Last week, we showed our #CPSDPride by giving a #SuperSchoolShoutout to Carter Lake Elementary School with reading interventionist Katie Johnson and fifth grader Isabella DiMase.
In Johnson’s third year as a teacher at Carter Lake, she continues to find new things to love each day. “The teachers are incredible, and I feel so lucky to have ended up here,” she said. “I love teaching on a military base, and you can feel how these parents prioritize education.”
Johnson works with students from kindergarten to second grade to build their foundational reading skills. She likes to teach phonics because it makes reading logical and easy to follow. “I get to see their growth first-hand, and it feels tremendously rewarding,” she said. “I am also constantly learning alongside students, so I can see myself building my knowledge as they progress.”
Reading is Johnson’s passion, so she feels grateful to instill her love of reading into students. “I ultimately want my students to become readers for life even if it is tricky for them at first,” she said.
Isabella has been at Carter Lake since kindergarten and has grown to become a great student leader. “The teachers here push us to be our best,” she said. “I like helping the school and I’ve gotten so many opportunities for this in fifth grade.”
Isabella enjoys reading and is finessing her math skills. However, her favorite projects combine writing with her scientific curiosity. “This year, I wrote an essay on energy and thermodynamics,” she said. “Also last year, I won the top award at the district STEAM Fair for my project about creating a filtration system to improve drinking water.”
In addition to being a star student, Isabella is Carter Lake’s ASB President and plays basketball, baseball and soccer after school. She is excited to continue learning and growing in sixth grade and hopes to one day become a lawyer or an actor like Anne Hathaway.
Go Eagles!
Carter Lake Elementary School is one of only a few academic bright spots in CPSD. It is ranked academically at 58.1 percentile which is above average and much higher than the CPSD academic ranking of 25.9 percentile.
Carter Lake attendance is 84.3% compared to CPSD’s attendance at 65.7%. You can’t learn unless you attend class.
Carter Lake spends $17,674 annually per student compared to CPSD’s average expenditure of $20,370 per student annually. More money, people and “stuff” (buildings, technology, etc.) do not necessarily improve performance.
https://reportcard.ospi.k12.wa.us/ReportCard/ViewSchoolOrDistrict/100047
Carter Lake Elementary consistently outperforms the district and state averages in academic proficiency across subjects, with 55.56% of students proficient or better in SBAC/English Language Arts, compared to 38.13% for the district and 52.63% for the state. In SBAC/Math, Carter Lake Elementary had 48.48% proficiency, compared to 26.6% for the district and 41.68% for the state. The school also excels in WCAS/Science, with 54.1% proficiency, outpacing the district’s 34.61% and the state’s 49.73%. Carter Lake Elementary’s performance is particularly strong among Hispanic and low-socioeconomic status students, ranking in the top 25% of Washington elementary schools for these subgroups.
https://www.schooldigger.com/go/WA/schools/0141000247/school.aspx
The question is, “How much of this information did you get from this CPSD community relations ‘puff piece’ article?” None of it!
There is no way to differentiate between schools succeeding and schools failing academically from these CPSD articles. That I suggest is the purpose behind them. It’s a matter of “equity” and giving such coverage as a “participation trophy” to every school regardless of academic performance. Everyone is “equal” only they are not. This not only cheapens the success of the successful but also pulls the wool over the public’s eye who pay for an otherwise below average substandard school district.