Medical Lake Middle School working its way out of Focus status

Medical Lake Middle School is in its third — and hopefully final — year of being designated as a “Focus” school.

The Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction classified the middle school as “Focus” status in 2014 because test scores in special education reading and math fell below 13.82 percent, which is the threshold subgroup performance average for three-year schools.

Since 2014, principal Sylvia Campbell and her staff have used the “Focus” designation as an opportunity to help not only special education students, but everyone who attends MLMS.

Campbell said one of the first steps staff took was examining data to help identify specific goals and tasks to address the needs of students.

The school received a $20,000 grant and has worked with a coach from OSPI to help implement improvement strategies. Campbell said the building’s leadership team meets every month and creates professional development opportunities for staff. The team also monitors students’ progress every two weeks.

“We’ve been focusing on targeted instruction and we’re completely data-driven,” Campbell said. “It’s really improved the teaching and curriculum around the school.”

The middle school’s state Smarter Balanced exam scores in sixth- and eighth-grade English Language Arts have increased since last year, but seventh-grade dropped by 1 percent.

“We’ve been using Smarter Balanced Interim Assessment Blocks and are focusing on different areas,” Campbell said. “We really have focused on what our students should be learning.”

Campbell added that staff has used AIMSweb for progress monitoring for students who fall below the 25 percentile.

There was improvement in sixth- and seventh-grade math scores but Campbell said “the school lost some ground in eighth-grade scores.”

“We’re putting an emphasis on math this year,” Campbell said. “Some of our math teachers have been meeting on Sundays and have come up with programs for students. We’ve also had staff stay late and help students.”

Another element that has helped the middle school is the Positive Intervention Behavior System team, which Campbell said has benefitted the building’s learning climate.

The middle school’s progress has attracted attention from outside of the district. Campbell explained that Northeast Washington’s Educational Service District 101 will bring other schools to Medical Lake “to look at what we are doing.”

Superintendent Tim Ames said Campbell and her team have done “outstanding work” trying to get out of Focus designation.

“The middle school was at the 10 percent range in special education for math and reading and now they have gone well above the 50-plus range,” Ames said. “It’s some of the best work I’ve seen in the 34 years of being an educator.”

For the middle school to get out of Focus status, their reading/math proficiency combined minimum subgroup must be greater than or equal to 13.82 percent.

“I’m really blessed to work in a place where there is support from parents, teachers and the administrators,” Campbell said.

Al Stover can be reached at al@cheneyfreepress.com.