MEDICAL LAKE — The Medical Lake School Board held a long, early meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 22, to hear the district’s five principals highlight the good things they’ve been doing, and areas of focused improvement.
District schools are evaluated on results from a variety of state and local testing that measures two distinct areas of student learning: proficiency and growth.
The district’s ongoing Center for Educational Effectiveness (CEE) survey also measures nine areas of “high performing schools,” according to Superintendent Tim Ames.
A total of 1,400 students, parents and staff responded to the CEE survey. The 139 staff members who responded asked for more training on social-emotional learning to better handle more difficult students. Parent involvement and engagement was also identified as a top priority for improvement, Ames told the board.
Special education and students with disabilities is a key area of growth for the district, Ames said, and while overall those students aren’t reaching proficiency standards, they are achieving growth.
“Multiple schools are doing great on special ed students’ growth,” Ames said, noting that the delivery model for those students is moving toward inclusion within regular classrooms versus an exclusive pullout model.
All of the district’s schools reported to the board on areas of both success and concern in student growth and proficiency as measured by testing, and highlighted three focused goal areas based on the nine areas of high performing schools the CEE measures.
The district tracks student progress as they climb the academic ladder from kindergarten to graduation, and identify areas where, based on testing, students need focused learning.
At Hallett Elementary, for example, first-year principal Kristin Kuster reported that kindergartner reading growth had been trending downward during the past three years, based on testing. As a result, an unusually large cohort of first-graders were receiving reading intervention support, through a “purposeful” teacher scheduling to give kids immediate support at the beginning of the year. Testing this winter will measure the effort’s success.
While students at Michael Anderson, with it’s itinerant military student population that comes and goes, showed challenges in first and second-grade reading scores, and third-grade math and English language arts, or ELA, first, second and fourth grade math results showed 67 – 80 percent improvements, “more that a year’s worth of growth,” Principal Darlene Starr reported.
Medical Lake Middle School showed a drop-in proficiency “in all areas,” Principal Sylvia Campbell said, except sixth grade ELA, but the school still remains above state standards.
And while all district schools are seeking student growth, Medical Lake Endeavors, the district’s alternative high school, seeks stability, according to School Director Lyra McGirk. Like most alternative learning programs, graduation rates at Endeavor are low compared to traditional education models. But McGirk plans to change that through a variety of refinements, including instituting a four-period day.
“I feel confident we’re going to see improvement,” she said.
Medical Lake High School Principal Chris Spring, and Assistant Principal Justin Blayne teamed up for their report.
“We reap the benefits of these kids who show up on our porch,” Spring said, motioning to the administrators who reported before him.
He noted that the class of 2019 achieved a 100 percent graduation rate. One student didn’t walk with his class due to what Spring classified as severe personal hardship, but through summer school was able to earn his diploma.
“We didn’t quit on him,” Spring said.
Blayne reported that the school had an 8.7 proficiency rating out of 10 by WSIF.
Spring also noted that freshman who were “on-track” to graduate increased from 77 to 81 percent and noted that the school was good at credit recovery and guiding students through the four-year education process. Blayne touted the summer school program as helping capture a portion of the remaining 19 percent to get them on a graduation track.
The high school is implementing several programs to assist the success of students, including an “intensified” algebra course, a double algebra block for students who struggle with math.
“It’s helping students get the skills that they’re deficient in,” Blayne said, who noted that the math success rate last year was 96 percent.
Lee Hughes can be reached at [email protected].
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