Napavine School Improvement

There have been numerous changes at the state and federal levels that have affected Napavine School District. Over the past few years, teachers and administrators have worked long hours to meet the changing demands placed upon public schools. Two school improvement initiatives currently in place at NSD are the Teacher Principal Evaluation Program (TPEP) and our School Improvement Plan (SIP). Our TPEP has been successful because we have had several years to implement the process. We are in our third year with some teachers still trying to determine the best types of assessment and how to tie student learning goals to those assessments. We are using Marzano Teacher Evaluation Model and we still have a lot to learn. Our staff is offered district-wide …show more content…
Napavine is a Title 1 school at the elementary level and we receive funds to help low performing student get to grade level performance. Since the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) regulation has been changed to Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Napavine has been working hard to get a district-wide assessment in place. We have been successful in working with our elementary staff, but we still need time to address our whole district needs. Hopefully, with the ESSA in place and the five stages of probation gone, we will have the time to develop our district-wide assessment over the 206-2017 school year. In regards to the transgender facilities issue, we do have individual bathrooms available to students if student request facilities. In regards to improvement, we will have to ask our community for funding of facility improvement over the next few years to meet the mandate …show more content…
Both measures keep our district on track and we know we are following the federal guidelines when we balance our reports with those at our Educational Services District and the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. In addition to Skyward and EDS, we utilize an outside auditor, Washington State Auditors, every years to audit our F196 (Annual Financial Statements). According to our business manager, Gina Bluhm, the federal audits will go away soon and we will not be audited annually any longer. This is a concern because if a mistake is made, it possibly won’t be caught for several years. Due to this concern, Napavine School District will pay the Washington State Auditor to conduct a yearly audit so we catch mistakes early. Ms. Bluhm also indicated that the government asks for too much information that is not easy to obtain through the current reporting system. The State does not provide enough training and they need to improve their software. Finally, Ms. Bluhm suggested that the State fund their many requests. It often takes hours to run the reports and as a small district, Napavine must dedicate too many hours to running reports that could be better utilized in other