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, School Board meeting agendas or “Inside Schools”. This week’s CPSD “beaming with pride” article covers Harrison Preparatory High School (Harrison Prep) which was featured in a Suburban Times article on 20 October 2024:
This CPSD public relations department (PR) “puff piece” is, as always, an anecdotal account of a few school faculty and students that gives no indication of the school’s academic performance. These PR articles are little more than a “gold star” participation trophy distributed to every school regardless of academic performance while creating the public impression that everything is just fine academically in the CPSD. It’s not! The word “academics” is not mentioned once in the CPSD article.
The referenced CPSD PR article initially highlights the new Harrison Prep’s Principal, Natasha Richardson, who was previously the Assistant Principal at Highline School District’s (Highline SD) Highline High School (Highline HS). I wish her every success as the new principal at Harrison Prep but I thought it important to do a little research into her time at Highline SD and Highline HS. A comparison of Highline SD and Highline HS academic ratings with those of CPSD and Harrison Prep provides a notable contrast.
Highline SD is ranked academically at 22.3 percentile among Washington State school districts while CPSD is ranked academically at 25.9 percentile: both well below average. The Highline SD percentages of students meeting State standards in English Language Arts (ELA) 33.2%, math 22.1% and science 27% are lower than those at CPSD (ELA 37%; math 25.5% and science 32.5%).
Highline HS is ranked academically at 10.3 percentile in our State compared to Harrison Prep which is ranked at 74.6 percentile. That is a huge difference in academic ranking. Highline HS percentages of students meeting State standards in ELA 33.2%, math 22.1% and science 27.6% are far lower than those at Harrison Prep (ELA 52.8%, math 34.6% and science 41.6%).
Highline High School Statewide Performance
https://www.schooldigger.com/go/WA/schools/0354000531/school.aspx
Harrison Preparatory High School Statewide Performance
https://www.schooldigger.com/go/WA/schools/0141003000/school.aspx
Harrison Preparatory High School OSPI Report Card
https://reportcard.ospi.k12.wa.us/ReportCard/ViewSchoolOrDistrict/104144
NOTE: “Students on Track for College-level Learning Without Needing Remedial Classes Spring 2024” is the equivalent of previous “Students Meeting State Standards”.
NOTE: “Students Showing Foundational Grade Level Knowledge and Skills or Above Spring 2024” is a new OPSI academic metric which includes below average, average and above average student academic achievement thus inflating apparent academic performance.
These academic differences amount to a huge disparity between the two schools. One has to wonder whether the CPSD human resources department interviewed anyone else for this job with, perhaps, better qualifications with respect to past academic performance in a previous school assignment.
Harrison Prep is the best middle/ high school in the CPSD by far, but then again it is a different kind of high school compared to Lakes and Clover Park High Schools and any of the District’s middle schools. It is somewhat selective about who can attend, has more rigorous academic programs and apparently a more “no nonsense” discipline policy. You have to want to be there, maintain academic standing and mind your behavior if you want to remain there.
Harrison Prep, surprisingly, has the highest exclusionary discipline rate at 10.7% which seems counter intuitive! It seems to indicate a “zero tolerance discipline policy”. Act out inappropriately and you’re gone! Compare this with Clover Park High School (8.7%) and Lakes High School (3.7%) exclusionary rates. Harrison Prep also has a student population that is largely minority and low socioeconomic status yet, somehow despite these “barriers”, outperforms most of the rest of the CPSD. Perhaps CPSD should stop claiming that race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status are impediments to learning
.
Student growth for 2023/2024 is shown below. It indicates that Harrison Prep is slowly losing ground academically compared to peer group schools at 39% for ELA and 44% for math. A Student Growth Percentile (SGP) of 50% is needed just to stay even with its peer group. This chart also shows that growth disparities are a mixed bag when it comes to race or ethnicity. There may well be cultural factors involved but no one race or ethnicity outperformed all others in growth in every subject area.
Harrison Preparatory High School OSPI Student Growth Percentile
https://reportcard.ospi.k12.wa.us/ReportCard/ViewSchoolOrDistrict/104144
Harrison Prep represents the best in high school education within the CPSD. Compare its academic ranking of 74.6 percentile with that of Lakes High School at 30.0 percentile and Clover Park High School at an unbelievably low 3.4 percentile! Compare their academic achievement in ELA, math and science. Compare their student growth. When you compare these three CPSD high schools you find their racial, ethnic and socioeconomic make up very similar. Discipline appears much stricter at Harrison Prep! Perhaps that ensures a stable learning environment that leads to superior academic achievement. Clearly there are factors at Harrison Prep that need to be examined and applied district wide.
When has the CPSD School Board visited Harrison Prep to discover their “secret” for success? For that matter when have they visited any of the outstanding Joint Base Lewis-McCord (JBLM) elementary schools to discover their “secret” for success? Never to my knowledge. Until they do they will be “shooting blind” during Board meetings that deal with everything but academics.
If you have a student who attends Harrison Prep or are thinking of sending your student to Harrison Prep, I’d suggest you contact your CPSD School Board member and inquire about Natasha Richardson’s qualifications and the process by which she was chosen as Harrison Prep’s new principal. Find out for yourself why Harrison Prep is so successful and hopefully remains so in the future.
Wondering who your CPSD Board member is? Try contacting the Board’s President, Alyssa Anderson Pearson, via email form at:
https://www.cloverpark.k12.wa.us/cms/One.aspx?portalId=236158&pageId=61380455
I’m sure she’ll welcome the opportunity to answer all your questions.
NOTE: All Lakewood CARES Suburban Times articles back to 2021 are archived at the URL below for easy search and access.
https://thesubtimes.com/author/lakewood-cares/
