Submitted by Lakewood CARES 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, School Board meeting agendas or “Inside Schools”. This week’s CPSD “beaming with pride” article covers Four Heroes Elementary School which was featured in a Suburban Times article on 5 October 2024:
Four Heroes is an example of the desperate academic situation at many CPSD schools. Unfortunately, you’d never know just how Four Heroes is doing academically from the above linked CPSD public relations (PR) article. This PR policy of limiting school coverage to 1 teacher and 1 student obscures both the district’s many academic failures and true successes from public view. Such PR articles are the equivalent of “participation trophies” that bring every school to the same nondescript level. Perhaps that’s the intent. That’s “equity” for you.
Four Heroes is failing academically and has been since its foundation in 2018. Since 2018 Four Heroes has been ranked at an average percentile of 7.4 (%) academically: 92.6% of Washington State elementary schools have outperformed it academically over that time. The 2024 academic ranking was 9.6%, down from 12.4% in 2023.
https://www.schooldigger.com/go/WA/schools/0141003516/school.aspx
Compare Four Heroes academic ranking (9.6%) with that of all CPSD schools (25%) to get some idea of where they stand academically today. This disparity has been going on for the last six years with no effective academic improvement.
https://www.schooldigger.com/go/WA/district/01410/search.aspx
The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction’s (OSPI) statistics back up this academic ranking.
https://reportcard.ospi.k12.wa.us/ReportCard/ViewSchoolOrDistrict/105893
Four Heroes scored the following in “students meeting state standards” (now re-labeled by OSPI, confusingly, as “Students on track for college level learning without remedial classes”): Spring 2024: ELA: 32.7%, Math: 22.6%, Science: 22.5%.
There is a new metric, “Students Showing Foundational Grade Level Knowledge and Skills or Above”, added to the OSPI report card. If you thought this was a new name for “students meeting state standards” you’d be wrong. This OSPI “sleight of hand” added schools performing below grade level to schools at or above grade level. During the recent CPSD School Board workshop (23 September 2024) Brian Gabele, Director of Assessment and Program Development, said these under performing schools deserve to be recognized for learning something: “…they are not illiterate”! When standards are lowered everyone tends to look good. I have not addressed these statistics because they are new, based upon lowered standards, inflated and with no relationship to past academic metrics.
Unfortunately, Four Heroes attendance rate of students attending 90% or more school days is 51.4%! This may be a significant factor in the school’s low academic performance. For instance, Beachwood Elementary School’s attendance rate is 79.3% and academic ranking is 90.1%. There seems to be a correlation between attendance and academic performance. You can’t learn if you don’t attend.
Four Heroes Student Growth Percentile (SGP) rating offers some hope. Despite its low academic performance it has exhibited somewhat surprising growth as well as racial and ethnic trends.
SGP scores for ELA (54%) and math (49.5%) are right at the median of 50% and show that Four Heroes students are maintaining their growth position relative to other schools; they are not losing or gaining ground academically with peer group schools. However, given that they are ranked so low academically to begin with, it will require far more growth over a long time to significantly cut into that academic deficit. It’s not just how fast schools grow academically but rather the start point of that academic growth. Four Heroes and many other CPSD schools have a lot of academic ground to make up.
These SGP statistics reveal some surprising relationships between growth, race and ethnicity. The oft expressed “truism” of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) proponents is that Whites have some sort of built-in “privilege” which academically results in “disparities” between Whites and minorities. Yet as shown on the above chart that is not necessarily the case! White growth may outperform Blacks in ELA but Black growth in math outperforms Whites by an even greater margin. Such “swaps” in disparities occur across all races and ethnicities. This contradicts the DEI assertion that somehow minorities consistently under perform Whites, allegedly because of racism, and thus need preferential treatment to “catch up”. This is apparently not the case at Four Heroes!
OSPI defines “discipline rate” as “What percent of students are excluded in response to a behavioral violation?” “Exclusion” means suspensions or expulsions. Four Heroes disciplinary rate is 1.6% (2022/2023), similar to that of other elementary schools. This changes dramatically when elementary students transition into middle schools where the discipline rate can jump by a factor of 10! This phenomenon needs investigation. “Tweens” and teens can be a handful, but schools have to find a way to ameliorate this phenomenon to establish a safe and stable environment for learning. Otherwise, any academic proficiency and growth attained in elementary school may be compromised as the student steps over the middle school threshold.
Four Heroes is one of several elementary schools that feed into Lochburn Middle School which has the 2024 academic ranking of 0.4%: 533 out of 535 Washington State middle schools. Lochburn’s discipline rate (2022/2023) was 12.1% compared to Four Heroes’ 1.6%, or 7.5 times greater. This represents a dire academic future for these elementary students who feed into Lochburn. Lochburn Middle School’s academic situation can be found at:
NOTE: All Lakewood CARES Suburban Times articles back to 2021 are archived at the URL below for easy search and access.
The only thing I would like to point out from this article, it is unfair to compare elementary schools off jblm to schools on jblm.
Students living on the military installation, for the most part, belong to 2 parent households. And while we think about how military students have to deal with deployments and transfers, they have quite the support network available to them. In fact, they have more stability than non-military families. So please, when making comparisons, compare apples to apples.
I am comparing “schools to schools” the success of any one of which depends upon a host of issues. There is nothing “unfair” about any advantage (or disadvantage) one school might have over another for what ever reason. The objective should be to create that advantage at every school for every student. What my analysis shows is that there is a great academic gulf between elementary schools and an academic crash landing upon their students’ entry into middle school and beyond. What is the CPSD doing about this?
In response to Lakewood CARES John Arbeeny’s article above, as a former long-term citizen of the Lakewood area, I feel compelled to make several remarks.
Mr. Arbeeny, you have spent many hours evaluating and commenting on issues confronting the students of Clover Park Schools. Your dedicated efforts extend over many years. I thank you for your work on this problem.
Interestingly, back in circa 1985, our child was ready to start the freshman year of high school.
We had two choices.
Choice #1 was Clover Park High School, which was an easy short 1/2 mile walk from our neighborhood and it was free as I had paid my school taxes for decades.
Choice #2 was an expensive private school, which we would have to drive to every school day. If we chose Choice #2 we would drive by Clover Park High School twice a day, which seemed ridiculous.
Based on the two choices described above, Clover Park High School appeared to be the most intelligent and financially prudent choice. It was close with no driving or bussing involved. Overall, we ended up spending piles of school taxes for over half a century, so Clover Park High School was a free choice.
Based on our preliminary thinking, we attended a Freshman orientation meeting before school commenced for the 9th grade.
I will never forget the speaker’s words. “If only we can get students to attend 50% of the classroom time, we can experience some success.” We thought then and we still think now, 50% is ridiculous and is not the best environment for a seriously responsible student to progress academically. If only 50% attend, schools have to dumb down the lesson plans and lower student standards.
Our child teared up after learning what Clover Park High School’s pathetic academic goal structure looked like.
We chose Option #2 above, spending thousands of dollars for private school. Our child went on to obtain an undergraduate degree from a highly desirable college eventually followed by an advanced degree from another well-known institution.
To accomplish a healthy academic experience, we drove past Clover Park High School at least twice a day for four years.
It pained me back in 1985 and it pains me 39 years later to learn that it appears Clover Park Schools has done nothing to change their dismal attendance rate.
I hasten to admit, that Clover Park School’s failure does add to our society. Clover Park potentially adds high school dropouts, occupational failures, citizens dependent on government assistance, low-income job holders, young adults addicted to legal and illegal substances, plus an increase in our prison population.
While I personally did not like high school that much, I always had excellent attendance as I did not want to become a loser in life.
I am left with one question. When will the general public, parents, and Clover Park Schools wake up and do something about the dismal failure ensconced in the Clover Park School system? Possibly never unless Mr. Arbeeny’s words are heeded.
The time for action is now.
Joseph Boyle
Mr. Boyle,
I miss reading your frequent letters in The Suburban Times. I would like to offer my hypothesis on the subject at hand. While some citizens blame Clover Park’s administration and staff for it’s academic failures, I believe the evidence lays the blame firmly at the feet of parents. I believe private schools often produce better academic results because parents are involved. Just the decision to spend tuition dollars at a private school indicates a parent’s involvement with their child’s education. Additionally, the district schools located on JBLM routinely outperform the schools located off post. Of course, we want teachers and administrators to do the best job possible, but parental involvement is required to achieve good results.
Certainly parents have a key role to play in their children’s education. However, where’s the data on their participation? CPSD does have data on parent-teacher conferences, communication and open house participation. Is there a correlation between parent participation and school academic performance? I don’t think I’ve ever seen CPSD publish such data making that correlation.
There several CPSD policies however that might discourage parent participation.
These CPSD PR “puff pieces” are a perfect example of lulling parents into thinking everything is fine at my school; nothing to worry about; CPSD has got it covered. Only they don’t.
Board members have to live in a specific district to be elected to the Board but are elected at large by the entire CPSD population. As a result most of the campaigning goes into the neighborhoods with the greatest vote totals not the neighborhoods with the greatest needs. As a result district Board members don’t really represent nor are accountable to their districts. Apathy breeds apathy. True district elections would be a great way to energize parents. District students (vs. schools) need a “champion” on the Board to represent them.
There are very few active parent-teacher-associations (PTA) the most active of which are on…you guessed it…JBLM! Yet CPSD has had a “hands off” approach when it comes to PTAs. Why? To quote the CPSD response to my Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request 22-61 (8/25/22) for such data:
“As you may be aware, the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) is an organization separate from the Clover Park School District. Because it is a separate organization, the District does not maintain its communications, including newsletters, and does not have the PTA’s internally produced records. Furthermore, it is not the District’s practice to maintain lists of PTA members.”
One-on-one teacher-parent relationships are important but only involve one student and parent. Collectively they are important but individual parents are in an isolated environment separated from other parents. There is no political power in these relationships. A single parent only gets 3 minutes before the Board for public comment and can easily be dismissed. PTAs at an organizational level are needed to exercise political power for their school and students. This does not exist currently and is perhaps intended. The proliferation of school associated PTA would put them in direct competition with CPSD Board, Superintendent and administration.
Yes parents are important but they have to work within an environment that energizes them and organizes them with their “champion” district representative. I takes a parent, parents, organization and a champion to exercise political power.
Calling you out once again here, Mr. Arbeeny.
First and foremost, parents are largely the problem.
You are repeatedly arguing away that reality; fruitlessly at that!
We are in an era of adults having children – both addicted to electronic devices!
It wasn’t like this 30 plus years ago! Today, parents have to get off their phones and actually pay attention to and discipline their offspring. That is not happening.
See this Pew Research Study – https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2024/03/11/how-teens-and-parents-approach-screen-time/
Second, CPSD has been going down the tubes over the past decade academically as many of the district’s administrators have changed/retired/moved on. The superintendent is ineffective and his questionable practices over the past years have not helped. The community of lakewood should look at the year over year correlation of this current superintendent and the drastic decline in academic performance of the district at large.
Lakewood residents, ask yourselves why CPSD pays the superintendent $300,000 plus annually to produce results like we are seeing! Further, ask yourselves why CPSD is bussing in students from the areas off the intersection Steele Street South and 96th Street, in Tacoma! Is CPSD now merging with Tacoma Public Schools? Look at the boundary maps of Lochburn and Four Heroes. It is very odd.
Mr Boyle,
My wife and I have made the same choice for our child’s education.
We have personally paid hundreds of thousands of dollars into the public school system, and now we are paying the same for private school.
That’s hard-earned money derived through delayed gratification and deep sacrifice.
The progressive mind virus has normalized failure to the point that success is now frowned upon as some sort of greedy ambition.
99 percent of people can handle adversity.
They even brag about it: How tough they are; how under-privileged they are; how discriminated against they are, etc.
But only one percent can handle success.
That is the true minority, who plows through adversity and accomplishes great things in spite of all the nay-sayers.
That lop-sided figure is no accident.
Any teacher/mentor who is delivering a message short of quantifiable accomplishment simply isn’t worth listening to.
Victomhood is a choice.
So is success.
A human brain is not fully developed until age 28.
That’s a lot of years to waste on abstract nonsense, when reality is staring us right in the face.
The worst thing that ever happened to this country was off-shoring our workforce, robbing our people of productive purpose.
We urgently need to turn that around before it’s too late.
“You can be powerful or pitiful but not both”. Joyce Meyer
Joe,
Be truthful.
If you’d skipped school the truant officer would have tracked down your parents for a talk, and your parents would have whipped your butt.
We’re of an era.
Joseph, do you have suggestions regarding actions? I suggest protesting the superintendent. Then I would look at a number of CPSD’s principals. The organization is failing from the top down.
The students that do attend school regularly and their teachers are all being suffocated by this “teachers being pressured to do the contacting and heavy lifting to make them come to school”, many teachers say the only help they get from their administration sounds like “have you offered modifications and accommodations to get the student into the classroom”, and the word in the community is CPSD isn’t even reporting actual absences legitimately “numerous students don’t attend our school more than a few days a months but someone is changing the reasons for their absences, in the attendance tracking system Skyward, from unexcused to a host of odd options but this is being done days, weeks later than the absences”.
Chronic absences are holding our teachers back from teaching because they are being pressured to “meet students where they are at” – uh, so if a student barely attends, our teachers in CPSD are expected to wind the curriculum back child by child? No wonder the rest of the students aren’t learning and performing well.
End the lack of holding parents accountable. What action can you suggest Joseph and other Lakewood residents?
I find it annoying to keep hearing about how terrible and ineffective our teachers are. You can’t teach kids who aren’t there. If anyone out there has a plan for getting these kids to attend schools…NOW IS THE TIME TO SPEAK UP!!!
And a big THANK YOU to all the teachers and staff who continue to do the best job they can with whoever shows up!
I have not made any comments “…about how terrible and ineffective our teachers are.” The problems CPSD faces are systemic in nature and will need systemic solutions to fix, not “Band-aides”: a program here or there that does little more that cover up its problems. It starts at the top: Board, Superintendent and administration the impact of which will be felt all the way down to the teacher, student and parent. Ultimately the entire district will benefit.
Well stated, Pat.