Supportive. Flexible. Locally sustained.
That’s how education leaders from Washington public schools identified for school improvement supports describe the improvement process now in place.
“We’ve been given the freedom to do what we know is best for our kids — steeped in science,” said Gloria Widener, Principal of Harrah Elementary School in the Mount Adams School District.
The Washington School Improvement Framework (WSIF) was originally released in March 2018. Since the process is a newer one — and differs significantly from the process that came before it — there can be questions about how it works and stigma attached to the schools identified for improvement supports.
Education leaders from those schools, though, make it clear that the WSIF is not about placing blame.
“All kids have assets, no matter what ethnicity, no matter what socioeconomics — no matter what they have,” said Teri Martin, Director of Federal and State Programs for the Toppenish School District.
Origins of the WSIF’s creation
Until 2015, the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act directed school improvement efforts nationwide. Schools were identified as needing support based on only two metrics: proficiency in English language arts and math, and graduation rates.
When the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) became law, it required all states to make changes to their systems for identifying schools in need of support. As a result, Washington created the WSIF as part of the state’s ESSA plan.
The WSIF includes more metrics, combining them into a score of 1–10. That score then determines the level of support that the state provides to each school.
The metrics included in the WSIF are:
- English language arts proficiency
- Math proficiency
- Student growth percentile and average achievement level
- Graduation rate
- Regular attendance
- Ninth grade on track rates
- Dual credit
- English learner progress
Schools are identified for supports at three tiers, and the state provides supports accordingly.
When a school is identified as needing the highest level of supports, it is designated as a Required Action District (RAD).
“At the state level, we’re going to budget our person and time power to providing additional time resources, additional grant resources, and other programmatic resources to these systems to try to really dial in and focus on those contextualized, really specific problems of practice, [as well as] strengths that they’ve identified that they want to continue to bolster,” said Joseph Anderson, former Continuous Improvement Program Supervisor at the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI).
What it means to be identified for school improvement supports
Both the Mount Adams School District and Toppenish School District are designated as RADs.
What that means, Anderson said, is that these school districts have been identified for targeted technical assistance, additional progress monitoring, additional funding, and direct support from continuous improvement partners.
“We tried to reframe these Required Action District supports not as a name-and-blame, but just an opportunity to say, under WSIF, we are going … to identify some additional support opportunities for systems based on certain criteria,” Anderson said.
Anderson emphasized that these schools, like all those identified for school improvement supports, are not “bad” schools.
“If you think bad instruction or bad supports are really happening, go visit the leadership,” Anderson said. “Go visit the school itself. Meet these teachers. This stuff is incredible. … You see teachers teaching. You see leaders leading.”
At both Mount Adams and Toppenish, education leaders are quick to praise their teachers. Curt Guaglianone noted, though, that it takes the right kind of person to teach at Mount Adams.
“The ones that come here for the right reason — because they care about the population we have — they stay and they’re amazing,” said Guaglianone, Superintendent of the Mount Adams School District. “They have hearts of gold. They’re amazing professionals who want to make a difference in kids’ lives.”
The population that Mount Adams serves is one that Guaglianone said can be challenging.
All students in the school district qualify for free or reduced-price meals, and approximately one-third of students are experiencing homelessness. Nearly half of their students are multilingual/English learners.
Widener added that it’s rare to encounter a student who hasn’t had at least one adverse childhood experience. Referred to as ACEs, the Center for Disease Control defines adverse childhood experiences as potentially traumatic events that occur before the age of 18.
Despite this data, Guaglianone said the students at Mount Adams are more polite and respectful than at any school district he’s worked at in his 40 years of experience.
“They’ll stop and ask me how my day is going,” Guaglianone said. “They will open the door for me and wish me a good day when I go through it. They are amazing students.”
At the Toppenish School District, just 30 miles west of Mount Adams, all students also qualify for free or reduced-price meals. With many families working in agriculture, Martin said that schools in the district need support because of the effects of poverty on students.
“A lot of our kids come to us with [a] lack of opportunity,” Martin said. “They don’t have books in their family, their families are working sometimes multiple jobs or very long hours, and kids are taking care of themselves.”
Implementing school improvement supports
To better support students, the state’s school improvement process gives school districts the freedom to make changes catered to their students and community.
At the Toppenish School District, implementing a Balanced Calendar allowed the school district to create a three-hour block for intervention and enrichment every week. Martin said the calendar has been good for students, families, and school employees.
The school district also hired intervention specialists and invested in trainings and professional development opportunities for its existing staff to improve their practices.
Notably, Toppenish has also been hiring its own community members as paraeducators and teachers. Martin said the district partners with Yakima Valley College and Heritage University, and works to ensure that community members can continue working while they’re in school.
“They stay,” Martin said. “That’s important to us. That continuity, and knowing what our community is and what our kids can do, has been really huge.”
The Mount Adams School District has implemented a variety of improvements. The district has hired more staff to provide direct support to students, including education assistants and reading interventionists. To further support literacy in the district, teachers have engaged in professional development about instructional practices aligned with the science of reading.
Guaglianone said Mount Adams has also made a “major shift” in its culture. Where it used to accept materials that were the least expensive or retain educators who weren’t the best fit, the district now invests in high-quality materials and makes sure that the right people are in the right places.
These efforts are making a difference. In the 2022–23 school year, Widener said the district hit 111% growth scores in reading. Since 100% growth indicates the amount of growth that should happen in a school year, that 111% figure indicates that achievement gaps are closing.
“If it’s just ‘good enough’ and we just do normal school, our kids are so far behind it becomes exponential, where they [get] more and more and more and more behind every year,” Guaglianone said. “We understand and we now have a culture and a learning expectation in place — and the skills to be able to do it and the money to be able to do it, through RAD — to the point where we can bridge that gap.”
This story was originally published by OSPI on September 6, 2023.
Chelsea Embree 