Staff members from King Elementary, Discovery Middle School and Hudson’s Bay High School presented their improvement efforts and outcomes to the school board at the Sept. 24 work session. Highlights included:

King

  • Focus on improving literacy to impact student success across all content areas
  • Instructional activities designed to boost writing, inquiry, organization, collaboration and reading
  • Family engagement and community partnerships
  • College-going culture to enable students to be in a position to choose higher education, rather than not have the option

Discovery

  • Staff refining the essential standards that middle schoolers must meet
  • Tutorial period built into the school day so that all students have access to additional support
  • Developing student recognitions
  • Focus on culturally aware teaching
  • Family engagement through events and robust parent groups

Bay

  • Maintaining a positive, supportive school culture called the Bay Way
  • Cultivating connections so that every student knows they have at least one staff member to whom they can turn for support
  • Focus on high-impact strategies and common rubrics that can be used in all subject areas and are reinforced in professional learning communities
  • Strong family engagement and community partnerships

Outcomes

Vancouver’s on-time graduation rate improvement is outpacing the state. Over the past four years, VPS’ rate improvement was:

  • Nearly three times the rate of improvement for all students in the state
  • Three times the rate of improvement for low-income students in the state
  • One-and-a-half times the rate of improvement for English learners in the state
  • Three times the rate of improvement of students with disabilities in the state
  • Nearly eight times the rate of improvement of students with 504 plans in the state

“Our 2018 extended grad rate is forecast to hit 89 percent,” said Superintendent Steve Webb, who noted that the 2018 graduation rates for almost all student groups are comparable to or exceed equivalent state graduation rates. “Of course, we still have work to do. But we should all be proud of our systems approach to getting more students across the finish line. I’m so grateful to the entire VPS team for making this happen.”