Special Services
We continue to grow in Special Services. Each month we have more students on Individual Education Programs and we are always in the process of assessing more referrals. I am really proud of the work of our Special Services team, not only in successfully handling all of the important paperwork, but also in their constant, ongoing care of students, families, and their colleagues in regular education.
Our WMS school psychologist, Stef Anderson, has been also serving WPS this school year and doing a fantastic job! Somehow, in the midst of this tremendous workload, Stef has challenged herself to grow in even more professional growth. She applied for and received an opportunity to serve in the Global Autism Project, a workgroup that serves internationally to build autism awareness and educational programming in underdeveloped countries. Stef will be going to Chandigarh, India in July 2019 with a team of therapists, educators, and autism specialists. Stef is in the process of raising the funds needed to travel and she has been receiving support from her friends and colleagues. If you or someone you know would like to help or read more information about the organization, check out the links below.
https://www.bonfire.com/parter-for-global-autism-project/
https://www.crowdrise.com/skillcorps-india-july-2019/fundraiser/StefAnderson
Title I
The WMS Title I department is busy:
LAP
Students have completed their winter iReady (WPS and WIS)and Accadience (WIS) (formerly DIBELS) assessments. These assessments allow us to look at growth from Fall to Winter. We have met with teachers, analyzed the data, and made decisions about program changes. LAP exit letters were sent to families and students are up and running in their new groups.
Of the students who are continuing in LAP services, many have progressed from working on phonics skills to reading fluently (accuracy, rate, expression). This shows marked progress; however, not enough to exit LAP services. We want to ensure students have every piece of reading acquisition solid before exiting them from services.
English Language Learners
The Intermediate school had a very successful ELL Family Night, Thursday, January 11th, 2019. The goal for this event was to have our ELL families join in using Class Dojo. WIS teachers use Class Dojo as a way to communicate with the parents as well since the message can be translated in another language. In our district, Spanish is the most common. This event was very successful with over a 100+ people attending. Fort Vancouver Regional Library donated dozens of English and Spanish books. Families brought lots of yummy dishes. At the end of the night, our ELL families felt more comfortable with using Class Dojo. Our ELL high school students are becoming more involved in sports and in our community. This school year more students are signing up to be TA’s; this helps them with their communication skills (since they are using their English all the time).
ELPA21 annual testing is coming up, and our team is ready! Some teachers started to prepare the ELL students with a pre-testing. Our teachers plan to test next month (March). The communication with the ELL families continues to happen every day. Since there is not a district translator yet, parents are calling Maribel Ramirez. Our ELL families have been taken care of, and continue to call when their students are absent or need assistance. Also, staff will transfer phone calls and voicemails, and Maribel follows up with the parents and staff.
Family Community Resource Center
This past month we have had the new Family, Community and Student Resource Coordinator start, Catherine Pulliam. Catherine has been creating workflows for the FCRC to help streamline procedures in order to increase and support sustainability for the families the center serves. In her short time with us so far, she has already developed and successfully implemented eight workflows! Catherine has coordinated with the district registrar to set up a school supply resource for families in need upon entry: administered backpacks, pencils, markers, crayons, color pencils, glue, notebooks, binders, paper and folders. The FCRC had 573 individual student visits over 4 pantries, serving 165 students district-wide in January.
K-12 Attendance
In January 2019, our Truancy Specialist, Stacy Mouat, partnered with Fibre Federal to offer all our WMS 8th grade students the interactive CHOICES program. This is a two-day workshop that addresses the importance of staying in school, and how the choices they make today can impact them for a lifetime (esp. around career choices later). We received positive news media coverage, thanks to Eric Jacobson, including an interview with KXL that aired February 14, 2019. It was such a success that Fibre Federal has agreed to partner with us again next year to offer it to the upcoming 8th grade students!
You can listen to the radio interview here: Stacy Mouat KXL Interview
Stacy continues to hold weekly BECCA conferences with students and parents. Families in our district are way more aware of the expectations of students not missing school, and/or planning ahead better for vacations. There are more conversations and awareness for parents around why students being in school is so important.
In addition, bi-monthly emails go home to all our families notifying parents how their students are doing as far as attendance compared to their school and district overall. These emails have been helping us reach our goal of bringing more regular awareness to attendance. From her work with families and our school staff, Stacy reports that the perception of the truancy process seems to be changing from a negative one to seeing the school as an ally to parents in supporting their student's educational goals.
Lewis River Academy
Our local EMT, LRA parent, and former School Director, Jeremy Stuart, came in this month to do some first aid training with our students. Mr. Stuart taught us about how to call 911 in an emergency situation, what to do if someone is choking, and some first aid basics. Our students were able to practice CPR with "CPR Dummies", which was a highlight, as well as bandage up their friends. It was an informative, and fun way to learn some important first aid skills.
This coming Wednesday, some staff members from IQ Credit Union will be here to teach our students about money, banking, and budgeting. Subjects like "Show Me the Money" and "Earn Your Keep" will give students an overview of money, and why it is important to budget. They will have lessons for our younger students in the morning session, and more advanced concepts for the older ones in the afternoon session.
Another event LRA is excited to take part in and celebrate, is Dr. Seuss' birthday, with a "Read Across America" book drive/book swap. Our leadership team will be collecting donated books and sorting them into various age groups, etc. On February 27th, which is Read Across America Day, students will be able to choose a donated book or two, that they can take home and keep. Any books not taken by our students, will be donated to the Woodland Action Center.
TEAM High School
We have almost 100 students at TEAM now. Students and staff are working hard to get their classes complete; every time I observe, there is a ton of “active student engagement” in the TEAM classroom! There is some good news about this years’ Senior Class to report as well: we have seven seniors who have completed all classes and requirements for graduation already this year! We also have four more who just need to complete their culminating project and about twelve more that are in their last set of classes now. Liz has created a Math Collection of Evidence (COE) class, and Jillian an ELA COE class, for our students who have not yet met their state testing requirements. Furthermore, TEAM has been working closely with Stacy Mouat to ensure that our students are staying on track with attendance and finding solutions to any truancy issues that may come up along their journey with us.
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Whew! So many good things happening in every part of our district in these programs! I am proud of their work and consider it a privilege to be able to serve them!
~Jake