Submitted by John Arbeeny.
Lakewood CARES is providing an academic-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 community relations pieces, School Board meeting agendas or monthly “Inside Schools”. This week’s CPSD “beaming with pride” article covers CPHS which was featured in a Suburban Times article on 3 February 2025:
This CPSD article is devoid of any actual academic-related information and clearly that is the purpose: propaganda! I commend teacher Jamie Manual and Junior Chase Porter for their effort and interests. However, “cherry picking” one teacher out of 76 and one student out of 1181 gives no indication of the academic disaster that CPHS and its students have had to endure since 2016. This CPSD community relations article is anecdotal at best and deceptive at worst. What has been done to reverse this academic decline? Apparently nothing that effectively raises the academic performance at CPHS. Who’s responsible for this perennial academic failure? The CPSD School Board, past and present, and Superintendent.
CPHS’ academic ranking in 2016 was a very low 12.7 percentile. Compare that to the 2024 incredibly low academic ranking of 3.4 percentile: 96.6 percent of Washington State high schools out-perform CPHS academically! CPHS is ranked #422 out of 437 Washington State high schools, just 15 from the bottom. This is perhaps not surprising since another academic disaster, Lochburn Middle School, is a “feeder” school to CPHS and has an academic ranking of 0.4 percentile: #533 out of 535 Washington State middle schools, just two from the bottom! 99.6% of middle schools out-perform Lochburn Middle School! Thus CPSD is taking under-performing grade school students, pushing them through middle school where they fall further behind and into CPHS where academic failure is assured.
Compare CPHS’ 2024 academic ranking of 3.4 percentile with the academic ranking for Lakes High School (30 percentile) and Harrison Prep (74.6 percentile) and you get some idea of the academic disparity between schools that exists in CPSD. This, at high school level, is yet another case of the academic “haves and have-nots” that also exists at elementary and middle school level.
This Schooldigger.com graph displays CPHS academic rankings since 2016 to present:
https://www.schooldigger.com/go/WA/schools/0141000252/school.aspx
The Office of the Superintendent for Public Instruction (OSPI) data shown below on the next two slides comes from its “Report Card” website and go into further detail about CPHS academics and related factors:
https://reportcard.ospi.k12.wa.us/ReportCard/ViewSchoolOrDistrict/102218
Unfortunately OSPI changed its “report card” front page so their academics would look better than in actuality just prior to the 2024 election. OSPI entirely eliminated the poorly understood Student Growth Percentile (SGP) and relegated it to a back page on the OSPI report card. The nonsensical (especially at elementary/middle school level) “Students on Track for College-level Learning Without Needing Remedial Classes” replaced the previous easily understood “Students Meeting State Standards”. “Students Showing Foundational Grade Level Knowledge and Skills or Above” (SSFGLKSA for brevity here) is another OSPI fiction. “Students Meeting State Standards” originally only included “Above Average” and “Well Above Average” students. SSFGLKSA added “Below Average” students to the mix to deceptively boost its sagging academic statistics by lowering standards. This instantly increased the apparent student academic performance with no actual increase in student academic performance! This is what DEI does. It increases apparent performance by lowering standards.
In 2016/17 the percentage of CPHS students meeting State standards in ELA was 60.3% and math 22%. Science was not tested in 2016/17. In 2024 the average percentage of CPHS students meeting State standards was ELA 34.7% and math 7% (!). The vast majority of CPHS students did not meet these State standards in 2024 by wide margins. That gives you some idea of CPHS’ abysmal academic status and further academic decline over the last 9+ years. What students fail to learn in elementary school follows them and negatively compounds upon itself into middle school, high school, after graduation and into adult life.
Yet despite this low academic achievement and steady decline, CPHS has increased its 2018/19 graduation rate of 79.2% to a 2024 graduation rate of 92.7% which makes one wonder who exactly are they graduating? Clearly the vast majority of students are not ready for the real world after graduation let alone “College-level Learning Without Needing Remedial Classes”. Compare CPHS’s 2024 graduation rate (92.7%) with that of the other two academically superior CPSD high school graduation rates (Lakes 95.5% and Harrison 93.9%) to get some idea of how inflated CPHS’ graduation rate has become and how little its diploma is worth.
This is a gross injustice to those CPSD students and schools that have managed to succeed academically. Superior students in CPHS (they do exist) will not get the same recognition from college and business recruiters as those in superior schools. Nor will superior CPSD schools get the same recognition as those in superior school districts. Graduation diplomas have to represent more than “participation trophies” and schools and districts more than “diploma mills.” This is what DEI does. It doesn’t elevate anyone but rather lowers standards which have a negative impact on everyone.
CPHS’ regular attendance is 46.6%, which is far worse than the poor CPSD average attendance of 65.7%. You can’t learn if you don’t attend class. Has CPSD/CPHS instituted a truancy plan, perhaps in conjunction with the City of Lakewood? You can’t have over 50% of your youth out of school, roaming the streets and getting into trouble without having negative impacts on the students and community at large. This should be a topic for every CPSD School Board and Lakewood City Council meeting.
CPHS’ class size in 2024 was about one teacher to 15.5 students (1:15.5) which is at the CPSD average ratio of 1:15. Yet in reality class size is effectively smaller given the high absentee rate! It was not that long ago when teacher-student ratios were between 1:20 -1:30. Despite historically low teacher/student ratios, absenteeism is perhaps the key variable holding back academic performance.
Discipline rates can also have an impact on academic performance. The CPHS discipline rate in 2024 was 9% percent of students excluded (suspended or expelled) in response to behavioral violations. The Lakes discipline rate was 6% and Harrison Prep a surprising 12%. Indeed Harrison Prep’s discipline rate is the highest of the three high schools, yet with the highest academic performance. Might this not indicate a “no-nonsense” approach to discipline and a calm, secure learning environment?
The problem with discipline rates is that there is little or no context within which to place them one school to another. Some schools may not report incidents, base discipline on restorative intervention instead of punishment, accept or reject “zero tolerance”, etc., and thus skew the numbers. For more information on the CPSD discipline policy please refer to this previous CARES article:
In 2019/20 the CPHS expenditure per student was $15,918. By 2022/23 (latest figures) it had ballooned to $20,070 in just four years. That’s an annual increase of about 6%. Yet despite that increase in spending, CPHS academic proficiency remained very low and has declined further. You have to wonder what’s going to happen to the $2,081 in 2025 Federal funding per student funding now that President Trump has declared, “DEI is dead”!
This is a phenomenon seen across the CPSD: higher spending and lower academic achievement. Yet CPSD goes to the legislature each year with its hand out for more funding. It’s hard to plead “poverty” when in 2023 Clover Park reported 356 employees making more than $100,000 per year; the average CPSD employee salary was $73,142 (excluding benefits) in a city where the median house hold income is about $55,723.
https://openpayrolls.com/rank/highest-paid-employees/washington-clover-park
If you have a student who attends CPHS, or any other CPSD school, and want a change in academic performance, then you’re going to have to get involved! You deserve more in return for your hard-earned tax dollars. It’s the future of your children! Find out how your school is performing academically and what it is going to take to improve that performance.
School Board members are your elected representatives, not just rubber stamps for hired CPSD employees. Contact them and hold them accountable. Wondering who your CPSD Board representative is? Try contacting the Board’s President, Alyssa Anderson Pearson, via email form at: apearson@cloverpark.k12.wa.us
I’m sure she’ll welcome the opportunity to answer all your questions.
These letters from Mr. Arbeeny aren’t very good. That is, they’re not well written or well-reasoned. He’s just not a very good writer. But he keeps on writing them. Credit for persistence, I guess?
Thank you for adding absolutely nothing to the conversation!
Hi, pot. I’m a kettle.
Mr. Arbeeny,
1) Thank You for your continued reporting on the state of our local education system. I know the time it takes to put the facts together, information like you present, and it is worth the ongoing effort.
2) I agree, the Superintendent, but mostly the Board are truly responsible for the poor learning environment, within our public schools.
3) As a graduate of CPSD, and Clover Park itself, it saddens me to see the a lack of results. It makes me wonder what Lakewood will become 5 to 20 years from now.
Daily I work with clients who either dropped out of school, or only have a GED. Seeing the scores you post regularly, for so many of the CPSD schools, I fear the next generation will have the limited options of the clients I work with.
Thanks!
It does take time and effort to address district level systemic issues that affect every single student (12000+) in CPSD. It has value just as tutoring individual students. However you have to ask yourself: ” How come CPSD employs all these high paid education “experts” with degrees and experience yet they suggest reliance upon unpaid laymen volunteer tutors with no degree or experience to do what the experts have failed to do themselves.” How does that work? Why not just let parents home-school their children? I mean, who better qualified to provide “cultural competence based education” than the family in which they live?
Der Führer will be especially pleased with this!
Actually I doubt CPSD Geschäftsführer Banner is especially pleased with this!
Thank you for continuing to unmask the CPSD. What I don’t understand is why the district doesn’t at least ‘fight back’ by addressing your commentary and identify the actions by which they will change course. Do they believe that no one reads this information? Maybe they believe no one cares or will take any action. I’m mystified. What are you thinking CPSD?
Apparently CPSD believes that if you ignore a problem long enough it will go away and people will lose interest. Or is it perhaps that if you drape yourself with enough “participation awards” that no one will recognize the “emperor has no clothes”?
CPSD can’t respond since these CARES articles are based upon published facts provided by CPSD to OSPI. CARES doesn’t “invent” this data. It simply goes to OSPI and other sites to compile facts and publish them for public education. BTW: CARES article readership on Suburban Times is typically 200-600% that of related CPSD Suburban Times puff pieces so the word is getting out.
The perennial collapse of CPSD academically is right in line with the fact that US education is failing our children despite soaring costs at the behest of the education industry. More money, people and “stuff” (new buildings, technology, programs, etc.) do not necessarily = higher achievement. Time for a systemic change: education instead of indoctrination.
Thank you, John Arbeeny.
How did we get the situation/system we have and the leaders we have who are screwing us?
This question includes the people who lead our public institutions.
The politicians who are in power, the higher-ranking bureaucrats and the leaders of our public services and public institutions have and are working the system to the economic disadvantage of the taxpayers. In some cases, like that of the Clover Park School District, the school district is not providing the services they exist to provide, a good education for the kids. Yet they constantly ask for more money, and we give it to them. In short, the taxpayer is getting enormously screwed. Why should the superintendent be paid $360,000.00 per year plus fringe benefits? Why should he keep his job. It’s like a basketball player who doesn’t make any baskets or contribute in any way to the team.
Look at the postal service. For most of my life it was almost perfect. Now you cannot depend on it. There is so much waste of money, it is unbelievable. And there is nothing a customer can do about it.
Back to my original question. It can only be because most voters don’t think. Until they start thinking, the horrible direction and leadership we have will continue and it will get worse. Our ledarship as defined above is screwing us. Most the people we vote into office are screwing us. Our public servants have turned the table and we are their servants. They are screwing us. Why do we like this? I don’t understand.
What is happening on the federal level needs to trickle down to the state level.
Thank you, John Arbeeny for trying to get people to think.
What we have is a self-perpetuating education system. Go to the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) to get the facts. We CPSD employees handsome salaries and they in-turn fund ballot measures that maintain or increase those salaries.
https://www.pdc.wa.gov/political-disclosure-reporting-data/browse-search-data/committees/co-2024-35121
Since 1/1/18 there has been an ongoing individual monthly payment by a select group of educators to the “Clover Park Citizens for Schools” (CPCS) committee. It is that committee that supported the last school levy and desired Board candidates. Indeed Superintendent Banner began contributing $10.00 a month to the committee in January 2018 and to date has contributed $980 total.
Nearly all the contributors to this committee are Clover Park school teachers yet only approximately 25% live within the CPSD. Approximately 75% live outside the environs of Clover Park School District.
As of 10/03/24 the CPCS had raised $83306 in contributions; spent $43507 in expenditures; and had a remaining cash balance of $39799 in their “war chest”.
https://apollo.pdc.wa.gov/public/registrations/campaign-finance-report/110248844
This is what our public is faced with. A failing education system supported politically through contributions by members of that system, pulling the wool over the public’s eyes to maintain that system. CPSD puff pieces are part of that deceptive charade. A needed systemic change: the equivalent of the “Hatch Act” for public employees.
CPHS is a symptom of the Puget Sound in general, lawless, corrupt politicians, police forced to go through the motions, subjective law enforcement, the same group elected every cycle, kakistocracy!The majority of America appears to be changing for the good, I believe the I-5 corridor is hopeless!
Don’t give up hope because there are academic success stories along the I-5 Corridor despite CPSD not being one of them. Take for example Peninsula School District on the other side of the bridge.
Here’s a comparison between CPSD and Peninsula.
CPSD versus Peninsula
37%/25.6%/32.5% versus 66.2%/53.6%/56.9% students meeting state standards in ELA/math/science
1/14.8 versus 1/17.2 teacher to student ratio
$21,613 versus $17,447 annual student expenditure
69.9% versus 77% students attending 90%+ of school days
91.4% versus 90.9% students graduating in 4 years (Which diploma is worth more?)
25.9 percentile versus 90.3 percentile academic ranking among all Washington School Districts
Thus Peninsula out performs CPSD in students meeting state standards, with more students per teacher, at a lower cost, with more students attending class, with a diploma that is worth more and a far higher state academic ranking.
Where would you rather send your child for an education? Unfortunately for CPSD the decline has been perennial and even if they were magically able to turn things around tomorrow, many current CPSD students have been significantly harmed academically which will affect them for a life time.
Thankyou Mr Arbeeny for consistently keeping clover park schools failing scores in the forefront. I refuse to vote for school levies in face of continued decline of performance. Our children deserve the best education devoid of current political views.. let’s get back to teaching basics.