For the fourth month in a row, enrollment within the Cheney School District has increased, currently hovering at just under 4,500 students through December.
At the Dec. 7 school board meeting, Executive Director of Finance Kassidy Probert told the board they had grown by an additional three full-time equivalent (FTE) students in December, putting the district up 60 FTEs overall since September. In fact, the district started the 2016-2017 school year ahead of what was anticipated.
“We’re at 139 FTEs above budget at this point,” Probert said.
According to information given to the board, most of the growth is coming in the K – 8 grades, which Probert said is “significant.” The school seeing the most growth is Salnave Elementary School, up 19 students overall, with Cheney Middle School up 12. Cheney High School has actually seen a decrease of 18 students.
In another aspect of enrollment, the district has been seeing more students choice out to other districts than in to Cheney.
Associate Superintendent Sean Dotson said the district has historically hovered around the 300s for students electing to choice out, with 304 doing so so far this school year as compared to 316 at this point in 2015-2016.
Most students who choice out go to the Medical Lake School District, with 148 leaving so far. Students electing to choice in to the district is also down from 134 in 2015-2016 to 108 so far this year.
Dotson said many of those who choice in are the children of new staff members, something allowed by state law. The decline likely stems from the lack of space available in Cheney’s classrooms.
“We’ve cut back on the number of applications we’ve accepted,” Dotson said.
In other news from the Dec. 7 meeting, held at Windsor Elementary School, the board re-elected Henry Browne for another term as its president, and selected new director Stacy Nichol as vice president.
Windsor second-grade teacher Judy Schroeder and students Taniah Lewis, Macie Gasperino and Colton Hallett engaged board members in a demonstration of “Making Sense of Fluency,” a technique used to teach math. Schroeder picked up the teaching method after attending a staff development session put on by a representative from Education Service District 101 about how to do a numbers talk with elementary school students.
Schroeder told the board that most people equate fluency in something to speed. When it comes to math, fluency means flexibility, accuracy, efficiency and appropriate use of strategy.
Instead of learning memorization from flash cards, students employ five tools to help them “model” math, including numbered frame cards in a specific scale, an open number line and a “math rack,” which is essentially an abacus with rows of red and white beads.
“It’s important to visually see math,” Schroeder said.
Rather than relying on rote memorization to produce a result, students can come to their conclusions through their own means, backed by the specific tools. There is a caveat to this, however.
“You must be able to defend your thinking,” Schroeder said.
After explaining the process to the board, the students then selected three school board members to participate with them in a math game using the frame cards and math racks.
John McCallum can be reached at jmac@cheneyfreepress.com.
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