To: Michael Green
From: Jake Hall
Date: 4.20.23
Re: Learning Supports and LRA Board Report
Family and Community Resource Center
Dutch Luv Day on Feb 17th was a success again! One dollar from every drink purchased amounted to $894 raised for our Food Pantry! The Food Pantry Program is 100% community funded, and stocks each school building with snacks and weekend food support for students who experience food insecurity.
Thanks to our Homeless Student Stability Education Program Grant and a new hire at the Family Health Center, we are close to having a Coordinated Entry Housing Staff Member on location at our Family Resource Center on Fridays! This will give families better access and lower barriers to housing programs in Cowlitz County.
Health Services
Our District Nurse, Kerri Six, has completed the annual district assessment of Health Services. Kerri submits this report to our local Educational Service District. Here is a link to it.
Highly Capable Program
The 1st grade/ 2nd grade split class is working on constructing castles with turrets using index cards and masking tape. This builds from a previous lesson in which we tested how much weight could be held on top of various heights/sizes of rolled paper columns.
2nd graders have been working hard on CODING! They completed a unit on code.org and had some fun playing with the Code and Go Robot Mouse. Now we are starting our work with the OZOBOT, which should be lots of fun, and take their coding to another level!
3rd grade students completed a bridge challenge and learned about suspension and the different mechanics that go into bridge building; a themed STEM challenge around Valentines Day, including creating and using bow and arrows to complete different objectives. Students also built lava lamps and learned about chemical reactions between acids and bases. Moving forward, students will be working on stop motion animation using chromebooks and presenting short animations to each other with an explanation of the creative process behind the animation.
In 4th grade we have done a wide variety of Science, Technology, English, Mathematics (STEM) activities including labs where our focus is hands-on learning and following step by step instructions. We have made lava lamps. slime, elephant toothpaste, ice cream, and bouncy balls. We also consistently work on public speaking through the morning announcements.
In WMS Highly Capable class, students are working on learning programming principles using LEGO robots. We will soon be designing and programming robots to complete certain tasks. The LEGO team has been doing advanced projects using the FTC style robot that the WHS uses.
Lewis River Academy
A presenter from the Cowlitz County Historical Museum came to LRA and presented about two essentials for Pacific Northwest native culture: salmon and cedar! It was a wonderful, active, informative presentation for our multi-age, Kindergarten - 8th grader group. We are looking forward to longtime Woodland guest speaker and "Whale Guy" John Ford bringing his expertise to LRA at the end of April. We also started an all-ages/all-abilities Chess Club meeting twice a month.
We continue to work on opinion writing in kindergarten through 5th grade. 6th - 8th grade students are working individually with the teacher to meet their own writing goals. We are planning for the state assessment, providing practice materials online, and practice experiences in the classroom.
Learning Assistance Program (LAP)
After looking closely at our data before conferences, we have been able to exit or move forward several students in our LAP programs. This news was happily received by teachers and families at conferences! We will continue to work with our students in their respective programs and closely monitor their progress. When the data indicates a response to intervention is not happening, we respond with a program adjustment or professional learning for the teacher.
Multilingual Learner Program
Multilingual Learners in Woodland School District have now completed the annual state required English language proficiency assessment. Students must meet the criteria in all four domains - Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening to exit language services. Results will be available in late May. There are currently 200 active students and 23 students who have successfully transitioned out of the ML program based on showing proficiency on the state assessment.
At Columbia we are expecting a noticeable improvement in our scores from last year. Parent-Teacher conferences were a success and the ML progress reports have been sent out to families. All ML students will complete their final Imagine Learning benchmark assessment later this month so we can start planning for next year.
North Fork ML students will participate in a field trip to OMSI Creatividad silvestre | Wild Creativity which is a Spanish-language forward exhibit that reveals how animals and nature work in unique, sustainable, and efficient ways.
WMS students worked really hard on their annual ML assessment this year and we are so proud of them. If our levy passes, we will continue planning for WMS Summer School for our incoming 5th graders through 7th grade ML students.
WHS ML students chose an influential person who has had a positive impact on the world and are reading a book about them. Once they complete their books they will be doing a presentation on the life of these people in front of the rest of the class.
Student Engagement Coordinator (K-12 Attendance)
Currently our student reengagement program consists of roughly 477 students who are showing attendance issues. Lindsay Noble is working with over 200 of the identified chronic non-attending students and their families. Out of those families, we have nine court petitions in a “stay” position with Cowlitz Courts, and one petition that is being exited from stay and will be scheduled for a hearing soon.
Lindsay took a group of seven WHS students around the Career Fair at WHS to help these students see more about their future. We have a student from WHS who will be completing the truancy program! This student has been on Lindsay’s caseload since last school year. We are very proud of the changes the student has made for herself throughout the program.
Title Program
We had a wonderful Family Fun Night April 13, 2023!
We are working on collecting data and developing our data sheet, collaborating with WHS, CES, NFE, and Yale. Through this work with WMS as the hub in the center of all the schools, we share information about students to meet their needs during the 2023-24 school year.