To: Asha Riley
From: Jake Hall
Date: 10.17.24
Re: October 2024 Board Report
Learning Assistance Program (LAP)
We have finished our annual End of Year report for 2023-24. This report requires coordination and work from our LAP coordinators in the elementary schools, building secretaries, Stacy Brown and myself. I am grateful for the faithful work of our coordinators to manage student growth scores and implement educational assistance for our students Kindergarten through 4th Grade.
Family and Community Resource Center
Our new FCRC Coordinator, Joni Meize, has been doing a wonderful job making connections with students and families. Joni has also continued to cultivate relationships with our community partners, including the Emergency Support Shelter in Longview, Washington. Joni has been processing all of the students identified as homeless, unaccompanied youth, and students in the foster care system in our schools.
Health
We currently have students with life-threatening health issues such as diabetes and other medically fragile conditions in our schools. As such, there is a crucial need for our Health Room supports. We have been able to add a school nurse, Breanna Smolerek, to our small and mighty team with Kerri Six and Shayla Miller. Breanna will start October 21, 2024 and she will have a few weeks to learn from Shayla and Kerri before Shayla takes medical and family leave for 18 weeks beginning in November 2024.
Highly Capable Program
We have been working with our District Registrar, Deena Capen, to make sure we have accurate accounting of our students who are identified as gifted. Also, our WMS School Psychologist, Elena Groen, has been working with me and Nichole Lester to create a system to indicate students identified as highly capable in our Q/Skyward system. Students have been placed in highly capable courses or small groups accordingly.
Lewis River Academy
The students, families, and teachers in Lewis River Academy have recently finished our first round of Monthly Progress Meetings and are preparing for these meetings again in November 2024. This is a new effort by the LRA team and we believe it will have a positive impact on student engagement and academic achievement.
Multilingual Education Program
The ML team is preparing for the annual assessment of all students who are in the program. This assessment is used for accountability purposes. Student scores on this assessment are also used as one of multiple measures to make reclassification decisions and, ultimately, whether a student can exit the program.
Our ML students at WHS attended the 2024 Clark County Latino Youth Leadership Conference on October 4, 2024, at Washington State University - Vancouver. This annual leadership conference empowers high school students to develop leadership skills and explore higher education and technical careers on a college campus. By uniting multilingual community leaders, we affirm our students' place in professional and academic spaces. This event reflects our community's commitment to fostering future leaders and creating a greater future for all our students. Here is a picture of our ML students and teachers at the event.
Student Engagement
Lindsay Noble has been working with each of our special education teams in the schools to implement processes for identifying and meeting with students with disabilities. Essentially, Lindsay is actively participating in IEP team meetings for students who have truancy concerns. Lindsay and the IEP teams are listening, problem solving, and working together with families to remove any barriers to regular attendance. This work is in addition to Lindsay’s continued communication and work with all students in the district.
Special Services
The special education department is bringing in our former Occupational Therapist, Felicity Silcox, to teach new staff the specific training about de-escalation strategies and safe restraints known as the Crisis Prevention Institute (CPI) training. Felicity is now working in the Forks School District but she has graciously agreed to continue to be our CPI trainer. Our new staff in special education will have this training October 31st and November 1, 2024.
Title Program -- Woodland Middle School
Angela Campbell has been helpful in articulating our 2023-24 End of Year report for our Title Program at Woodland Middle School. A highlight of the report is efforts WMS has made in family engagement. In addition to specific, direct support of students each school day, I appreciate how Angela and Russell have streamlined family engagement opportunities in WMS.