Students measure up to state on NWEA test; board also gets update on construction projects
By RYAN LANCASTER
Staff Reporter
Though light on action items, the Medical Lake School Board had a full meeting Sept. 28 with reports on recent assessment scores, construction projects and a new teacher/principal evaluation program.
The board approved the first and second reading of a policy on military leave that clarifies the district is required by law to give leave but that it is unpaid. Board members also voted to surplus a duplicator machine, two vehicles, a tractor and a mower.
District director of teaching and learning Dan Mueller then reported results of this spring's Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) testing in reading and math. The test, given in fall, winter and spring, matches student achievement levels with item difficulties to increase targeted instruction over multiple grade levels.
Mueller said district scores in math and reading have been flat for the past few years although Medical Lake has been consistently ahead of the state norm in math, with the exception of slight dips in grades 9 and 10 over last year. District reading scores are also slightly ahead of the state in all areas.
One major positive in the NWEA data is that there isn't much difference in grade performance across schools, Mueller said. “I think that's a tribute to our collaboration and the consistency in our curriculum,” he said. “That's something we need to keep working on and building on.”
Superintendent Pam Veltri said the tests revealed very little achievement gap between low income and non-low income students, but work needs to be done to narrow a gap between students in special and regular education. “One of our major focuses needs to be on students with disabilities. On state test scores that was a major factor in bringing down our scores,” she said.
Veltri later said the district is still sifting through state assessment data but certain changes are in the works to deal with low science scores, including adding a science writing curriculum and building in more opportunities for review.
The board heard a brief update on construction projects and learned that contractor bids were set to open early this week on the middle school project, with a placeholder of $1.5 million for the proposed Hallett Elementary additions. Veltri said the bidding climate is good right now and that a pre-bid meeting a few weeks ago drew all major construction companies in the area.
Included in the base bid are some alternate projects at the middle school, which companies can quote a price on that can be accepted or rejected by the district. These include a reworking of the media center so that the space is less open, landscaping in front of the school and an upgrade of the entire building's public address system. Another that is not coming out of bond construction dollars is a bid for the new tennis courts at the high school.
Veltri told the board about Medical Lake's involvement in a statewide program to find better ways of evaluating teachers and principals. The district is one of a handful in Washington selected to create and pilot test a new evaluation system over the next three school years, developing a model of the new system in 2010-11 and putting it into practice in 2011-12.
Midway through the pilot period and at its conclusion the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction will collect data from the pilot districts and make recommendations to the Legislature on adopting one or more of the systems for use by all state schools.
“When it's done you'll have a new model one way or another, so we felt like we'd like to be a part of developing that model versus having it handed to us,” Veltri said.
Ryan Lancaster can be reached at [email protected].
Reader Comments(0)