To: Asha Riley
From: Jake Hall
Date: 9.16.26
Re: September 2026 Board Report
District Translator
Since returning from summer break, Vanessa has provided comprehensive language access and administrative coordination across the district, serving our primary, middle, and high school levels. Her focus has been on bridging communication between families and school staff by translating administrative and instructional materials such as student handbooks and district documents into Spanish. Vanessa has also been facilitating special education workflows by scheduling speech and other IEP evaluations, meeting, coordinating interpreter services, and providing direct interpretation during parent conferences to ensure clear, meaningful engagement for all families.
Family and Community Resource Center
Our Family Community Resource Center continues to serve as a hub of support and connection for our school community. We kicked off the year in high gear with our Back to School Bash 2026, which brought together and supported roughly 500 families with essential supplies, resources, and festive energy to start the year strong. We continue to cultivate new partnerships with local businesses, expanding the network of care and direct support available to our students and their households.
K-12 Attendance (Student Engagement)
Our students have kicked off the school year with fantastic momentum in overall attendance in our classrooms. To protect this progress and build on their potential, it is essential that we establish consistent, supportive routines. To do this, Lindsay has been meeting individually with families and staff at each school. Lindsay has already helped foster relationships with families and worked to remove perceived barriers to student attendance.
K-12 Health Services
The school year started off on solid footing with a full nursing staff. It started with reminding parents of the due date for required medication orders and rescue medications for students with life-threatening health conditions. Immunization follow-up was also a high priority as we needed to make sure that our incoming 7th graders had their required Tdap boosters or exemptions in place prior to the start of the school year. Kerri and her team also completed required staff training on health conditions and how to administer emergency medication prior to the start of school.
LAP Program
To ensure a comprehensive understanding of student needs, our team has successfully administered our beginning-of-year screening assessments. Data has been collected across the district using the following diagnostic tools:
These assessment tools allow our educators to pinpoint specific skill gaps and tailor our instructional support accordingly.
We are pleased to report that the administration and analysis of our DIBELS literacy data are fully complete. Our teaching staff and intervention specialists have reviewed the results to identify students qualifying for additional reading support. Because this data analysis was completed on schedule, targeted reading interventions officially began this week. Students are already working in small groups with our specialists, focusing on foundational reading skills, fluency, and comprehension.
Our mathematics assessment window has also concluded, and data from Acadience Math, i-Ready Math, and mCLASS Math is currently coming in and being synthesized by our teams. Educators are actively reviewing these reports to finalize intervention groupings. Targeted math interventions are set to begin next week. We are especially thrilled to launch our new math intervention curriculum, Kick Start, this year. This program is designed to provide highly targeted support to students who need it most, building foundational numeracy and problem-solving skills.
As we transition fully into our intervention schedules, our focus will shift to progress monitoring. We are excited to see the impact of our new Kick Start math program, alongside our established reading interventions. We look forward to regularly monitoring our students' progress and sharing their growth and success with the Board as the year progresses.
Lewis River Academy
LRA enrollments are up, with a number of families coming from a homeschool background, looking to connect with school resources and district opportunities. We began the school year with an ice cream social and are meeting individually with families to set up learning plans and courses for the school year. We are happy to welcome Candra Foss to the team, working with LRA's K-2 students and families. Kim Heidgerken has returned for grades 3-5, and Annika Dukes continues with grades 6th-8th. We are giving families September to start strong learning routines and will add Weekly Workshops in October.
Multilingual Learners Program
The Woodland Public Schools Multilingual Learner’s Department has experienced a smooth and successful transition into the new school year. Our dedicated team of MLL teachers and paraprofessionals currently supports 172 active multilingual learners. Furthermore, our staff continues to monitor and assist 40 students who have recently exited from the Transitional Bilingual Instructional Program (TBIP), ensuring their continued academic confidence and sustained success. Through strong collaboration between educators, families, and administrative staff, the department remains deeply committed to empowering every student to excel academically and linguistically in an inclusive and safe educational environment.
Special Services
The special education team has been working diligently while navigating significant challenges with the new system, IEP Online 3.0, which has been full of errors. Our staff have consistently shared concerns through help tickets, and as SPED director, I have been conferring with other special education directors, OSPI leadership, and meeting directly with an executive from the company. While it is not looking hopeful that we will be able to return to version 2.0, our team is showing remarkable resilience and doing the absolute best they can under these difficult circumstances.
I am incredibly proud of our team's commitment to building strong relationships first, which has helped cultivate trust and understanding with our families through this transition. I am confident that by supporting one another, we will get through this together and that system improvements will follow.