due to the nine separate grants that fund the team’s work – Melanie takes on many other projects. She takes on administrative burdens so that specialists in health services, mental health, crisis support, support staff partnership and learning, and student and community engagement can focus on helping our districts cultivate healthy and inclusive school communities.
Melanie processes translation services requests, creates program newsletters, and manages the registration and day-of event support for the dozens of professional development trainings the student services team offers every year. She’s been especially instrumental in coordinating the logistics of the state-required paraprofessional assessments that measure new classroom assistants’ knowledge and skill in reading, writing and mathematics.
Since stepping into the student services support assistant role in 2022 after two and a half years in a similar role with the Multnomah-Clackamas Regional Educator Network, Melanie has collaborated with Support Staff Partnership and Learning Coordinator Elaine Merighi Morelock to improve the paraprofessional assessment scheduling, registration and testing experience. Previously, paraprofessional assessment scheduling and registration were managed individually by each school district. Melanie took on centralizing the process for nine districts under Clackamas ESD, saving our districts time and creating a smoother and easier-to-navigate process for paraprofessionals.
The assessments are one of the first experiences a new paraprofessional has working in our schools. Melanie recognizes that a positive testing experience can boost their confidence as they begin their new jobs supporting students in the classroom.
“From my initial contact with the paraprofessionals, my goal is to make them comfortable and give them all the information they need to feel prepared when they come in,” Melanie explains.
“We give them study materials in advance of the test so they can come in centered and focused. We try to make the testing environment calm and comfortable and offer them candy, water and fidget toys.”
Before coming to Clackamas ESD in 2020, Melanie worked in the screenprinting industry for 35 years, first as a screen printer before growing into office management and human resources roles. She was always very involved in her children’s schools, and she jumped at the chance to apply her organizational and people skills to a role in education when she returned to work after taking some time away from work to care for a family member.
“I’m happy to be able to support and help in whatever little ways I can, to take on some of the simple day-to-day things for our specialists so that they can focus on the kids and the educators,” Melanie shares.
