Wanting to know more than recent sensational claims about the state of academic performance in Tahoma School District, I sat down last week with TSD’s Teaching Director, Lindsay Henry, and Learning Director, Gretchen Schlag, at the invitation of Superintendent Mike Hanson. Immediately, I learned that the science of teaching and how this is applied in TSD has improved and changed tremendously since I was on TSD’s Board in the ‘90s when my sons attended TSD.
Teacher and administrator compassion, caring, and passion for our children are as strong as ever. What’s changed are: TSD’s administration’s emphasis on committing time and TSD resources to teachers’ professional development so they can all use best practices in their classrooms to reach students and help them learn effectively, extensive research that reveals how the brain works when learning new information, the huge amount of data now available about best-practices of teaching, and application of this research and data to TSD classrooms. In TSD, this includes Professional Learning Communities (PLC) in which teachers meet in each school every 5th Friday for professional development. A district-wide multi-disciplinary Literacy Review Group meets monthly to review data, identify learning issues, discuss improvements and solutions, and share the most recent relevant research results and figure out how all of this can most effectively be applied to help TSD students in classrooms.
Professional development for our teachers includes cross-district professional learning with four local school districts and a book club for TSD teachers that currently focuses on books about instructional practices and application (experiential) learning. There are instructional coaches for teachers [teachers devoted to teaching teachers in real-time how to be better in their craft] in every school and two in the high school.
Reading is a fundamental skill to student success, so TSD uses DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) for K-5 students to identify “striving learners” early and provide them with the specific interventions they need to reach grade-level reading expectations. Data charts I was shown reveal that the percentage of students needing these interventions decreases year-to-year as the interventions work to get students to grade level. While reading was first, similar interventions are now used for math and science consistent with TSD’s goals to increase the quality of instruction in core subjects.
A wide variety of curriculum choices expands as students advance in grade level, creating opportunities for learning that are interesting and relevant. Outreach to parents helps them to be engaged in and support their children’s education.
An overall example of this commitment to learning success is a recent effort to inform students what daily success at school looks like for them and how learning is relevant to their lives, especially for high school students, which serves to increase individual ownership of education and self-investment in learning.
Comparing 2017-18 to last year using data from the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction’s report card for Washington schools, Tahoma School District has been substantially above state-wide levels every year in skills in English Language Arts, Math and Science. TSD’s 94% high school graduation rate is well above the consistent 82% state-wide average.
The largest barrier to successful learning is attendance. Last year, 62% of high school students and 68% of all other students had 90% attendance records or better [missing school 2 or fewer days each month]. Compare this to 2019 just before the pandemic when, after several years of consistent, collaborative effort, 90% of elementary and middle school students and 83% of high school students had attendance this good, the highest ever attendance and close to TSD’s goal of at least 90% of all students attaining 90% attendance. Barriers to good attendance are almost as numerous as children out of school. Attendance data is monitored weekly, TSD engages with affected students and parents, and good/improved attendance is recognized. TSD personalizes its outreach to families to identify individual barriers to their children attending school and connects these families with resources to breakdown barriers so their children can successfully attend school and learn.
Accurately reporting academic success is impacted by the number of students opting out of state testing by parental choice. For example, last year the actual percentage of TSD’s high school students achieving grade level for English Language Arts was 85%. But the state reported this at 81.9% because Washington State assigns zero scores to all students who opt-out of state-wide testing.
TSD offers all students a tremendous opportunity to learn in a positive environment with data-driven successful teaching methods. Barriers to academic achievement are identified and effective interventions implemented. Professional and curriculum development are driven by the beliefs that correctly identifying problems early and often keeps students successful, what is done well can always be done better, supporting teachers and students yields success for all, and all students can and deserve to be successful in education.
