Woodland School District’s learning supports and alternatives are moving forward in 2018!
English Language Learners/Bilingual Program
We are pleased to report that our students are being assessed according to state guidelines. These guidelines for ELL assessment changed at the beginning of this school year, but great teamwork has helped us navigate this change for our students.
Family and Community Resource Center
The Family Community Resource center distributed 105 Basic Needs and gave 71 Resource Referrals to outside agencies. The food pantries are being utilized well with 299 individual student visits this past month. A recent highlight of the FCRC programming is securing stabling housing for four students and one family. This couldn’t have been made possible without our partnership with Love Overwhelming, many face-to-face meetings, and the Homeless Student Stability Program funds. Love Overwhelming worked out a partnership with Love Inc. in Longview to provide beds for each child, furniture, and household needs. FCRC programming supports our students experiencing a housing crisis and offers plans of action and resources for parents.
Highly Capable Program
It is exciting to see WMS students working hard on the Science Olympiad projects. Some students are designing electric cars and towers as well as studying optics and simple lens formulas! Mr. Jud loves the enthusiasm students are putting into their individual challenges. Their competition is coming up March 3rd, 2018.
K-12 Attendance
This month Stacy Mouat has been very busy with "Becca" conferences and following up on students. As the school year progresses, we have more students with 3+ unexcused absences accumulated in the 2017-18 school year. Therefore, the average number of truancy conferences for WMS and WHS is also increasing as we go further into the school year. Usually, parents opt to do a phone conference with Stacy in lieu of attending the conference with their students and a copy of the attendance agreement is then mailed home. I appreciate Stacy’s adept skill and genuine care as she finds solutions with families.
LAP Program
WIS students are working on their Winter iReady diagnostic assessment as well as the Winter DIBELS benchmark. These two assessments will allow us to look at LAP student’s growth and make adjustments to their program based on the data. We have purchased some additional instructional materials for the LAP program in an effort to create a “menu” of options based on student need per the data. LAP is going to partially fund a training for our entire 2nd-grade team in March. The extreme need for our 2nd-grade students to receive foundational skills in the area of reading has prompted this training. 2nd-grade teachers must be equipped to teach students to read and differentiate the learning for those already reading. We are excited to learn as a team and confident our learning will benefit our students.
Lewis River Academy
Thanks to Stacy Meyer, Science Coordinator from ESD #112, LRA has been given an opportunity to try out and explore the world of mini-robots in our classroom. These cute little “bots” (Ozobots and Bee Bots) are quite the craze and are becoming extremely popular. In case you're wondering, an Ozobot is a little toy robot that blends the physical and digital worlds, teaching kids ages 8 years of age and up, about programming. The Ozobot can identify lines, colors, and codes on both digital surfaces, such as an iPad, and physical surfaces, such as paper. Bee-Bots are a bit inferior in comparison to the Ozobot and are designed for use by younger children, (3 years of age and up) teaching them sequencing, estimation and problem-solving. Our Teachers will be hosting a Wednesday Workshop this week, that will focus on how to program and operate these new little cute creatures.
Nurse Services
Health staff continue to see students daily for minor and major injuries/illnesses. Chantell Miller has updated or added multiple health care plans for new and current students to the district, including the required parent education and staff training/education. Channtel and health room staff continue to work with students and their families on updating immunizations, mostly for our new-enrolled students. Finally, Channtel has been working on ensuring our diabetic students’ needs are met appropriately.
Special Services
The Special Services Department works with many outside agencies, such as the Washington State Migrant Education Program. Quarterly, the Migrant Student Data, Recruitment, and Support Director, conducts ongoing identification and recruitment of eligible migrant students residing within state borders, specifically attending Woodland School District. They inform the Special Services department of all qualifying students to receive free student lunch. Information is verified and families are reached through our District's efforts. Our Special Services teams work together, meeting with these families and encouraging them to remain in our community, receiving the supports needed, following the guidelines of the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. Together, we will make a difference!
TEAM High School
We have had a great start to 2018. Our students were excited to be back, and we were glad to see them! We are making a Graduation Map for each of our seniors to help them stay on track to graduate this June. The feedback we’ve received from students about their Graduation Maps has been really positive; students appreciate this visual of their academic progress! We are expecting about 20 graduates this year. Also, TEAM HS is helping transfer a few seniors back to WHS for 2nd semester, on track to graduate with the 2018 WHS Senior Class.
Title Program
The Title program at WMS is busy assessing student growth and adjusting student placement in their extension classes to best meet the needs of each individual student. In January, we are taking the iReady diagnostic assessment as a benchmark assessment in both reading and math. Teachers and administrators use this data to measure growth as well as gaps in student learning to be addressed. Along with the iReady assessment, staff consider classroom assessments and teacher observation in helping to determine each student's best placement for their extension period for quarter 3.
Transitional Bilingual Intervention Program
Milagros Wells has been working on new parenting classes in partnership with Evergreen School District. She recently had a planning meeting to talk about details for a health fair in April. Milagros is also working on bringing the mobile Mexican consulate to our families in May.
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Thank you for your ongoing support.
~Jake