2014-15
Annual School Performance Report Tiger Mountain Community High School
Tiger Mountain Community High School
355 SE Evans Street, Issaquah, WA 98027 (425) 837-6200 http://connect.issaquah. wednet.edu/high/tiger/ default.aspx Principal Michael Schiehser
Welcome Welcome to Tiger Mountain Community High School. The 2014-15 was a year marked by both challenges and successes. We grew tremendously as a community while sharing powerful learning experiences both in and out of our classrooms.
Mission Tiger Mountain will become an in-demand choice school that consistently serves 200 students and engages them in authentic learning experiences that prepare them for specific careers and postsecondary learning. Our values include: Community, Character, Citizenship and Respect, Responsibility, Relationships.
Purpose Tiger Mountain Community High School provides students with individualized instruction, diverse course content, and student-centered curricula in a tightly knit community to meet students’ academic needs and future career goals.
Demographics Grades: 9-12
Teacher Experience Enrollment: 76 66.7%
Teachers with Master’s/Ph.D
79.3%
Teacher’s with National Board Certification
12.5
0 Average Years Teaching Experience
72.2%
OSPI Data
38.2%
15.3%
2.8%
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District Report
5.6% 1.4%
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. Tiger Mountain 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.
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For budget details and more go to www.issaquah.wednet.edu/district/ CommunityReport/ 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.aspx for more information and survey results.
Academic Highlights All teachers in core and elective classes have infused State Common Core Standards, researched best practices as well as hands-on, authentic, openended and project-based learning experiences to provide students with relevant and engaging instructional experiences. With small class sizes and an emphasis on relationships, we personalize and support individual student learning needs. Our advisory program provides weekly opportunities for community building, transcript/ credit check planning, career exploration and other activities that engage students in conversations that are relevant and meaningful to them. Tiger Mountain has a strong culture of reading where students participate in a variety of literary focused activities including Sustained Silent Reading (SSR), engaging book talks, guest presentations from authors and literary performers. This focus on reading and literature has supported strong student academic engagement while bringing us together as a closely tied community of learners this year.
About Tiger Mountain Set on a beautiful flora rich campus with classrooms open to a lush green courtyard, Tiger Mountain Community High School is the district’s only alternative school. With an average of 100 students attending, our learners enjoy a student to teacher ratio (approximately fifteen to one) half of that seen in comprehensive high schools. We offer our students a variety of classes including all core subjects, vocational opportunities ranging from computer programming to culinary arts, botany, health and physical education. We are very proud of our new teen centered media library, funded largely by the Issaquah Schools Foundation, which has helped us to develop a culture of readers in our school. Our highly qualified and experienced staff fosters a nurturing educational environment while maintaining high academic expectations of our students. Our diverse student population garners a sense of community through the realization that they all share common goals: to attend a school where student well-being and achievement are paramount, and to achieve a high school diploma.
Special Program Teen Center: Thanks to the Issaquah Schools Foundation and other contributing community partners, we offer an after school teen center for students from 3:304:30pm for all students from any Issaquah School District School. Students have access to musical instruments, games, puzzles and other activities that promote student collaboration and build positive student and staff relationships beyond the regular school day. Wednesday Breakfast: We provide free breakfasts to students and staff every Wednesday morning. It is a great opportunity for our school community to come together and provide a nourishing start to our students’ day. Library: We offer over 2,300 books and our book circulation has increased dramatically as the library has become a welcoming and accessible environment for all. We also have Kindles loaded with numerous books purchased through the Issaquah School’s Foundation that students can check out at any time of the day. Advisory Program: This year our advisory program focused on literacy and student transitions. Students had many opportunities to share quotes, read poetry, meet authors and explore literature in innovative and engaging ways throughout the year. With Tiger Mountain set to close at the end of the 2015-16 school year there was intentional efforts to develop individualized goals and learning plans. Specifically, students worked with their teacher advisors to
review transcripts, grades, and schedules to ensure they were meeting personal academic goals and mapping out their educational programs for the future. Assessment: With the new Common Core State Standards being fully implemented in our courses, students actively prepared for the new Smarter Balanced and District Common Assessments. Practice exams, test taking strategies and increased vigilance to monitor student progress all were results of this increased focus on improved performance on these exams. Special Events: To build community and focus on our values of Community, Character, Citizenship, Relationships, Respect and Responsibility there were numerous special events held throughout the year. These included Vicki Hoffman Memorial Art Day, Kick Butts anti-smoking day, Thanksgiving Feast, Talent Show, Alumni Visit and Presentation, Gift of Words, Poetry Alive assembly, Ropes Challenge Course field trip to Camp Long and the End-of-Year Picnic. We also hosted numerous guest speakers that engaged students in conversations about careers, Running Start, the process of writing a novel, and stress management. Bringing in various guest speakers had a powerful impact on the culture of learning here at Tiger this year.
Assessment
Grade Level Total ELA
Two tests given to elementary school students—The Smarter Balanced Assessment and the Measurement of Student Progress (MSP)—help indicate how well Issaquah students are learning.
The 2014-2015 11th Grade Smarter Balanced Assessment results in English Language Arts and Math were suppressed by OSPI due to the low number of students from our District who took the tests. These assessments were required for accountability, however, 11th grade students who had already met their graduation requirements through other assessments opted out of the test. For information from OSPI on test suppression data, please visit OSPI at http://reportcard.ospi.k12.wa.us/ TemplateDetail.aspx?domain=SBAC&schoo lId=114&reportLevel=District&year=201415&gradeLevelId=11&groupLevel=District& waslCategory=1&chartType=1
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Grade Level Total Math
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SUPPRESSED
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.
SUPPRESSED
The Smarter Balanced Assessment is a system of valid, reliable, and fair next-generation 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.
SUPPRESSED
Smarter Balanced Assessment
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In spring 2011, the state replaced its broad 10th-grade math High School Proficiency Exam with two End of Course Assessments. Now, students take the End of Course 1 assessment at the end of their algebra course, no matter what their grade level; they take the End of Course 2 assessment at the end of their geometry course, no matter what their grade level. In spring 2012, the state similarly did away with the broad 10th grade science HSPE and replaced it with the Biology EOC Assessment. OSPI suppressed some data from being publicly released, for information on why and how, please visit OSPI at http:// reportcard.ospi.k12.wa.us/TemplateDetail. aspx?domain=SBAC&schoolId=1442&repo rtLevel=School&year=2014-15&gradeLevel Id=8&groupLevel=District&waslCategory=1 &chartType=1&yrs=2014-15
Grade 10 EOC-Biology 94.6
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