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.
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