In this issue:
School Board approves new middle school schedule
Ice bucket challenge motivates LWES students
Focus groups offer feedback on remote learning
News briefs
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School Board approves new middle school schedule
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A group of teachers, staff, students, parents and administrators on Tuesday recommended a new schedule for middle school students. The group studied and discussed the current schedule and potential changes over the course of several months, before deciding on a schedule recommendation to bring to the School Board. They presented their work and conclusion to the board during a virtual meeting; board members voted 5-0 to adopt the new schedule.
When regular school resumes, students at Maple View and Summit Trail will have six shorter periods per day, and a 30-minute STRETCH class. The impetus for the change came from staff surveys completed last spring, explained Emilie Hard, special projects administrator with the Teaching & Learning Department.
Hard shared with the board that she spent time listening to teachers and staff who had concerns or questions about the current schedule. Building leadership teams at Maple View and Summit Trail met to discuss and consider the schedules. The group working to recommend a schedule model considered four options:
- The current Blue/Gold Day schedule with longer, 100-minute class periods on alternating days
- A traditional six-period day, with the same classes each day and no STRETCH class
- A hybrid model with three days per week of all six shorter classes and two days per week in the Blue/Gold Day block schedule
- A six-period day with a 30-minute STRETCH class (this is the option they recommended and the board approved).
“There is no perfect model. There is no perfect bell schedule,” said Dawn Wakeley, executive director of Teaching & Learning. “There are strengths and limitations to each one.”
The group members discussed the positives and negatives of each of the four options, and how they connected to the middle school beliefs model. Members of the group also solicited opinions from other students and staff. The consensus was to recommend the six-period day with a 30-minute STRETCH class. A few of the strengths of the new schedule that group members mentioned were the consistency of seeing students every day to build relationships; the regular practice and higher retention of subjects such as math and world languages and the potential decrease of student behavior problems. A few of the potential limitations they listed included the fact that shorter class periods make longer projects such as science labs more difficult; and that having all six subjects in one day means students have to carry more materials.
“There was a clear majority for the schedule that we’re bringing forward tonight,” Hard said.
Some details are still under consideration and will be worked out with administrators and instructional leadership teams, such as where STRETCH will fit into the day, how lunches will be arranged, when interventions will happen, the best timing for assemblies and more.
Wakeley told the board that they were very transparent with group members that it is unlikely that staff and students will be stepping into a “normal” school year in the fall, but the group decided that continuing the process already in progress was important to bring closure to the question of what schedule teachers, staff, students and parents would like to see at the middle school level.
Several students served on the team, including middle school student Ashim N.
“We gathered information from not just the people in our team, but from students outside – students in high school already and students at our schools, and what they would like,” Ashim shared with the board.
The existing schedule was developed about five years ago, with help from stakeholders across the system. Maple View science teacher Jennifer Yegge, who served on the group examining the options, said she thought that teachers and staff had given the current schedule a good try. This process went well, and included numerous opportunities for input, Yegge said.
Summit Trail Principal Sean Cassidy said that as student enrollment has grown, arranging lunch within the confines of the school day has become challenging, as well as how to provide strong interventions for students within the school day.
“Those will be things we will need to work on and fine tune,” Cassidy said. “I think it comes down to trying to improve teaching and learning, and what goes on in the classroom. This is really a reorganization of time within the school day. There could be many ways to do that, but the ultimate goal is to help kids grow. We can do this with a 6-period day and STRETCH.”
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Ice bucket challenge motivates LWES students
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The Lake Wilderness Elementary third-grade teachers recorded themselves completing an ice bucket challenge as a reward for their students completing 800 assignments.
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Lake Wilderness Elementary third-grade teachers recently challenged their students to try to complete 800 assignments in a week’s time. Their prize? If they made their goal, their teachers would all complete an “ice bucket challenge” on film.
The Wildcats were equal to the task, and the six teachers kept their word, filming themselves having a bucket of ice water poured over their heads. The videos were compiled and students had the chance to watch their teachers’ reactions. The third grade teaching team includes Ashley Glatt, Hayley Mathis, Dusti Andersen, Melissa Tughan, Jill Phillips and Cathy Haws.
The challenge was “great motivation for them to stay engaged in online learning,” Lake Wilderness Principal Dr. Audrey Meyers said.
Assignments that the students worked on included reading, writing, math, science and weekly check-in tasks. Lake Wilderness has about 130 third-grade students.
“As a team we came up with this challenge as a way to motivate our students to keep working hard through the assignments that we were posting,” Glatt said. “As soon as we announced that we were doing this challenge, we saw an increase of daily assignments turned in. The students were very excited and eager to see if they met their goal or not. When we posted the video of us doing the challenge, we had so many kids that replied to our videos saying how much they enjoyed it and how they want us to do it again!”
Under normal conditions, students are sometimes rewarded for turning in homework with points or “Paw Print” awards. The team wanted to find a new way to help keep students motivated, and it worked. “As teachers, we are excited for the students to be engaged in learning in an encouraging way,” Glatt added. “It was a fun team building activity for us to participate in as well.”
The team has issued a new challenge to their students beginning June 1. As soon as they reach another 800 assignments completed, each teacher will be filmed getting a whipped cream pie to the face.
“We can’t wait to see the third-graders meet this goal again and hope it motivates them to keep pushing and never give up during these difficult times,” Glatt said.
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Focus groups offer feedback on remote learning
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Student, parent and staff feedback about the emergency remote learning that students have had this spring is integral to the planning process for the fall. As part of the work to gather feedback, district administrators this week hosted three virtual focus groups to find out what students, parents and staff members think about remote learning in correlation to the district’s values and priorities at the elementary, middle and high school level.
“It’s really important that we ground ourselves in where we are and where we’ve been,” Incoming Superintendent Mike Hanson said during the high school focus meeting. Hanson expressed appreciation for all that Tahoma staff accomplished in a very quick pivot from traditional, in-person learning to emergency remote learning. He also acknowledged that while the district is working to plan for multiple possibilities, some factors will be out of Tahoma’s control.
While the district is awaiting guidance from the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction and the Washington State Department of Health about what will be allowed and required in the fall, Tahoma has established four work teams to help prepare for a variety of scenarios. State officials have said that by the week of June 8, they intend to share a “menu of options” describing how districts may reopen in the fall. The work teams include Public Health, Mental Health and Wellness, Human Resources (this team was added in the past week) and Continuous Learning. The feedback from this week’s focus groups will help inform the Continuous Learning team.
Tahoma has a model beliefs document for
elementary,
middle and
high school levels. During each focus group meeting this week, the participants examined those models and talked about which portions have gone well or not gone well in recent months. They also identified what they would prioritize for Tahoma students and staff moving forward.
The focus groups are one of a number of ways that the district has been seeking feedback; other methods include prior meetings with parents, students and staff and tiny pulse surveys. We have received many emails, calls and other comments about what’s working and what’s not working, and we thank all those who have shared their thoughts with the goal of improving the education our students receive, as well as finding ways to support mental health and maintain student traditions and extracurricular activities. In the coming weeks and months, we will continue to solicit feedback via additional focus groups, surveys and “town hall” style virtual meetings.
In the high school focus group, some of the most common concerns centered around relationships and the difficulty of maintaining and building relationships in remote learning; mental health and safety of students and staff; the importance of communication; how to maintain relevance, rigor and variety in learning; how to encourage student engagement and motivation; and more.
We will continue to share updates about the planning process as it proceeds.
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School Board approves disinfectant purchase
The Tahoma School Board on Tuesday approved the purchase of 15 electrostatic disinfectant sprayers, which can clean a classroom or an area of similar size in about 5-8 minutes, said Lori Cloud, assistant superintendent and director of Finance and Operations. Similar units are being used by hospitals and large businesses.
The district plans to apply for a COVID-19 grant, and these sprayers would likely be able to be funded by that grant money, Cloud said. The purchase was approved for $52,500.
In other business, the board:
- Approved the 2020-2021 ASB budgets for Maple View Middle School, Summit Trail Middle School and Tahoma High School.
- Approved a Continuous Learning Plan, which describes the district’s emergency remote learning program, as required by the state Superintendent of Public Instruction.
- Approved a waiver application to OSPI for the total number of school days in the 2019-2020 school year, due to the closure of school buildings during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Approved the 2020-2021 Board Targets.
- Heard a regular Finance and Enrollment report.
High school students invited to apply for student board representative
Each spring, Tahoma School Board chooses high school students to represent their peers at School Board meetings. The representatives give reports to the board about issues and events, and also answer board questions when they ask for feedback about topics on their agenda.
This year, there are four student board representatives, but the board has decided to increase the number to five next year. Incoming juniors and seniors are invited to apply, and students in the Running Start program are also eligible.
The current student representatives to the School Board have performed their usual duties and have also participated in many meetings such as the district’s COVID-19 Task Force.
To be considered, students may
download this application and submit it by email to School Board Director Val Paganelli at
vpaganel@tahomasd.us, who serves as the board’s liaison to the student board representatives. The deadline is June 10.
THS student builds home climbing wall
Tahoma High School sophomore Alex Brown loves to climb. In fact, he typically climbs daily on the wall at the high school during Power Hour.
When school buildings closed in March, Brown missed climbing so much that he joked about building a wall at home. Before long, the joke morphed into a sincere question, and his parents said yes.
Brown and his dad, who works as an engineer, built a 174-square-foot wall in their garage including a vertical slab and an angled section. Their project was featured in an article by Everlast Climbing, the company that built the wall at Tahoma High School.
Read their article here.
Middle schools work to maintain connections via social media
Both Maple View Middle School and Summit Trail Middle School have established Instagram accounts, as another method of maintaining connections with families. Summit Trail also has a Facebook page and Twitter account.
To follow the middle school accounts, visit them here:
Other building social media accounts are available at:
We encourage students and families to follow age recommendations and rules made by social media platforms. For students who are younger than the recommended age, parents may decide whether to share content from our platforms via parent accounts.
If you’re looking for answers to questions, or for help, the most direct way to reach any school building is to call. We are monitoring all phone lines, and returning messages as soon as possible. If you need help from your child’s teacher or another staff member, you can also send an email.
If you send an email or leave a message and don’t hear back on a timely issue, please reach out to the building principal or the Communications Department, and we will help connect you. Our email is
TSDMessages@tahomasd.us and we can be reached by phone at 425-413-3400 or 425-413-3412.
District social media accounts are available at:
Correction
In the May 22 issue of Tahoma Matters, we incorrectly summarized the work being done at Benaroya Research Institute. Parent Lori Blanchfield is part of a team that has spent time examining patient responses to COVID-19, but they are not working on COVID-19 immunization.
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The Tahoma School District does not discriminate in any programs or activities on the basis of sex, race, creed, religion, color, national origin, age, veteran or military status, sexual orientation, gender expression or identity, disability, or the use of a trained dog guide or service animal and provides equal access to the Boy Scouts and other designated youth groups The following employees have been designated to handle questions and complaints of alleged discrimination:
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Title IX Officer
Director of Human Resources
25720 Maple Valley Highway
Maple Valley, WA 98038
425-413-3400
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ADA Coordinator
Director of Human Resources
25720 Maple Valley Highway
Maple Valley, WA 98038
425-413-3400
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Section 504 Coordinator
Director of Special Services
25720 Maple Valley Highway
Maple Valley, WA 98038
425-413-3400
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25720 Maple Valley-Black Diamond Rd. S.E., Maple Valley, WA 98038
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