Submitted by John Arbeeny.
Lakewood CARES is providing an academic-based response to schools highlighted in the Clover Park School District (CPSD) “#SuperSchoolShoutOut“ articles in The Suburban Times. This is data you will not find elsewhere in CPSD public relations pieces, School Board meeting agendas or “Inside Schools”. This week’s CPSD “beaming with pride” article covers Tyee Park Elementary School which was featured in a Suburban Times article on 7 June 2024:
I have to question some of the claims made in this article. Tyee Park has a diverse student population, but typically many District schools can make the same claim. It’s not “unique” to Tyee Park. “Diversity” as part of DEI is often claimed as a strength yet the District also implies that “diversity” is a challenge academically. It’s an excuse that points a finger at student race and ethnicity. So which is it?
The suburban location is not unique to Tyee Park. I can’t think of a District school that is not in a suburban location. Despite the City of Lakewood’s characterization as an urban area it is still very suburban in character, and all its schools (with exception of those on JBLM) are within city limits.
Principal Tyler Bieker has his work cut out for him at Tyee Park. The article states, “Principal Bieker and his team embraced Universal Design for Learning (UDL) this year, which emphasizes meeting students where they are academically to provide equitable support for student success.” Several questions arise. How does UDL accomplish its objectives within classrooms containing students of varying academic abilities? UDL would seem to require a lot of individual attention with very low teacher-student ratios as is the case at Tyee Park. Is UDI practical District wide where the teacher/student ratios are significantly higher? What methodology did UDL replace and why?
“Equity” has been part of the District’s DEI cultural revolution since 2018, so why wait until 2023 to institute an equity-based design for learning at Tyee Park? Is UDI used at other schools, and what are the results? The article also mentions “new strategies” for learning math. What are they, and how have they made a difference through objective measurement? This article raises more questions than it answers. There’s a lot of substance that could have gone into this article but never made it to print.
The academic statistics prior to Principal Bieker are disastrous, yet I can’t remember a School Board meeting where these statistics were specifically addressed and solutions developed. This is a trend seen with other low-performing District schools. Here’s a graphic representation of Tyee Park’s academic performance since 2015:
https://www.schooldigger.com/go/WA/schools/0141000270/school.aspx#google_vignette
In 2016 Tyee Park was ranked 53.9 percentile (%). In 2021 it was ranked 1.2% (1093rd out of 1169 State elementary schools). 98.8% of State elementary schools outperformed Tyee Park academically! How did that academic collapse happen? This points to systemic failures that have to be investigated so as not to be repeated at Tyee Park or elsewhere. There has been some improvement in 2022/2023 as Tyee Park was ranked 6.5%, which is still far below Clover Park School District’s mediocre ranking of 28.5%. It’s not clear whether the bump in academic performance was the result of Universal Design for Learning adoption, or the new principal, or combination of other systemic factors.
These concerns are mirrored by the data contained in the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) “Report Card”:
https://washingtonstatereportcard.ospi.k12.wa.us/ReportCard/ViewSchoolOrDistrict/102227
Tyee Park students meeting state standards in ELA, math and science are well below average. The combined percentage of students meeting these three basic education requirements is 23%. 77% of students fail to meet these state standards. “High growth” as shown for math and ELA are actually low growth and fall far below the 50% median just to stay even with peers academically. As a result, Tyee Park students are falling further and further behind academically. They will take these academic deficits into middle and high school with predictable results.
The 58% attendance rate is probably part of the academic problem: you can’t learn if you don’t attend school. In 2019/2020 attendance was at 78.3% and has declined every year since. Despite relatively high per-student spending ($21,571 annually) and smaller student-to-teacher ratios (about 11:1) compared to other District elementary schools, Tyee Park’s academic outcomes remain well below average in District and statewide. Sometimes more people, money and stuff alone do not lead to success if there are systemic flaws that go unaddressed.
Unfortunately the School Board, Superintendent and administration, in particular the Public Relations (PR) Department, are not transparent about the District’s academic performance. Instead of truthfully addressing the District’s overall poor academic performance they obscure it with fluff articles, news releases and monthly publications which put a smiley face on academic failure. This degrades the importance of academic performance by replacing it with largely meaningless anecdotal stories, buildings, colorful painting, “effervescent lighting”, large windows, computer programs, and short narrowly focused videos for public consumption. Academics can’t be very important if you ignore it and that has systemic implications. Take a look at the District’s website for “academic assessment” and you’ll discover not a single statistic for a single subject, for a single school, for the entire District! Indeed academic assessment is missing from the District’s academic assessment page. Ironic!
https://www.cloverpark.k12.wa.us/cms/one.aspx?pageId=23550067
Lack of transparency on academic performance has systemic impacts especially on parents. They have been lulled into apathy with respect to the school’s and District’s academic performance. Why fret? Everything is fine; only it isn’t! District PR presents a distorted one-sided view of reality that has become something of an “opiate of the masses”.
Many parents have a teacher-student-parent connection, but few are fully aware of how their school or the District is performing academically. They lack functioning Parent Teacher Associations or Neighborhood Associations where parents can share their children’s educational experiences. These organizations are vital for parental exercise of political power far beyond that of an individual parent with only three minutes for “public comment” during monthly School Board meetings.
That a child can’t read or compute at grade level may have more to do with the District and school systemically than the teacher, student or parent involvement. Had Tyee Park parents known the school’s academic performance rank at 1.2% they would have shown up in arms at a School Board meeting to demand answers. Maybe that’s what the Board, Superintendent and administration are trying to avoid.
Want increased parental involvement in the District and its schools? Try being honest with them: the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth when it comes to academic performance. To do otherwise silently says volumes about the District’s desire for parental participation. In the meantime we’re losing a generation of students academically.
I love Tyee Park!
The principal is awesome, the staff are all friendly and engaged, and the parents are super involved. If you’re not at least 30 minutes early to one of the student concerts, good luck even finding a place to stand!
I would suggest, if John feels like his “good ideas” always fall on deaf ears it might be because they’re actually junk.
Despite an awesome principle, friendly and engaged staff and super involved parents Tyee Park is at the bottom academically of the State’s elementary schools. So it must be something else. Explain that please. Facts are facts. Do you really think most Tyee Park parents are aware of the school’s academic performance? How about the precipitous decline from above average to the very bottom in just a few years? What’s up with that? The Board, Superintendent and administration have been mum on the subject. Canceling the past does nothing to improve academic performance today or in the future.
I am one of those parents and I am happy with Tyee Park.
Great but let me ask a hypothetical question. If you had school choice (I know…you don’t) would you still send your child to Tyee Park or a different school within the District (or outside) with the following academic characteristics compared to those at Tyee Park:
Met State Standards
ELA: 74.8% vs. 27.8%
Math: 76.3% vs. 19.4%
Science: 69.9% vs 21%
Student growth
Math: 43.3% vs. 22.1%
ELA: 35% vs. 32.3%
Attendance
79.3% vs. 58%
Cost per student
$19,905 vs. $21, 571
Wouldn’t you want your child to attend this school? If they couldn’t wouldn’t you want Tyee Park and District to take a look at the bases for this school’s success academically and institute them at Tyee Park? Would you be satisfied with the academic status quo and disparity at Tyee Park compared to other schools providing a superior education for their students?
No excuses now: which school would you want your child to attend?
I’m always wondering how much time you have spent physically INSIDE any of the CPSD schools, seeing how life there plays out. I am retired from the district and I still go and volunteer at the schools my grandchildren attend.They are attending school at two of the schools you have recently mentioned in your rants about how “under-performing” they are. Both schools are doing the best they can. Parent involvement is very tricky. There are some parents working 2 or even 3 jobs to make ends meet for their families. Some work shift jobs and some can never make it to school functions. You cannot just look at percentages and numbers and think you can understand all that is going on . As a retired educator in this district I believe that it would be in your best interests to go spend a week inside of one of the schools you speak so poorly of. Statistics are only that. They do not represent what teachers and administrators and students and parents are striving towards. If a person gets up each day and does the best they can then it is a good day.
OK so give the District an “A” for effort but results count. What grade would you give a test score of 6.5%? How about 1.2%? Citing statistics developed by the District, sent to OSPI and posted on their “report card” website isn’t a rant: it’s facts.Statistics are more than just “only that”. They are an objective measure of effectiveness regardless of everything else “going on”. Why else would the District produce and provide them to OSPI if they were “only that”. Didn’t you test students while teaching.
Sometimes “best” isn’t good enough although not for lack of trying. A drowning man expends far more energy than an accomplished swimmer with predictable results. Working smarter requires a hard look at the District as a system beginning with the Board, Superintendent and administration. They set the environment within which schools, teachers, students and parents have to function. Despite what’s “going on” it clearly hasn’t made much of a difference academically.
For the second time in this past month Mr. Arbeeny has taken upon himself to put down the Clover Park School District and a particular school in the district. The last time I commented about his writing I questioned if he has ever said anything positive about Clover Park District. He seems to be bent on negative things. Wonder what in his background causes him to have such negative thoughts about the district. Mr Arbeeny it may be time for you to take a look at yourself and your views.
Facts are facts. No need for me to tout positive things about CPSD. They have a public relations department that is full of “positive” things to say about the District, many of which are meaningless academically. Yet it says precious little about academics which are for the most part deplorable. You can’t even find academic assessments on their academic assessment webpage! Go figure!
Yet, academics are why we have educational institutions. If they fail academically all the other “positive” PR is for naught and just a smoke screen to hide the not so obvious. The facts I presented are prepared by the District and presented to OPSI which publishes them on the OSPI website. There are other sources that also use this data. No mystery where they came from or if they’re accurate. Deal with the facts in your comments.
Instead of an ad hominem attack on me, it may be time for you to visit the OSPI website and take a look at your own unquestioning support of the District in it’s primary role: academics.
Look no further than Mr. Arbeeney’s political 501c4 nonprofit LakewoodCARES to understand his motives. A plethora of public records requests of emails from former school board member Paul Wagemann and current board member David Anderson (both LakewoodCARES members at the time) clearly show how Arbeeny and LakewoodCARES members orchestrated the non-stop ugly attacks on our school district. Arbeeny even kept track of how many letters his membership posted to the Sub Times and how many people responded; pro or con. It’s all a calculated effort.
His group followed the current far-right playbook of throwing mud to see what would stick. Their “diploma mill” claim is a great example of how these political hacks misused testing from OSPI to advance their political agenda. The trail of evidence they left is disturbing starting with their CRT claims and ugly racist emails that were first exposed in 2021. Those emails and Sub Times letters over the past three years reveal a coordinated effort to undermine the Clover Park School District and push a political agenda.
Sadly, Mr. Arbeeny is now sounding even more desperate for attention. He no longer has Wagemann on the school board to parrot his endless claims. David Anderson says he has quit LakewoodCARES. Records show that Arbeeny was instrumental in preparing what came out of their mouths at board meetings; the non-stop personal and professional attacks were all planned. Arbeeny referred to himself as playing the role of “the bad cop” in this plot to push their agenda. We no longer see their associates from inside and outside of Lakewood show-up to call our nonpartisan board members “groomers” and other hateful things consistent with their extremism. In the last board election, Mr. Arbeeny backed a board candidate who sadly made the mistake of repeating the same false testing claims and who was soundly defeated. Our community is paying attention and many are sick of their children and our teachers being trashed.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for any of Mr. Arberny’s nonprofit members to actually help students. Attempts to encourage Mr. Arbeeny and the rest of his political buddies to engage with our students and families have been soundly rejected. Arbeeny keeps a wide distance from anything “hands on” and chooses to sit behind a computer where he sees our children as manufactured widgets and no more than a test score. His past written and published statements on child development raise serious questions as to why this man thinks he is qualified to tell anyone how to teach or raise a child. The unchecked ego of those in politics, who refuse or are too incompetent to engage with our diverse student population, have little credibility.
Your rants against me and Lakewood CARES haven’t changed in over 3 years regardless of the article’s subject.It’s an indication that you have nothing else to say which indicates you are the one with little credibility. This article isn’t about Lakewood CARES: it’s about the academic failings of Tyee Elementary School. Try to focus.
Mr. Arbeeny’s one dimensional analysis on schools based on third party (School Digger) ratings raises a question of motive and bias. He frequently quotes School Digger which reportedly bases its school ratings on OSPI data. The question is how does School Digger interpret the data? Which software platform does a third party use to generate an overall rating of school performance? Is Mr Arbeeny an expert in such software programs that he can accurately comment on third party school ratings?
I also use OSPI data. What evidence do you have that Schooldigger misrepresents data? Are you an software expert? The facts please, not some unsubstantiated rumor repeated by District supporters There are many other sources I could quote that agree that Tyee Park and the District have real academic problems.
None of my critics have dealt with the subject of the article: Tyee Park Elementary School’s academic performance. The reason: because they can’t. They’d rather attempt to “kill the messenger” because they cannot kill the message. This isn’t about Lakewood CARES: it’s about Tyee Park. Try to stay focused.
Bottom line: academics are why we have schools; not for nice buildings, bright colors, concerts, etc. Until this District and its sycophant supporters deal with the academic situation there will be no improvement despite all the other irrelevant “positive” things that are going on.
Mr. Arbeeny,
When you began to boldly advertise your nonprofit on your endless letters you were speaking for everyone who belongs to that group. If your members are so involved in our schools and are the educational experts you claim equal up to a “mega brain”, why are their names not even published? Why the secrecy? Is “transparency” only what you expect from others, but not from your own organization? Double standard? Do you think citizens should know exactly who you represent? Or, do you just write all this lame analysis on your own?
Whoever is in charge at your nonprofit has serious issues understanding formative and summative testing data and how it applies to student academic growth. You have previously trashed the school district for using testing data to inform academic interventions; students receive targeted help specific to their deficits based on testing data. So, you oppose formative assessments? Having never bothered to get involved with students and interventions, it explains why you lack any understanding of what is actually being done in the schools across this district. Do you think Schooldigger gives you that information?…seriously, expand the level of your sources of information! You also seem to reject individual school reports at board meetings where we hear the actions that are being taken in real time to address academic needs. Were you or were you not the unfortunate architect of the “diploma mill” claim? Please take full credit if it was you. Whoever decided to trash our students in this community needs to own up.
Hundreds of public records requests have been obtained over the last 3 years and I would not be making my comments or claims if I had not read them. What an evidence goldmine of just how focused a few ultra political people were on taking control of our children and schools.
Focus: how has Tyee Park Elementary done academically? Which of the two schools I mentioned earlier would you send your child to if you had the choice?
Simple questions; simple answers.
Actually Lakewood CARES has taken a look at School Improvement Plans (SIP) back to 2017 and seen a general steady decline academically. The “…actions that are being taken in real time to address academic needs…” only matter if they are in fact effective. Often these “actions” are more verbiage than substance, a matter of what they plan to do (i.e. “increase student grow potential (SGP) to 50%) rather than how they plan to do it.
Unfortunately there are no end of school year SIP evaluations. Indeed individual school SIPs are presented once every two years (one a month) so annual evaluation isn’t possible. The past board voted for that over the Anderson/Wagemann motion to do two SIPs a month so annual evaluation could be conducted: another systemic problem that side steps accountability.
Mr. Arbeeny,
Once again you run from any transparency and believe your past and current actions and claims can be dismissed. Thankfully, your misguided ham-fisted efforts that harmed the reputations of our students, school employees, school district and our City of Lakewood are on record. The actions and words of the Lakewood CARES members who sat on our school board are a matter of record. It was off the rails! Your letters and responses on the Sub Times are on record. You actually attended a school board meeting and blurted out objections from your seat in the audience as if you had been elected by our citizens and were in charge; recorded on tape!
Thank goodness we have nonprofits in our community that are actually invested in showing up to help our students achieve instead wasting time by playing power games from inside a political office on Bridgeport.
“… one dimensional analysis…”? Really?
I’ve included school academic ranking, trends since 2015, students meeting State standards in ELA, math, science, Student Growth Percentile (SGP) in math and ELA, teacher/student ratio, attendance and annual cost per student. That is multidimensional.
What’s the source and dimension of your analysis?
Mr Arbeeny, do your homework on UDL and the implementation answers will be known to you. Diversity is more complex than a checkbox on a piece of paper. Research shows learners of a second language on average need 7 years to pick up on the nuances of the second language and culture context. I am not a certified teacher but a nurse who has lived in Lakewood since 1991. My husband is a graduate of Lakes HS.Can you please find something constructive to say or be a problem solver instead of a negative nag?
I’ve done my homework so my question was somewhat rhetorical since I suspect few others know what UDL is about. It’s something that should have been explained in the Tyee Park article but was not. This has been a problem with SIPs where the latest and greatest teaching techniques are touted conveniently omitting why the last batch of teaching techniques were replaced. It is important to understand what preceded UDL perhaps in explanation for the Tyee Park academic collapse that has only recently started to be reversed. Learning what didn’t work and why is as important as how the new “silver bullet” is supposed to work.
Okay, is anyone still left in Lakewood who who hasn’t figured out that LakewoodCARES is full of hot air? The red flag is that these people never show up to help students and families. They believe all children magically start at the same place when enrolled in school, all children learn the same way, and all end at the same place when tested at the end of the year. Parents know this is not remotely true! Arbeeny’s group seems to be just Arbeeny and a bunch of ghosts. Has anyone noticed he is a lone voice?
I believe Tyee Park serves children from Springbrook- one of the most vulnerable communities in our city. Volunteers in Lakewood from churches and nonprofits like Caring4Kids actively work year around to help these students get to school and stay in school. They support students through hands-on assistance. Has anyone ever witnessed Lakewood CARES members show -up or even talk about the needs of these students beyond comparing them to a test score? We never were judged like this growing up and according to LakewoodCARES members, we all must be ignorant and failures!
What exactly do these so called members even do for our community other than put out political stuff? Maybe Arbeeny just writes this stuff on his own, publishes it and tries to sound like some kind of expert. Maybe a hobby? I think most people have finally figured it out.
Please stop perpetuating the myth that poor children can’t learn! It’s an excuse for schools and districts to blame poor students for the district’/school’s failure academically. Do a Google search “myth poor children can’t learn” and you’ll discover that it is a falsehood. CPSD often mentions its free lunch program to imply that poor kids are the problem; they’re not…they are an opportunity.
If Springbrook’s poor are the excuse for academic failure at Tyee Park, how do you explain that just 8 years ago they were performing at 53% of students meeting state standards only to fall to 1.2% and remaining there until recently? Was there a sudden influx of poor children into Springbrook that caused the collapse or more likely a District/school systemic failure? Tyee Park’s past is living proof that poor children can learn at an elevated level but are also susceptible to systemic missteps by District and schools.
Correction: this sentence above should be changed as follows:
If Springbrook’s poor are the excuse for academic failure at Tyee Park, how do you explain that just 8 years ago they were ranked academically at 53% only to fall to 1.2% and remaining there until recently?