This week, we showed our #CPSDPride by giving a #SuperSchoolShoutout to Dower Elementary School with multilingual learning (MLL) teacher Liz Fassnacht and fifth grader Austin Rice.
Fassnacht, known by her fellow staff for her love of Disney, has taught at CPSD for more than 20 years. She’s always wanted to teach MLL and now works with a third of the Dower population who speak 12 different languages. “I love meeting kids from different cultures and getting to learn their stories,” she said.
Fassnacht works one-on-one with students who are new to the country and also joins the classroom to work with students who aren’t newcomers but need additional support. “We focus on reading, writing, listening and speaking, but I also support students and families in learning how to navigate school in American,” she said.
Fassnacht is proud to be a lifelong learner and enjoys exploring the ways culture can impact learning techniques and how students participate in the classroom. “It’s valuable to learn about different experiences to make sure each student succeeds,” she said.
Austin has been a Dower Dragon since kindergarten and impressed his principal with the progress he’s made to become a standout student. “I think the teachers here like my honesty,” he said. “People know they can trust me to be truthful.”
Austin likes fifth grade because students get new opportunities and responsibilities. “In art and PE, you get to try new things which makes it a lot more interesting,” he said. “But some other subjects like math become a little challenging since we’re learning things like decimals and fractions.”
Reading is Austin’s favorite subject, and he favors fiction over nonfiction. He loves playing soccer at PE and is thinking of joining a team. Recently, he and his friend also started a YouTube Channel to flex their technology skills.
Go Dragons!
Dower Elementary School is a public elementary school located in Lakewood, Washington, serving grades PK-5 with a student population of 289. The school is part of the Clover Park School District, which is ranked 183 out of 247 districts in Washington and has a 1-star rating from SchoolDigger.
Dower Elementary School faces significant challenges in supporting the academic achievement of its diverse student population. The school consistently underperforms compared to state and district averages in both English Language Arts (ELA) and Math proficiency, with only 28.89% of students proficient or better in ELA and 29.63% in Math, compared to statewide averages of 52.63% and 41.68%, respectively. Dower Elementary has a low statewide ranking, placing in the bottom quarter of Washington elementary schools, and struggles to support the academic achievement of various student subgroups, such as African American, Hispanic, and special education students. Additionally, the school has a high percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, reaching 82.01% in the 2022-2023 school year, indicating a high level of economic disadvantage among the student population.
When comparing Dower Elementary to other nearby schools in the Clover Park School District, it becomes clear that Dower is one of the lower-performing schools in the district. For example, Oakbrook Elementary and Custer Elementary, which are also in the Clover Park district, outperform Dower in both ELA and Math proficiency. Despite the relatively high per-student spending of $19,515 in the 2021-2022 school year and a low student-teacher ratio of 14 students per teacher, Dower Elementary School has consistently underperformed compared to state and district averages over the past several years, with little improvement in its statewide ranking or academic proficiency rates.
https://www.schooldigger.com/go/WA/schools/0141000252/school.aspx