Principals of west side schools shared School Improvement Plans (SIP) with the Olympia School District (OSD) Board of Directors at a work session on Thursday, Feb. 20.
The west side schools include Jefferson Middle School, Capital High School, LP Brown Elementary School, Thurgood Marshall Middle School, Garfield Elementary School, Hansen Elementary School and McLane Elementary School.
Jefferson Middle School Principal Jane Allaire said Jefferson is in year two of a three-year plan from 2023-26, with three overarching goals of communication, rigor and integrity.
Last year, Allaire said the school aligned its focus with district outcome goal three about social and emotional learning, and increasing belongingness of students.
“At Jefferson, we believe education is more than just academics. It's about feeling confidence and hope in every student. I often remind staff and staff remind each other — it isn't where you start, but it's where you end up. Each day is a fresh opportunity to learn, grow and succeed,” Allaire said.
Allaire said Jefferson’s panorama data showed mild growth in general belonging and had the largest gains in cultural awareness and action.
For the school year 2024-25, Jefferson aimed to increase students’ sense of belonging to 60% from 51%.
This year, Allaire said, the school will focus on goal one, being compassionate and kind.
“While it seems simple in concept, fostering a beloved community in middle school can be complex, especially with the influence of social media in developing executive functioning skills,” Allaire said.
Capital High School Principal Condee Wood talked about how improving a school’s systems and enhancing communication directly impacted OSD’s outcome two, wherein students will have the academic and life skills to pursue their career, civic and educational goals.
“By tightening these two systems, we are communicating to students they must be in class, and that the learning in that class is paramount to having options in the future,” Wood said.
Wood said Capital had tightened the target attendance policy and has instituted a classroom-wide cellphone ban to strengthen good communication and class focus.
LP Brown Elementary School Principal Sean Shaughnessy said the school has worked for the improvement of two particular student subgroups, Hispanic or Latino and low-income students.
“I'm super happy to report that with the Washington School Improvement Framework this year, we saw massive growth in all subgroups, to the point that we would no longer be identified as a School of Improvement, and we did that in the span of one year,” Shaughnessy said.
Shaughnessy also showcased the achievement of Devin Alexander, a reading intervention specialist at LP Brown, who is this year's OSD Elementary Teacher of the Year.
Alexander was involved in the University of Florida Literacy Institute, a systematic and direct instruction reading program that started at LP Brown 2.5 years ago and is now deployed across the district.
Thurgood Marshall Middle School Assistant Principal Michele Weber-Hindrup highlighted how the school increased the sense of belonging and created a sense of community.
Thurgood Marshall added a second counselor and a social and emotional learning specialist this year.
“Our school improvement end goal focuses on increasing our students’ sense of belonging through additional counselor support,” Counselor Megan Smith said.
Thurgood Marshall’s targeted interventions include many meetings, wherein the counselors meet individually with each student to check on their well-being, academic progress and concerns, and build a positive connection.
Garfield Elementary School Principal Brendon Chertok said Garfield educators had completed a mid-year review of its SIP plan a few weeks ago.
“Our focus this year has been primarily on ELA (English Lanugage Arts), and it was to increase the number of students in third through fifth (grades) to make adequate ... progress from 42% to 50% by the end of the year,” Chertok said.
Chertok said some of the results hit the mid-year goal for all students in third through fifth grade for making adequate progress in ELA.
School Improvement Specialist Trina Baugh said school leadership has partnered with Garfield’s third, fourth and fifth grade teachers to promote professional development and strengthen inclusionary practices, through collaboration and technology.
McLane Elementary School Principal Danny Clark talked about increasing the self-efficacy of students and culturally responsive education.
“We want every student, regardless of their background or when they ... walk in the doors of McLane, to know that we see them and that they have opportunities to kind of grow,” Clark said.
“This is such a small, instructional, intentional move, but it has made such a substantial difference. And to have kids talking to other kids and recognizing kids for those moments has been very moving,” Clark added.
Hansen Elementary School Principal Callie Jones shared the school’s methods in making students contribute and collaborate with their world when they feel like they belong.
“We have focused on two main ways to achieve our goal. Those two ways are Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) and being a part of an AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) school,” Jones said.
Jones said Hansen has two main MTSS teams and each is led by interventionists, along with classroom teachers, counselors and administrators, who meet weekly to review data.
Hansen also implemented a school-wide daily morning meeting where teachers, staff and students meet in the gym every morning before dispersing to classrooms.
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