Submitted by John Arbeeny.
Lakewood CARES is providing an academic-based assessment of Tillicum Elementary School you will not find elsewhere in Clover Park School District (CPSD) community relations pieces, School Board meeting agendas or monthly “Inside Schools”. This is especially important for Tillicum and all CPSD schools during this time of budget development. Who gets how much funding for what cannot be intelligently determined without examination of academic achievement.
You may have noticed that CPSD has recently stopped publishing “puff pieces” in the Suburban Times. The CPSD community relations department now publishes their “puff pieces” on the CPSD individual school websites where even fewer people are likely to see them. Here’s the latest “Super School Shout Out” piece on Tillicum: https://tillicum.cloverpark.k12.wa.us/news/what_s_new/super_school_shout_out__tillicum_elementary
This Schooldigger.com graph displays Tillicum’s academic rankings in Washington State since 2016 to present:
https://www.schooldigger.com/go/WA/schools/0141000158/school.aspx
Tillicum was academically ranked at 17.9 percentile in 2016 and at 10.9 percentile in 2024 with an average of about 12.3 percentile (%) over that period. Although this is quite low academically, there are four elementary schools (Four Heroes (9.6%), Park Lodge (7.9%), Lakeview (6.2%), Tyee Park (5.1%)), two middle schools (Hudtloff (5.0%), Lochburn (0.4%)) and Clover Park High School (3.4%) that underperform Tillicum academically. It may be instructive to take a look at these eight low academically performing schools for commonalities in the most significant demographic trends between 2018/19 and 2024/25 (available data).
Bottom 8 out of 21 CPSD schools (academic percentile %) school year 2018-19 versus 2024-25
| School | Low Income | Disability | English Learner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tillicum (10.9%) | 97.3% – 83% | 16.2% – 10.3% | 25.0% – 29.2% |
| Four Heros (9.6%) | 92.2% – 84.5% | 13.3% – 17.9% | 36.9% – 42.1% |
| Park Lodge (7.9%) | 90.2% – 79.6% | 11.2% – 16.3% | 35.0% – 43.4% |
| Lakeview (6.2%) | 87.9% – 84.1% | 14.2% – 23.1% | 44.5% – 50.3% |
| Tyee Park (5.1%) | 92.2% – 82.5% | 19.9% – 12.6% | 27.5% – 30.4% |
| Hudtloff (5.0%) | 73.6% – 76.1% | 13.2% – 18.1% | 18.8% – 25.1% |
| Lochburn (0.4%) | 90.9% – 84.0% | 17.4% – 15.0% | 19.6% – 23.9% |
| Clover Park HS (3.4%) | 83.3% – 76.0% | 15.5% – 16.8% | 17.6% – 25.3% |
| Average: | 88.5% – 81.2% | 15.1% – 16.3% | 28.1% – 33.7% |
| %+/- 18/19 to 24/25 | Down 8.3% | Up 8.0% | Up 20.0% |
The percentage of students in the “low income” category declined 8.3% which brings into question CPSD’s claim that “poverty” is a cause of declining academic performance during the same period. Indeed, one would expect quite the opposite given the reduction of students from low-income families; but that didn’t happen.
Students with disabilities moved up by 8.0%; but what is significant are the increases in Four Heroes (+34.5%), Park Lodge (+45.5%), Lakeview (+ 62.6%) and Hudtloff (+37.1%) over levels from 2018/19 while other schools had significant declines, to include Tillicum. Are students with disabilities being concentrated in just a few schools which are struggling academically, and do funds follow those students?
English-learning students were up significantly by 20.0% across the board. This is, perhaps, the “elephant in the room” which needs addressing. The numbers do not diminish significantly from elementary through high school percentages as might be expected. Children who are behind in English in elementary school bring those language deficits into middle and high school. This may be the most important “red flag” behind CPSD’s academic decline, since it aligns with the general downward academic trend. All instruction is dependent upon language ability. If there ever was an academic budget priority this would appear to be it.
So what does past funding for these schools look like between 2019/20 and 2023/24 (extent of OSPI report card data)? Below is a table for per-student expenditures in these years with dollar and percentage increase.
Bottom 8 out of 21 CPSD schools (per student funding)
| School | 2019/20 | 2023/24 | $ Increase | % Increase |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tillicum (10.9%) | $17567 | $27461 | $9894 | +56.3% |
| Four Heros (9.6%) | $14614 | $20983 | $6369 | +43.6% |
| Park Lodge (7.9%) | $16013 | $22719 | $6706 | +41.8% |
| Lakeview (6.2%) | $16068 | $22971 | $6723 | +43.0% |
| Tyee Park (5.1%) | $17401 | $22028 | $4627 | +26.6% |
| Hudtloff (5.0%) | $14979 | $21623 | $6644 | +44.3% |
| Lochburn (0.4%) | $16300 | $23494 | $7194 | +44.1% |
| Clover Park HS (3.4%) | $15918 | $22136 | $6218 | +39.1% |
| Average | $16107 | $22926 | $6819 | +42.3% |
There were significant increases ($6819/+42.3%) in average per-student funding for these eight schools over the last 4-5 years, while at the same time CPSD’s academic ranking slid from 34.4 percentile to just 25.9 percentile. In contrast, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation rate for Seattle-Tacoma during this same period was +28.2%. These funding increases appear fairly evenly spread across all eight schools with the exception of Tillicum. It is unclear why Tillicum per-student funding was the highest among the eight schools. Clearly all eight schools require priority for the increase in general academic performance and English language learners, while some additional priority is required for schools with increased students with disabilities populations.
The Office of the Superintendent for Public Instruction (OSPI) data shown below on the next two slides come from its “Report Card” website and go into further detail about Tillicum’s academics and related factors:
“Students on Track for College-level Learning Without Needing Remedial Classes” is an OSPI confusing nonsense term, especially at elementary and middle school level, which replaced the previous easily understood and relevant “Students Meeting State Standards”.
In 2018/19 the percentage of Tillicum students meeting State standards in ELA was 40.7%, math 34.3% and science 27.0% for an average of 34.3%. In 2024 the average percentage of Oakbrook (?) students meeting State standards was 25.0%: ELA 34.4%, math 21.6% and science 18.9%.That is a significant loss of 27.1% in academic performance over the last five years.
SLIDE 4 Tillicum
Tillicum’s regular attendance is 63.3%, which is slightly below the CPSD average attendance of 65.7%. However, Tillicum’s attendance is down significantly since the 2018 average of 86.2% (- 23.7%). You can’t learn if you don’t attend class.
Tillicum’s teacher/student ratio is about one teacher to 13.6 students (1:13.6) which is below the CPSD average ratio of 1:15 and down from 1:14.6 in 2018/19. In 2019/20 Tillicum’s expenditure per student was $17,567. By 2022/23 (latest figures) it had ballooned to $27,461, an increase of $9,894 per student in just four years. That’s an annual increase of about 11.8% and somewhat above CPSD per-student expenditure increases over that time period. Tillicum teachers, surprisingly, have among the highest average years of teaching experience (15.3 years) in CPSD. Thus, it is not clear that more funding or more teachers with more experience guarantees higher academic performance. Perhaps the answer for improvement is something more systemic in the way CPSD conducts its business of student education.
The Office of the Superintendent for Public Instruction (OSPI) data shown below on their “Report Card” website goes into further detail about Tillicum’s Student Growth Percentile (SGP):
Tillicum’s 2018/19 Student Growth Percentile (SGP) in ELA was 52.5 percentile and in math 44.0 percentile. In 2023/24, just six years later, ELA was at 30.0 percentile and math at 38.0 percentile. The State median SGP score is 50 percentile. Thus, Tillicum’s growth in ELA and math has declined well below average over the last six years, which means Tillicum’s students are falling further behind their peers. Unfortunately, the OSPI SGP data for Tillicum is not as detailed by race/ethnicity as that of other CPSD schools and is missing years 2019-2021. It does appear, however, those minorities have suffered the lowest growth percentile in 2023/24 with female students surprisingly low in English Language Arts growth.
CPSD has a responsibility to inform parents and tax payers about what’s really happening in schools academically and administratively instead of trying to propagandize with “puff pieces”. This is especially important when the Board and administration are putting together the future budget which will be around a quarter of a BILLION dollars ($250,000,000+). That’s about $4166 for every man, woman and child in Lakewood! An uninformed public is most likely to have uninformed priorities. A public “wish list” is less compelling than a public “need list”. That takes an educated public. Here’s the 2/24/2025 CPSD request for budget priorities.
If you have a student who attends Tillicum or any other CPSD school, if you want to know what’s going on to improve academic performance, then you must get involved! You deserve more in return for your hard-earned tax dollars. The future of your children is at stake! 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 at: apearson@cloverpark.k12.wa.us
Correction: change “Oakbrook (?)” to “Tillicum”.