To: Michael Green
From: Jake Hall
Date: 5.18.22
Re: May 2022 Board Report
Alternative Learning Experiences
During the month of May, students grades 3-8 in Lewis River Academy, as well as 9-12 at TEAM, are completing State Testing. Students have found the tests doable, which has been a boost of confidence for them and for us!
We are preparing for next year, with a number of families considering in-person schooling again in Lewis River Academy. We are also excited to bring back the LRA End of Year BBQ at Horseshoe Lake in June. This fun event reminds me of pre-pandemic times!
Family and Community Resource Center
This month we continue collaborating with community partners on grant applications. Lower Columbia CAP is working with us on the HSSP/HSSeP grant, with the goal of hiring a housing navigator to work on-site at local districts.
Our Multilingual Resource Fair is this Saturday, May 21st, at Columbia Elementary from 4 pm-6 pm. Everyone is invited! Food will be provided while supplies last, thanks to Amerigroup! Once the Resource Fair and grant applications are complete, we will begin revamping our district McKinney-Vento training materials for next school year and planning Back to School Bash.
Learning Assistance Program
K-4 LAP staff and students are in the last push before our end-of-year testing. Our sub shortage has made things a little challenging. We are getting creative in how to keep groups running! Our students have been hard at work and are making solid gains in their accuracy and fluency. We have created a benchmark testing schedule that allows the LAP team to do our end-of-year testing while continuing to hold intervention groups with our kindergarten and 1st-grade students. We continue to review data and make shifts in groups, instructional delivery, and materials. We are really proud of our students and the strides they have made this year. We cannot wait until we see their end-of-year data, so we can celebrate their growth!
Special Services
One of my colleagues who works in the Washington State School for the Blind put out an email to regional special services directors to see if any of us had a need for an “Aerial Lift” for students. She said the electric Aerial Lift is medical grade, can hold 600 pounds, and is in perfect condition; her Mom had only used it six times before she passed away. She wrote, “If you know of a school or educational center that serves students that require lifting, this tool would be perfect. It goes through doors, it accepts a variety of slings from sitting, to laying to toileting.” I quickly replied that, yes, Woodland has a need. Through her family’s generosity, Woodland was given the Aerial Lift to use with our students!
Multilingual Education Program
We have recently learned that the English Language Learner program is now referred to as the Multilingual Education Program. We will start referring to “ELL” as Multilingual Education and “EL learners” as multilingual English learners.
At the middle school, the multilingual education team is busy preparing to serve our students over the summer with our summer school program, providing multilingual English learners with additional support in English Language Arts, Math, and Science. At the high school, we started an Academic After School Support Club program thanks to the funding from ESSR.
Title Program
Tara Eilts has been working with the WMS and the elementary school staff to collect data that helps us to know more about the achievement levels of our incoming 5th graders next school year. This data also helps us to place students in reading intervention, additional electives, and advanced English Language Arts and Math classes. Specific data will help teachers know the academic and social emotional needs of individuals they will work with next year. It also shows who their teachers were the year before, should they want to collaborate around a specific student.
Title staff will be doing Acadience testing after the state assessment, Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBA), is complete. Title staff have also been helping with SBA testing, supervision, and working with students in classes.