To: Michael Green
From: Jake Hall
Date: 1.18.24
Re: January 2024 Board Report
Family and Community Resource Center
Our FCRC Coordinator, Jonathan King, was busy this holiday season. Rotary Christmas Giving and Shop-with-a-Cop were the main focus and priority at the FCRC in December 2023. Shop with a Cop selected several families from our referral list to take shopping at the Woodland Walmart. The remaining families were supported through Rotary’s Giving Tree Program.
The FCRC facility has been very active with families as we've experienced a higher than usual amount of high needs situations compared to previous years. This is likely to continue through the winter.
Since the last update, we have had 21 direct visits by families to the resource to pick up boxes of food, clothes, and toiletries. We have also been able to use $750 of grant funds secured by the FCRC to help stabilize families experiencing crisis.
Jonathan has cultivated relationships and received several donations of school supplies, clothing, food, and toiletries at the resource center from many community partners. Partners include Knights of Columbus, St. Phillips Church, St. Vincent De Paul, Promise Church, and Opdahl Chiropractic, as well as several donations from individuals in the community.
Highly Capable Program
North Fork Elementary’s 1st and 2nd graders are designing an inclusive playground for students with special needs. They created their designs and then met with a company that designs playgrounds to get a quote. We also met with a local community member, Mindy Patee, who volunteered to help the students acquire funding through grant writing. The North Fork 3rd and 4th graders are working on video production. Last month they were in charge of producing our daily announcements. They wrote the scripts, recorded, edited and filmed the final productions. Here is a final production for your viewing pleasure: NF Announcements 12/4!
Columbia Elementary Hi-C continues to be a time of exploration and problem solving. CES 3rd and 4th graders have been working through procedural lab activities focusing on the step-by-step process and scientific processes behind things like slime and ice cream. We have found that concerts have been a great way to work on set design and public speaking. Similar to NF, CES 1st and 2nd graders have been working within structural stability by making playgrounds more accessible for students with disabilities. They have been creating models to showcase their designs.
Woodland High School’s Robotics Team Robotics has had two competitions over the past two months. The challenge this year requires the robot to launch a paper airplane, move hexagons (called pixels) around the game field, and lift itself off of the ground. Here is a picture of one of the robots the WHS team is constructing.
Student Engagement Coordinator
Lindsay Noble has been working with our students and families who have chronic absenteeism. Her focus is on removing barriers and connecting families with the appropriate resources inside and outside of school. As an example, in December 2023 Lindsay helped ensure families that are in need were added to the Christmas giving tree.
K-12 Nurse Services
We have wrapped up state required hearing and vision screenings for all K-3rd, 5th, & 7th graders. Also, we have completed the state required immunization status reporting using the new School Module for the Immunization Information System. Our district nurse and health room have assistant have teamed together to continue health room support for CES, NF, WMS, TEAM, and WHS.
LAP Program
Columbia has finished our first round of interventions and reviewed the data to make the necessary adjustments. Early intervention in kindergarten has continued to make a huge impact on students. CES was able to move 16 students out of intervention groups in December 2023. We are excited to see the results of CES's students' efforts!
North Fork has also evaluated fall data and, after discussions with classroom teachers, will expand reading interventions by having each classroom teacher work in small groups with their most struggling readers. The NF LAP team is working with students who are below proficient. This has provided an opportunity to work closely with more students to ensure their needs are being met. We are excited to have our teachers connected to this learning and deeply understanding our LAP program. Our staff is amazing and has been so flexible with the change.
Lewis River Academy
LRA enrollment continues to increase, particularly in grades 6-8. We welcome Kim Heidgerken to work with grades 6-8! We had guest presentations from the Cowlitz County Historical Museum: WA state history for grades 6-8 and local Native American travels for grades K-5. There will be a special guest presentation and crafts for grades K-5 from the Columbia River Maritime Museum (Astoria) staff: Sea Monsters. There is an ongoing WA State History in-person, weekly course for 8th graders. We are having regular grade-band Google Meet sessions: K-3, 4-5, 6-8. Grades K-3 and 4-5 have weekly in-person workshops, working on their core courses as well as LRA’s Reader's Club and Writer's Workshop.
We have recently implemented an LRA Student Leadership Team course for grades 3-8. We will be planning to do a community or school project. We will be having holiday parties and a Learning Showcase for all students in January.
Title Program
The Title Intervention Program is in full swing at Woodland Middle School. Key focus areas include reading assessment (DIBELS) for 5th and 6th-grade students, monthly progress monitoring, paraprofessional training, communication, support in intervention classes, appropriate grouping strategies, and coordination of the Reading Intervention Program. WMS staff and administration have been working collaboratively to gather student achievement data and provide printed reports for parents during Fall conferences.
Here is an outline of the ongoing Title work at WMS:
Grouping Strategies and Partner Reading Management
Partner Reading Management:
iReady Implementation:
Resource Room Utilization:
WMS continues the coordination of various programs, including REWARDS, HD Word, Blast, and iReady, cultivating a comprehensive and tailored intervention strategy for the diverse needs of 5th and 6th-grade students. The utilization of the Resource Room model demonstrates a proactive approach to provide students with the necessary support for academic achievement.
Multilingual Learner Program
We currently have 203 active Multilingual Learners and 16 students who have exited ML services by meeting and exceeding standard on the standard ML assessment.
The Multilingual Learner Program at North Fork has doubled in size this year. We are excited to provide more community outreach, by offering an English class for parents of our ML students and a Spanish Table at lunchtime for all North Fork students. At Columbia, we are instructing our 63 MLL students using a station rotation method that utilizes Duolingo, Imagine learning, Action Areas, and Frames for Fluency to help students build their social and academic vocabulary. The Middle School is providing services for 82 students.
ML high school students attended the Clark County Latino Youth Leadership Conference at WSU, Vancouver. They attended various events that helped them inspire, empower, and educate them.
Special Services
January, the count of students with IEPs is 386, our highest enrollment so far. Michelle McLaughlin, Special Services Secretary, and Deena Capen, Registrar, have done a masterful job managing all of the students in our IEP Online and Skyward Q systems.
Our Safety Net Team is beginning the work for our 2024 request for reimbursement for our students who have high-cost needs per their IEP. While Districts cannot recover all of the expenses federally mandated by the IDEA, in Washington state, we can request a partial return of those expenses. For example, this school year, the district may request Safety Net reimbursement for any student whose IEP services cost more than $40,000 in the 2023-24 school year. The Districts must pay for the difference between apportionment and the $40,000 threshold. Districts have to rely on local levy to help with this cost. We anticipate having over 20 student IEPs that exceed that cost threshold. The Safety Net Team has to put in multiple days of work to put together a successful Safety Net request.