2015-16
Annual School Performance Report Discovery Elementary School
Discovery Elementary School
2300 228th Avenue SE, Sammamish, WA 98075 (425) 837-4100 http://connect.issaquah. wednet.edu/elementary/ discovery/default.aspx Principal Marti Shefveland
Welcome Involved parents and community members enrich our school and enhance our students’ learning experiences. Thanks for making a difference!
Mission Discovery is a partnership of students, staff and parents invested in the lifelong learning and rigorous academic achievement of all students.
Demographics Grades: K-5
Teacher Experience Enrollment: 595 96.0%
68.4%
Teachers with Master’s/Ph.D
Teacher’s with National Board Certification
8.8
8 Average Years Teaching Experience
OSPI Data In March 2014, the U.S. Department of Education declined to renew the state of Washington’s conditional Elementary and Secondary Education Act Flexibility Waiver for schools receiving Title I, Part A funds. This decision affects all schools in Washington State, which are now subject to the requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Washington is the only state that has lost its waiver and must revert to NCLB standards and timelines of assessment. For schools and districts to be considered succeeding under NCLB, schools must meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) standards. For schools to meet AYP, 100 percent of all students, regardless of special needs or English language mastery, must meet proficiency standards. Discovery met AYP this year. For complete information about the Issaquah School District’s assessment data, highly qualified teachers, annual yearly progress, and state NAEP (of Educational Progress) results, please visit the state’s online district report card.
48.7%
38.7%
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For budget details and more go to www.issaquah.wednet.edu/district/annualcommunity-report/ The Issaquah School District believes in seeking continual feedback from a broad and diverse range of constituents regarding their experiences with the District and their neighborhood school. See the Community Polling Study site at www. issaquah.wednet.edu/district/polling for more information and survey results.
Highlights Technology - Thanks to the generosity of our PTSA, we employed 60 more laptops on three new laptop carts. These are a tremendous benefit to teachers and are used daily, to support learning throughout the school. Library Media Specialists taught digital literacy and citizenship in second through fifth grades. Through the Issaquah School’s Foundation, our music program received a Kateri Bow Grant for ten i-pads and our library received a grant to update our digital library. In music class, students will learn how to compose and play music on these electronic devices and with our new updated digital library, students can check out a variety of digital books. Every classroom is equipped with computers, projector, document camera, and a Promethean ActivBoard. Academics - Our students’ strong academic achievement was honored this year with the Washington State Achievement Award for Overall Excellence in English Language Arts Growth and Math Growth. Parent and Community Involvement - We are proud of 100% membership in PTSA which supports students’ learning in countless ways. We average about 300 parent volunteers and a number VOICE Mentors that include high school students and community members. We are thankful for this strong partnership to help support students’ academics. Positive Behavior Supports and Emotional Supports (PBSES). Discovery made significant progress in establishing PBSES program. We established schoolwide expectations, school-wide rewards and a consistent implementation plan. Teachers were trained in strategies for building positive relationships and student management to support student learning. Students reached our goal of earning
5000 Eagle Eye Awards, given to students for showing kindness, responsibility, and safe behavior. Green Team - This last year, Discovery progressed from Level 2 to Level 3 in King County’s Green Schools Program. We are proud of our staff members, Eva Didonato, Nikki McCullouch, Denise Darnell, and Kathy Feurberg and all our students who served on the Green Team to achieve this level. Our students also won the Waste Free Lunch Competition for Issaquah School District and our head custodian, Wil Chromey, was awarded for his significant contribution to creating and maintaining a green environment here at Discovery. BE KIND Like Josh - Discovery continues to participate in the BE KIND Like Josh initiative. (joshstevensfoundation.org). Staff members submitted names of 55 students that showed genuine kindness on a consistent basis. Students were recognized and celebrated for their heartfelt kind acts by receiving a t-shirt, and had their names and pictures posted on a bulletin board in the school’s main hallway, and acknowledged on the intercom on Fridays.
Improving Student Achievement As Discovery met its previous School Improvement Plan goal in Mathematics, we changed our focus to Writing. Not only did Discovery meet its math goal in spring of 2015, Discovery students performed well above the district and state average in
Improving Student Achievement Math on the 2015 SBA, as well as the MSP the previous five years. We set an ambitious goal of improving our writing scores, as measured by the Issaquah School District’s On Demand writing assessment, by 25% over a three year period. Specific details of this plan may be found in the School Improvement Plan posted on our website. This year, data shows a 5-6 % increase overall on the On-Demand. Additionally, preliminary state assessment (SBA) results show the following results: Discovery Smarter Balanced Assessments: Percent Proficient
Note: The 2016 data is taken from TIDE on May 31, 2016. Data is not yet reconciled and may also not reflect several students who completed make-up tests at the fourth and fifth grade levels.
Special Programs During the school day - Discovery hosts a special needs pre-school, a Learning Assistance Program for Kindergarten and First graders needing extra support in reading, a K-5th Resource Room, and SAGE, a 3rd-5th grade
Special Programs pull-out gifted program. Science to Go lessons with a science specialist, which includes lessons in our outdoor educational areas (wetlands, grade level gardens, butterfly gardens). Art classes once per month by a professional art consultant and art classes once per month by our PTSA sponsored docent program. Green Team continues to promote recycling and composting throughout the school. This year our school received Level 2 status with King County Green Schools. Before/After School Enrichment - Community programs: drama, foreign language classes, chess club and math club. This year, some of our students won awards as they represented Discovery in state Math and Chess Competitions. School programs: Marathon Club, Garden Club, Global Reading Challenge (4-5 graders), and K-Kids. K-Kids program-Students helped various organizations inside and out of our community. Community service projects include feeding the hungry, providing clothes for refugee children, fundraising through Sparrow Organization for child struggling with cancer, providing toys for children in emergency situations, and helping families in need. K-Kids also helped the Smile Power group deliver dental hygiene products to families in need. We also have Eagle Club, which is an on-site before and after school day care program and a Fourth and Fifth grade Choir, led by our music teacher, Debbie Mohn. Schoolwide Events - PTSA events included Fund Run, Family Fun Night, Eager Reader, Spelling Bee, Matinee Movie Day, and the Art Show. Students also had the opportunity to participate in our annual Science Fair and Family Literacy Night.
Grade Level Total ELA
Assessment Two tests given to elementary school students—The Stanford 10 Achievement Test and the Measurement of Student Progress (MSP)—help indicate how well Issaquah students are learning.
91.2
90.5 83.5
81.2
77.7
74.7
Smarter Balanced Assessment The Smarter Balanced Assessment is a system of valid, reliable, and fair nextgeneration assessments aligned to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in English language arts/literacy (ELA/ literacy) and mathematics for grades 3-8 and 11. The system—which includes both summative assessments for accountability purposes and optional interim assessments for instructional use—will use computer adaptive testing technologies to provide meaningful feedback and actionable data that teachers and other educators can use to help students succeed. Smarter Balanced assessments will go beyond multiple-choice questions to include extended response and technology enhanced items, as well as performance tasks that allow students to demonstrate critical-thinking and problem-solving skills. Performance tasks challenge students to apply their knowledge and skills to respond to complex real-world problems. They can best be described as collections of questions and activities that are coherently connected
to a single theme or scenario. These activities are meant to measure capacities such as depth of understanding, writing and research skills, and complex analysis, which cannot be adequately assessed with traditional assessment questions. The performance tasks will be taken on a computer (but will not be computer adaptive) and will take one to two class periods to complete. Smarter Balanced capitalizes on the precision and efficiency of computer adaptive testing (CAT). This approach represents a significant improvement over traditional paper-andpencil assessments used in many states today, providing more accurate scores for all students across the full range of the achievement continuum.
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Grade Level Total Math 77.4
76.8
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90.4
87.0
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The MSP is an exam developed by and mandated by the state; it replaced the state’s original annual exam, the WASL, in spring 2010. Washington’s education reform efforts began in 1993 and involve annual state-specific tests for students in grades 3-8 in reading, writing, math, and science (MSP) and then again in grade 10 (High School Proficiency Exams in reading and writing and End of Course assessments in math and biology). MSP goes beyond multiple choice tests like the Stanford 10. The tests are much shorter than the WASL and include multiple-choice and short-answer questions. Four-point essay questions have been eliminated on reading, math and science tests. This change allows students to show they are able to solve the problems, while not being scored on their writing ability on the math, reading and science tests. Besides being a state test rather than a national assessment, MSP results are reported differently. Each student either “Meets Standard,” “Exceeds Standard,” or “Does Not Meet Standard” in each subject—reading, math, writing, science— and subjects tested vary among grade levels. MSP scores do not compare students to other students; instead they show the learning level of each student as compared to the state’s expectations for a well-taught student at that grade level.
MSP results help parents know how well each student is meeting learning targets, and the results help schools plan instruction and curriculum focused on these learning targets. Numbers represent percentage meeting or exceeding standard.
Grade 5 MSP-Science 84.5
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