Submitted by John Arbeeny.
Lakewood CARES will be providing an academically 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, Board meeting agendas or “Inside Schools”. This week’s CPSD “beaming with pride” article covers Thomas Middle School which was featured in a Suburban Times article on 17 September 2024:
It’s the beginning of a new school year and the CPSD Public Relations (PR) Department has given up any pretense that academics matter in their “puff pieces” published in the Suburban Times. Indeed it continues to be all about anecdotal celebration of a staff members and students. In Thomas’ case that’s 1 staff member out of 69 teachers and 1 student out 983 students celebrating artistic ability. What about the academic achievement of the rest of the 982 students? This is nothing but a smoke screen to obscure the true academic failure of the district and most of its schools. “Keep parents in the dark” seems to be their motto at the same time CPSD management complains about parent apathy.
In 2017 Thomas was a middle school that was slightly above average academically ranked at 53.3 percentile. Since then, and despite a brand new building, there has been a precipitous decline academically down to only 19.3 percentile in 2024: 432nd out of 535 middle schools state-wide. 80.7% of the State’s middle schools outperform Thomas academically. That’s over a 64% reduction in Thomas’ academic ranking in just 8 years! It is faint praise indeed to say that Thomas Middle School is the District’s “best” middle school at 19.3% compared to Hudtloff (5%) and Lochburn (0.4%) Middle Schools. The “best” of the worst! How did the Board and Superintendent allow this to happen?
https://www.schooldigger.com/go/WA/schools/0141000272/school.aspx
This academic freefall is not unique to Thomas: it has occurred across all schools. CPSD now has the dubious distinction of having again fallen to a new low in 2024 of 25.9 percentile: 183rd out of 247 school districts state-wide. How much longer can the taxpayers of CPSD endure the current Board’s and Superintendent’s inaction to this academic travesty? When you elevate “culture change” over academics, as they have since 2018, the outcome is predictable.
https://www.schooldigger.com/go/WA/district/01410/search.aspx
CPSD’s typical excuses for individual school and district academic failure aren’t going to cut it anymore: it’s too long a trend to ignore. Free lunch, racial and ethnic membership, languages, military associated students, apathetic parents, economic factors, culture, COVID, etc. etc. etc. are just that: excuses. Lakewood’s population hasn’t changed so much since 2018 that the success of just a few years ago can’t be duplicated today.
The Office of Superintendent for Public Instruction (OSPI) statistics confirm Thomas’ academic situation discussed above as shown below:
https://reportcard.ospi.k12.wa.us/ReportCard/ViewSchoolOrDistrict/102237
OSPI has pulled a “switch” on their school report card site and made some not so obvious but profound changes this year. OSPI eliminated the “percentage of students meeting state standards” in ELA, math and science and Student Growth Percentile (SGP) from their front page for reasons unknown.
Instead we now have “students on track for college level learning without needing remedial classes” and “students showing foundational grade level knowledge and skills or above”, categories which are not directly relatable to the earlier “students meeting state standards” and SGP. It is now more difficult to develop academic trends using past criteria vs. “new” criteria: a case of “apples and oranges” comparison.
It is not clear what “students showing foundational grade level knowledge and skills or above” specifically means since the new statistics appear to be completely divorced from those of the previous “students meeting state standards”. Thomas 2022/2023 statistics for “students meeting state standards” are shown below:
2022/2023: ELA 38.2%; Math 18.8%; Science 24.3%
Compare this to the new spring 2024 “foundational grade level knowledge and skills” standard as shown below”
2023/2024: ELA 63.9%; Math 48.9%; Science 53.5%
This enormous change appears to be an inflation of academic achievement from a combined rating of 27.1% of “students meeting state standards” in 2022/2023 to a combined rating of 55.4% of students showing “foundational grade level knowledge and skills” in the spring of 2024. That’s a magical 100%+ increase academically in less than a year! Perhaps this is the result of simply lowering state academic standards in order to pump up the numbers.
It appears that OSPI has juggled the academic categories over the last couple of weeks. I now find that “college level learning” has supplanted “students meeting state standards” as part of the academic assessment on the OSPI Report Card. I’m not sure what the relationship is between college preparedness and meeting state standards because it’s not explained.
Only 28.8% of Thomas students are on track with combined English, math and science achievement for “college level learning”: 71.2% are on track to need remedial classes! 70%+ of Thomas students will not be prepared to enter college upon graduation based upon middle school performance. What programs does CPSD offer this majority of students in order to develop trade or vocational skills after high school or did the majority of students just spend 12 years in school for something (college) that wasn’t in their future? No wonder so many students have become apathetic about their education.
Thomas’ academic decline may be in part attributed to discipline exclusions and poor attendance. OSPI defines “discipline rate” as “What percent of students are excluded in response to a behavioral violation?” “Exclusion” means suspensions or expulsions. Since 2019 the exclusion rate has grown from 4.3% to 7.3% in 2023. There are no OSPI figures for 2023-2024. This alarming trend does not give a true picture of the disciplinary environment which includes all disciplinary incidents short of exclusion. “Zero tolerance discipline” has been replaced with a race/ethnicity based discipline to even out “disparities”. Is class room chaos the result? Students need a stable environment in which they can learn without disruption.
Thomas’ attendance rate of students attending 90% or more school days is 66.9%: 33.1% of all Thomas students did not meet this criteria in 2022-2023. Yet in 2017-2018 attendance was at 85.5%. As attendance fell over the last 7 years so did academic achievement. This is a common theme throughout the District: lower attendance = lower academics. You can’t learn if you don’t attend school and you don’t want to attend school in a chaotic environment!
Here are the academic rankings for elementary schools that feed into Thomas Middle School:
- Beachwood: 90.1% (JBLM)
- Meriwether: 71.7% (JBLM)
- Rainier: 68.3% (JBLM)
- Carter Lake: 58.1% (JBLM)
- Evergreen: 39% (JBLM)
- Lake Louise: 34.5%
- Tillicum: 10.9%
You’ll note the adacemic rankings for JBLM schools. Averaging academically at 65.4 percentile they are the exception to the rule in CPSD. The average academic ranking for these seven Thomas feeder elementary schools is 53.2% which is somewhat astounding compared to feeder schools for Hudtloff (15.9%) and Lochburn (12.75%). The question then is what happened to these superior students who, in transition from elementary school to middle school, dropped from an academic ranking of 53.2% to an academic ranking of 19.3%? Did the parental and community involvement on JBLM evaporate once the students left the confines of the military bases or is it something else? We know that the PTA’s disappeared once JBLM students were plunked into an alien neighborhood and social setting.
Thomas Middle School started out with the best academic possibilities of all district middle schools with their 7 feeding elementary school but something happened along the way. Removing those students from a learning rich environment on JBLM resulted in a crash academically almost overnight in a low learning environment outside JBLM. That should be reason enough for a full blown investigation into the success at JBLM and institution of like measures throughout the district. Only then will Thomas Middle School become the “best of the best” instead of the dubious “best of the worst”.
I question the discipline rate, not because I doubt the figures presented but because suspension and/or expulsion seem to be the only discipline used. In my (unscientific) observations, I fail to see any in school discipline for minor behavioral violations. What happened to sitting in a corner, writing essays, or after school detention? I would favor suspension and expulsion be reserved for only the most serious violations of policy.
I also wonder about actual performance. The writer quotes percentile rankings which present a dire picture. What we don’t know as readers of this letter is if these drops in ranking represent a large or a small decrease in academic achievement. Perhaps most schools in our state post results within a narrow band. This may explain wild swings in relative ranking. Alternatively, state schools may post a wide range of results. This, of course would indicate a more serious issue.
Indeed suspension/expulsion rates do not give a full picture of the discipline situation in CPSD but the data is there if you want to do the digging. I submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request 21-103 in 2021 for just such information. I published the results in the Suburban Times on January 19th 1922 which you can read at:
https://thesubtimes.com/2022/01/19/letter-discipline-in-clover-park-school-district-2017-2021/
Examination of 123 individual Board meeting minutes back to 2017 failed to reveal a single Board meeting that addressed the topic of District discipline comprehensively. Here are a few excerpts:
“The FOIA request contained 36,118 instances on 1,063 pages of disciplinary offenses over the last 5 years. Below are the numbers of disciplinary offenses by year. The school year has been calculated at 180 days.
BY SCHOOL YEAR
• 2017 – 10,570 offenses, 29%, 59 offenses daily.
• 2018 – 11,426 offenses, 32%, 63 offenses daily.
• 2019 – 9,829 offenses, 27%, 55 offenses daily.
• 2020 – 3,113 offenses, 9%. Covid shut schools down in March 2020 through September, 2021.
• 2021 – 1,180 offenses, 3%. From September 1, 2021, with data provided ending November 23, 2021.
Using data for September-November 2017 -2019 the number of disciplinary offenses averaged 3,460 for that three month period during those three years. Yet the number of disciplinary issues for September – November 2021 was only 1,080, a drop 71%. This drop may be linked to elimination of “zero tolerance discipline” supported by the District and OSPI.
“Zero tolerance discipline” is essentially the reporting and disciplining each and every infraction regardless of race or ethnicity. Ending “zero tolerance discipline” would instead view disciplinary offenses through the “lens of equity” which is to say race or ethnicity of the offender: discipline on a “curve” of sorts.
When you fail to report disciplinary offenses, the offense rate goes down!”
This article goes into detail as to the specific school discipline rate and list of offenses, most of which do not involve suspension or expulsion but do create a chaotic learning environment. Note that 85% of these disciplinary incidents occurred in just 5 schools: CPHS, Lakes, Lockburn, Hudtloff and Thomas which represent 38% of the student population. All elementary schools and Harrison account for the remaining 15% representing 62% of the student population.
More later on your point about academics. I’m on my first cup of coffee!
Mr. Arbeeny,
It is unfortunate that you have once again failed to do your own homework while pretending to be well informed. Evidently, you did not attend the September 23rd Clover Park School Board Workshop Meeting where the new additions to the OSPI Report Card were clearly explained. Why is that? I did attend and I find your continued lack of interest in going beyond a schooldigger.com low level of research as lazy and inexcusable. Had you attended in person or virtually, you would have heard Brian Gabele, who serves as the Director of Assessment and Program Evaluation, fully explain why the changes had been made on the OSPI Report Card.
It is also quite evident that you do not understand and or recognize the differences between academic growth versus proficiency. Looking at both gives a more accurate view of how our students are achieving, especially considering our high mobility student population. You just can’t comprehend that a one day/one shot test is not the full picture of how much a student has achieved or how long that student has been enrolled in our district.
If you’re truly interested in academic achievement, please begin by educating yourself.
Perhaps you missed it:
https://thesubtimes.com/2024/09/18/hudtloff-middle-school-what-about-academics/?utm_source=TST-1283&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=TST-EE
It was my article about Hudtloff Middle School written on 9 September 2024 and published on 18 September 2024 that raised the issue in the first place a full 2 weeks before it became an item of interest to the District workshop. Over the last month OSPI has shifted the criteria back and forth between categories: I know because I was checking while writing these articles.
This Thomas Middle School article was written on 16 September 2024 and submitted to the Suburban Times a full week before it became an item of interest to the District worshop.
BTW: workshops don’t encourage public participation. OSPI juggling academic criteria has yet to discussed in a CPSD Board public meeting.
As usual, CPSD is “….a day late and a dollar short.”
It brings into question how “preparedness for college” is even relevant at the elementary, middle school and even lower grades in high school. Since when did CPSD become a “college prep” district. What about the other 70%+ who are not prepared for college?
Proficiency is measured against a standard of academic performance (i.e. state standards).
Growth is relative and measured as a comparison of like schools/grades/students academic progress.
There: now you understand it.
In an effort to “educate” myself I watched the CPSD Board workshop of 23 September 2024 on Youtube at the below URL:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK-TT2IxwCU
What I found confirmed that I accurately described OSPI’s “switch” of academic data and criteria in my article about Hudtloff Middle School and this article about Thomas Middle School before CPSD picked up the subject. This was confirmed during Brian Gabele’s presentation as Director of Assessment and Program Development during the workshop.
Here are some take-aways from the Board workshop.
1. I questioned why the Student Growth Percentile (SGP) had disappeared from the OSPI report card front page and been relegated to a back page under “Growth”. Brian Gabele stressed several times that SGP was the most important metric for teachers, even surpassing proficiency. I have to wonder though. Normally the most important things are writ large on Page One not on a back page you have to search for. It may be the most important metric for teachers but I think proficiency might be more important to parents.
2. I stated a new category showed up on Page One without any explanation: “Students Showing Foundational Grade Level Knowledge and Skills”. If this sounds like “Students Meeting State Standards” you’d be wrong. Brian Gabele explained that the inflated percentages were accomplished by adding Level 2 students (Below grade level) to Level 3 (At grade level) and Level 4 (Above grade level) statistics. Brian Gabele stated this was done because Level 2 below grade level students are “not illiterate” and do possess some skills. That left Level 1 (Well below grade level) all by itself. Consequently besides making Level 2 students look better than they are it tarnished the achievement of Level 3 and 4 students now all lumped together in the same grouping. Equity at work. My quote from the Hudtloff article was “ Perhaps this is the result of simply lowering state academic standards in order to pump up the numbers.” That is exactly what happened. How convenient during an election year for OSPI.
3. “Students Meeting State Standards” disappeared from the OSPI report card front page and was re-placed with “Students on track for college learning without needing remedial classes.” Despite the name change Brian Gabele stated that they would still be using the “met standards” criteria. Why the confusing name change and how does it have any relevance at elementary and middle schools? OSPI should have left the name the same instead of confusing the situation.
I’d be more interested in the test results if all these kids were to be drug tested .
As in the adult population around here, that could explain a hell of a lot .