At the Sept. 16 board of directors meeting, Medical Lake Superintendent Tim Ames explained that the middle school was identified as a “Focus” school and that 20 students with disabilities have not met expectation in reading and math in state assessment exams.
Ames said the district is taking steps to help these students and that Sylvia Campbell, middle school principal, has turned this issue into a school-wide project.
“The middle school is looking at this as an opportunity to be innovative and make change,” Ames said.
Campbell has put a leadership team together, comprised of middle school and other district staff, including Ames; Kim Headrick, director of teaching and learning and Ann Everett, special education coordinator.
“We’re focusing on those students who are struggling,” Campbell said. “We’ve been doing it before, but now we are going ‘laser sharp.’”
Campbell explained that the team meets every month. The team also breaks up into professional learning communities.
“One of the groups gives the regular teachers interventions and different strategies,” Campbell said. “Teachers will implement that and we’ll see if it’s working. Our focus is data monitoring and progress monitoring with our kids. Every month we’re assessing kids, seeing where they are and adjusting instruction accordingly.”
The team has also gone back and looked at previous data and testing to look for common patterns to see if they were proficient.
“We were looking for what areas they may be low in, if it’s calculation or something else in math that we need to drill in,” Campbell said.
According to Campbell, the school is also planning to give sixth- and eighth-graders the ACT Aspire test, which will give teachers an indication on how students will do on the Smarter Balanced Assessment test in early October.
“We’ll see where they are now and give intervention for those kids, according to what the Smarter Balanced test would want, plus there is a college career readiness component to it,” Campbell said.
The school will also have students monitor their own progress so they know where they are in terms of meeting standards, what areas they need additional support in and additional resources they need.
“This will also help teachers and parents understand and help teachers focus on ways to help the students,” Campbell said.
For Campbell, the goal for this year is to implement the changes, establish standards, get students familiar with monitoring their progress and helping them increase their scores.
She hopes to see a lot of growth from this initiative, though the team will continue to find new ways of helping the students.
“It’s an ever changing process because every kid is different and every group of kids is different,” Campbell said. “It’s challenging, but it’s exciting and fun, especially when you see the growth and that’s what we’re expecting to see.”
Al Stover can be reached at al@cheneyfreepress.com.
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