WaKIDS: The Washington Kindergarten Inventory of Developing Skills (WaKIDS) is a process that engages parents of entering kindergarteners with educators to promote a successful transition to school. More than an assessment of skills and readiness, the experience includes extremely valuable conferences at the beginning of the year. This gives families and teachers a chance to engage in important dialogue regarding each child. Establishing this home/school partnership is a foundation to student success and well-being.
The WaKIDS inventory analyzes six key areas of school readiness. These include physical, language, social-emotional, cognitive, literacy, and mathematics indicators. In previous years, Woodland children have entered kindergarten with roughly two thirds of students not demonstrating readiness in at least one key area. Many students have entered school with the readiness of two, three, and four year olds. This makes closing the achievement gaps quickly extremely challenging and is evident in some of our student achievement data.
Data for the current year has just been released and is in preliminary form. Initial analysis indicates that the readiness levels of kindergarteners entering Woodland this year are significantly lower than in previous years. Of particular concern is the indicator of cognitive readiness. This is consistent with the observations of educators at Woodland Primary. The work that must be engaged in is establishing deep partnerships with our early learning (preschool) providers. The WPS team is working closely with Asha Riley and will be partnering with WIS to make this work a top priority. Reconfiguring to two schools next year makes it important that WIS is part of the partnership work now. More data analysis will be coming as it is available.
Veteran’s Day Assembly: WPS welcomed a large crowd of community members and veterans to honor those who are serving or have served in the armed services. There was not a dry eye in the school as our young learners very seriously sang a special song to the veterans in attendance. They gave a heartfelt, honoring performance and presented special gifts. Many community members have reached out to thank all of the schools for making Veteran’s Day such a high priority. It was a proud day to be part of Woodland Public Schools and our WPS students touched hearts and made us very proud!