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From local leaders and hometown heroes to breaking stories and in-depth conversations, the KMAS Podcast brings you the voices that matter in Mason County, Washington. Hosted by longtime broadcaster Jeff Slakey, each episode dives into what’s happening around the Hood Canal—government, education, small business, the outdoors, and everything in between.
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Well, once again, everybody, thank you for joining us for this continuing series across the Shelton School District at the different schools to kind of highlight what's going on in the classrooms. I'm Jeff Slakey from KMNS Radio, and we're here at Olympic Middle School tonight, home of the Eagles. And I'm happy to have with me Principal Mary Johnson, Counselor Grace Reneker, and Superintendent Wyeth Jessee.
So, again, the purpose of these conversations are just to kind of get a better sense of what happens here in the different schools across the district. We're going to be stopping at all of the schools throughout the next couple of months here to kind of give updates and information about what's going on. So, I'm going to start these conversations off here, Mary, with you.
Give us a little bit of an overview of Olympic Middle School, first off, and the makeup, the grades, the population down here. Absolutely. Thank you for asking.
At Olympic Middle School, we are in fifth and sixth grade rooms, which means we're more of an intermediate than a traditional middle school setting. We have about 512 students this year. So, down a little from last year, we had a large group leave us last year at sixth grade, and then we had a smaller group coming in this year, beginning of the grade.
We have 10 homeroom teachers in all of our grades, so 10 sixth grade homeroom teachers and 10 fifth grade homeroom teachers. And our staff did a really good job of trying to pair a building for this age group that's more developmentally appropriate than a traditional middle school. So, our students are placed on teams, and the teams are made up of a young social studies teacher or two, and then a math and science teacher.
So, in the post of the students' age, traveling across six different classrooms a day, they're able to stay in a pretty small little town with the same teachers that make up what we call a district planning committee, and then they do have, they're still going to explore tools and essentials that we can use for art. And our teachers' teams are so close together, so they should bring out prominent expectations so that when the students do transition, that they know exactly what to expect. Tell me a little bit about some things that you've been excited about for the start of the school year.
You're out there walking the halls. You're talking with the teachers and the students. What are you proud of when it comes to the Eagles here? Well, we have happy students.
I mean, it's so exciting to watch the students up and down the hall. They're probably doing everything they can along with expectations. They're happy.
They're smiling. They're, you know, patting their friends on the back. They're skipping.
I know that's one of the cutest things is you probably don't see a lot of skipping at a traditional middle school, but our kids are just so eager and excited. They skip all around. And you can just tell the kids are so excited to see their friends, but more importantly, they're excited to see their teachers.
And our teachers have really stepped up over the last couple of years. They really have bought into this notion that we need to make sure that our students feel welcome here at school and that relationships are just really one of our biggest focuses. It's a peace kid wanting to come back every day.
So our teachers bring their students to the door every day. They greet all the students. It doesn't matter whether they're in class or not.
So you just see that kids are at the center of the work that we do. Our staff is excited and meets the students where they are and that everybody's working together to make sure that our students are safe and successful. I walked around the school a little bit before we got started.
It's kind of a unique layout how there's the central area with the big stage. And this is kind of the gathering point for lunches. How does that help with kind of the build of the relationship with the students here? It works great.
Everybody enters through the conference every morning. So whether they're coming from back door for the buses or coming through the front door, or whether they're coming maybe from back because they need to do some specialist transportation. Everybody enters on this three-unit space-style staff.
So I would say that the challenge is that they get through any of our doors and they're all in the classroom. It's also just a great way to, you know, the two followings that you see on our columns. One is for 5th grade and one is for 6th grade.
So we also work hard to not necessarily let the 5th and 6th graders intermingle on time. There really is a big difference development in these two age groups. So although we do have some common recesses and some common lunches, for the most part, you know, we are community.
It's their home. And they really enjoy it. Great.
So this is what, 10 years to 12 years old? Kind of that age range there. This is an exciting time, I'm sure, for you to kind of make one-on-one connections with these kids out here. What do you see as the students are here in the new year, the adjustment period coming from an elementary school to kind of a bigger school now you are moving classrooms in some aspect? Are there different features and things like that? Yeah, so our students have really been settling in with lots of enthusiasm.
They're super curious, social, and overall just eager to be a part of something that they're not quite sure of yet. Specifically with our 5th graders coming up, they are learning new routines and gaining confidence as they discover how middle school works in general. One of the big things that our 5th graders learn is authors.
It's been really fun watching them trying to open their authors. And our 6th graders as well. It's been a new thing that a lot of our students are learning.
Overall, our 6th graders have stepped up into leadership, being the kind of upperclassmen some would say in our building. They're helping their students model a positive behavior and overall show pride in being the Olympic Eagles. But it's been super exciting for me to see the sense of belonging that every student is experiencing.
They're kind, helpful, and happy to be here. You can truly see that the culture of care is working with our students. They're developing it on their own.
And this is encouraging staff members as well. My son is moving into middle school and one of the things that he's now about a month in, right, realizing that his friend group from elementary school is not necessarily the same friend group he's having here. How do you talk with kids about that? How do you explain to them that everybody's growing and maturing and they're finding kind of their own path I guess? Yeah, I remind students all the time that the friends you have in elementary school might not be the friends you have in middle school and so forth.
And even when you get into high school and on to college and so forth. And so I remind them that. I also remind them a lot that you don't have to be friends with everyone, but what you do have to do is friendly.
And that's kind of how I work with them on that. Because it can be a very traveled time and going through those friendships. I also remind them that they're not the only ones experiencing that.
And even I, as a student, experienced that. It's a normal thing going through developmental stages. So the main thing that I can hope with them is that you don't have to be friends with everyone.
One, you're going to probably lose things and become distant with people. And sometimes that's okay. Sometimes that can be really stressful, but we do have to be friends.
Well, how does the fifth, sixth grade model help the development as we're kind of looking at, you know, like what Mary was saying, the fifth graders and the sixth graders are here together, but they're a little separated. Developmentally, how does this type of school, because for many, a fifth, sixth only is kind of the unique look for a school here. Yeah, there's only, I think Mary and I have talked about this.
I think there's literally only a handful of these schools across the state. And, you know, it's just where we're at right now for configuration, what it means for these students is exactly what Mary and Grace were mentioning is, you know, you just, it's where are they at for this particular age group is what we have to worry about. I don't have to get too lost on five, six necessarily, but what I have to get lost on, whether it's just two grade levels, but what I do have to do is two things as a superintendent.
One is making sure that where are these kids at? What do they need? And making sure that we have a safe welcoming environment where they're trying on new friendships, understanding their emotions, especially at this grade level of like, oh, you're going to have this mix of emotions as you navigate some things working towards independence, right? That's, that's what they're working these kids to so that they can operate more independently, making good decisions. And we expect them to skin their knee. Like there's always this, these stories, these kind of sometimes flamboyant stories of kids are out of control and they're bullying and all these, and I'm like, no, what they're trying to do is try on their social skills.
And sometimes they're not doing it so well. What it does provide us, and I'm sure both Mary and Grace are experts in this area, is that that is a great opportunity for us to teach them because it's going to happen sooner or later. The other thing as a superintendent is just about, we are a system.
We get the kids into preschool, but there have to be this large complex here of schools, early learning, and then into the elementary, and then into the middle years, and then on the junior high and high school. I want to make sure that what we're trying to do is prepare our students best when they enter fifth grade, when kids can read and write at grade level, and they know how to navigate routines and structures. They understand the concept that they're going to be accountable to what they do.
That, that is going to be ready to prepare them for fifth grade. And then I know Mary works with Mary Ann over at WGH, and our staff is, when they leave here, they've really got some independence over there. And so they're going to have to try those skills on, and the schoolwork gets a lot harder coming from here on to the junior high because no one's usually looking over their shoulder nearly as much, no one will hold their hand.
And I also know, sorry parents, a lot of parents start to kind of move a little bit away from their 13, 14 year old, and not also assisting so much sometimes with the academics, even though the kids really need that. And that's what I always tell parents, my entire career is saying, and I was a middle school, junior high teacher, was that they might look bigger, but you've got to make sure to understand they're still small human beings and maybe, and maybe not right here, but bigger bodies. And so treat them more as a younger student, even though they may not like it.
Respectfully, understand the students are bigger, doesn't mean they're always going to make so many good decisions. And you've got to monitor them a little bit more closely than you just did. Mary, explain a little bit about if you have your meetings with your teachers here, what the goals are? What kind of you look for metric wise when it comes to their learning progress? And I see a lot of signs outside, you know, speed limit, walking, this type of thing you're talking, volume level is this.
So how do you engage in both the academic portion, kind of what Wyeth was talking about, and then to prepare them for junior high, but then also to prepare them to just be humans and work together in different, in potentially difficult situations? Yeah, again, great question. Well, I think one of the most important things is not to discourage students, make sure that everybody understands the direction you're heading in, and then works together to make sure that we, I don't want to say hold kids accountable, but that they're all doing the same thing with instructions and routines and meeting those in place that allow the teachers to provide the highest level of instruction that they can. And so we, you know, always kick off the beginning of the school year for us is always, first of all, looking at our systems and structures.
What did we learn last year? What do we know about the students that are kind of in this year? What is working well? And what can we do to make sure that we can take some of the unpredictableness out of this to the students? Because it doesn't matter what age students are, everybody creates structured routines. They might fight us sometimes, but they do best at that. So that is a big part of our launch every year, is to make sure that we're aligning the kids about what we expect, and the teachers, and everybody is working together to do that.
And then that allows us to then jump into the instructional focus. We spend a lot of time looking at our students to say, are we going to do something or not? Is what's happening, going on in the building right now, is it a new systems issue, meaning that a variety of students are struggling, or is it a more specific student issue? Or a classroom issue? Then we need to go in and intervene at that level. So we work hard to get our instructors and teams, but we also jump right into academics.
So just this past week, our teachers were able to look at their fall benchmark data and start making some very specific goals for their students. So we work very closely with trying to make sure that we move all of our students forward. But the last couple of years, we've stepped into really looking at students who are almost there, with some real extra attention and some really diligent work to get those students up and over across the line.
So that's what our teachers did. They went through and looked at the data. We got some very clear-cut criteria of what we were looking at.
And then together, we created an MTSS list of students that were the most critical. So we know, for example, in sixth grade, 31% of our students passed last year. And this year, we want to get to 36.
So that means if we look at our students that are coming in, we have to hold 66 students accountable that passed. And we have to pass. We have to get 33 more across the line to meet our goals.
So we know who those students are. We know what they need. And now we're working towards qualitative intervention of what we do and extra support can we provide them so that we truly.
You said MTSS. Can you explain what that is? It's our multi-tiered systems of supports. It's pretty much everything.
It's academics. It's attendance. It's discipline data, behavioral needs.
So we provide supports to students regardless of how they enter the building. We have tier one supports, which means those are supports that everybody gets. So when I talk about consistent structures in their teams, classroom environment, everybody's a tier one student.
Everybody gets that. But then you accept that there's probably going to be some students who might need that and a little bit more. And so I'm really keeping our eyes on the data and the progression that our students are making.
We can go down to the students who do need a selection of supports, whether that's attendance, whether that's school, whether that's maybe some specific order for them to switch to emotional learning or some specific like discrete skill instruction in anything from reading stamina to being able to comprehend at a higher level. And so then we'll provide additional supports for those students. And then ultimately, tier three, we can students who would get both tier one, tier two, and tier three supports.
My thought is that going into a strategic plan that you guys have been working on for so long, as Mary said, multi-tiered systems of support is just a way of operating. It's a framework we can use. There's an arc of, all right, just how do you level the services we provide and the resources we have? And so this is public schools.
People heard me many times, I say, like, we have what we have is our budget. And then we have to decide who needs what using data. And we use a lot of different data.
But it's not just all quantitative, it's qualitative. We know each student's story of strength and need. I press on the principles.
Mary knows this very well. You need to know all your students. They know it very well.
You need to know all 550 kids' story of strength and need so that we can tier those supports off of those services where those students are at, and then we can help them accelerate. So multi-tiered support, we don't need to use fancy, so much educational jargon to explain this one. This one's really simple of like, all right, what do kids need when they come to the door? We have a systems way of doing that, right? We're very organized and going, all right, here's what everybody needs.
But then some kids, as Mary said, need more. And then we're making sure that the more is a match and a fit for what they have. Because what we don't want to do is offer a support service that a student doesn't really need or is not going to meet them where they're at.
Some students struggle with their fluency. Other students are going to struggle with just basic vocabulary. Or we have a lot of students who qualify for multi-lingual support, and it might just be background knowledge, right? They like kids in poverty.
They don't always have all those enriching experiences of things that are in some of these books. We have to take the time to explain that may be a core issue, may be a tier two or tier three kind of support. Behavior supports the same way.
Some students live in poverty is hard sometimes. I haven't lived that. You don't have everything.
You don't know how to navigate some things. You just need to talk to somebody like Grace on an online basis. She knows this.
She can sometimes be supportive. We offer one-on-one supports with a small group. We make new contracts just to kind of help them get the right habits.
Also listening and working with their families and help them get on the way. So it's just a way of doing things. So Grace, I was going to ask how you've been into this whole thing here when it comes to especially these different tier levels of support.
Are you in the classroom working with students perhaps? Are you working with them in off periods? Or what is your, how do you, what's your role then with these 550 students? Yeah, great question. So we are looking at in our master's schedule, our daily schedule to have a social emotional learning time that all students are in tier one social emotional curriculum. So what I do with that is I help support teachers with that.
Sometimes I will go in and lead some lessons and that's kind of like tier one. As Mrs. Brunson was saying. And then from there, I meet students one-on-one like Mr. Jessee was saying as well.
I also run some, a lot of small groups which are really helpful to show students that they're not the only ones that are feeling this way. It's really super beneficial to teach them skills. So I'm going to do it through all of them in a way.
And also helping with sometimes that story strength and need is met by me first because we're so involved in like what like other families leaning on hard times and needing support. We help with things such as hygiene items, food items, like so it's all kind of the same, but that's kind of how I've been. Can you explain a little bit about what that concept of social emotional learning is? Yeah, definitely.
So social emotional learning kind of just encompasses every day, like your friendship, things that we were talking about earlier, how to deal with things that upset us, like kind of those feelings that refer to a lot of people to me, maybe inside out of like how they navigate those big emotions, those big things in day-to-day things. So yes, they can go a little bit deeper, but that's kind of the best way that I explain to people that don't fully know or understand it. So like right now, it's a doctor who organizes national anti-bullying prevention.
So we are in every classroom teaching a bullying prevention unit. So that classifies as a social emotional learning. So that's kind of what it encompasses.
It's just kind of teaching kids what they're feeling. Is there a reference to what parents in school might have gone through a lesson to match with that? Well, yeah. So one of the things, so we have a couple of different ways that we launch our peer learning skills.
So it is built into our schedule for every day. And two days a week, they use our adoptive curriculum, which is called Sickness Desk. And then the other two days a week, they run class meetings.
And often those class meetings are created to address issues that they are seeing in their classroom. But often, we will run it in St. Orleans when we're seeing things that are more global. So yeah, every issue in our bulletin that we send out to families are written down.
There's a classroom score. And they share what that lesson is for kids in sixth grade, what the concepts are, and it's a link for them to be able to go in and see those resources as well. Another thing in the middle school framework that parents may not have seen in elementary is the ELA phrasing.
Can you explain what that means and how that goes through on a daily basis? Absolutely. So we have our students on a double block, 250 minute blocks. And it's ELA, meaning social space.
So English language arts encompasses all the literature and all the writing standards. And then also, we have the social studies standards, which is what we call an integrated form. Because so much of our social studies work, along with science, is heavily embedded in what's called reading and relational text.
So a number of our teachers have made advances and co-created by teachers and district office staff. And I'll just say, in a week period, they have 10 blocks that they can teach compared to double blocks. And they have nine lessons to teach.
And so each week, there are three reading lessons, three writing lessons, and three social studies lessons. And they can use those and teach those in a way that they go together well for their classrooms. That's great.
It's too great. It's now, presumably, bringing home homework, right, at times? Was that a thing? No. Yes, it is a thing.
But it's taking a while to get homework back up and running, to be honest with you. It's one of those things that sort of went kind of to the wayside with COVID. And we struggled to get it back in there.
One of the things that our staff held in file when they were talking about how to take their instructional practices to kind of an advanced level was, how can we re-engage our campers all over in this work? So we decided to start off, we believe we will have the most impact. And that's reading at home. So we are working with families on the importance of reading at home.
And while it may not seem a lot, 20 to 30 minutes at home is an amazing amount to their overall success. Plus, it's also now starting to prepare them for what's going to happen when they get to junior high. So we're just kind of in a position where we're really trying to help parents re-gain some of those skills that maybe kind of went to the sideline.
Do they have a place? When they come home, do they know where to put it at? Does somebody know where to put it? Half of their reading homework is at home. Do they have a place where they can sit and read? So our students are taking their books back and forth every day, because none of them has books at home. And this month, for children, we just launched what's called follow the readings.
And so we have a reading competition for early 30 minutes. A student reads at home. They get to put their name on a plate.
And we're doing some class two challenges to see who really knows a bit about it. And the kids seem to be pretty excited. So if you're reading, you're bringing a book home, or it's reading at home for 20 or 30 minutes, how do you want to see that done? Is that a student reading to a parent? Everybody's silent reading together.
The parent's reading to the student. They're listening to something. What's the... How about all of these? We want to make sure that, you know, life is busy, right? And the families get home.
They often work. It's a personal thing as well. They've got to do dinner.
They have sporting events. So we do talk about there are different ways to go with your students. So sometimes, yeah, sometimes it is just that little reading to them at night.
Or you're doing a meeting, and they're listening. And take an active, informative, ask them a few questions. You know, those are the ones that get the reading.
So having your students read to you, you know, your children are reading to you. Then, and not just reading books, right? There's lots of things that students and families can do together to do considerations. So we have a family who's super excited that they were able to do some coding, and that they were impressed that their child could find it in some of their journals.
You know, not just the actual ingredients, but actually the entire recipe. It's like, wow, when I was a child, I was never able to cook at home. So we do have a meeting where there's a reading in the car, and you're driving in the car, because you are going down the road a lot.
So having your students read to their number of siblings, that might be nice to them. So just letting them know that it's not one way. It brings them closer to their family and where they are.
And you may not get to read to them every night, but you can tell them every day on the weekends. Sure. I'll just add my piece.
Yes, the answer is need all and above. But the thing that we are trying to get to, which is stamina and frequency. That is still a big thing in this.
Sometimes it is a cookbook, and I love that example, because there's purpose. We have readers that are not at grade level yet. So those are good exercises, especially reading their siblings' books sometimes.
That's great. What we're trying to get to for every student, though, is to get a sustained reading. We do, for this age group, 30 minutes.
We really want to get them consistently very comfortable with reading at least for 30 minutes, like to 45, depending on where your reader's at. But I just try to make sure getting 30 minutes of going on reading on a consistent basis is the objective. As Mary said, when they get to junior high, that informational text, the vocabulary, the comprehension, that can get overwhelming if they don't far-carve already ready to read at that level for some of our students.
Let's talk a little bit more about parents' involvement in this grade, especially, I think, kids, my hands are included, right? Starting to maybe not be as forthcoming with what happened during the school day, with what is going on in their social lives. Grace, what are some things either you do, or Mary, you do to try to empower the parents to be able to really try to talk and connect with their students at this age group, again, about 10 to 12 years old? Yeah, so one of the things that we like to say a lot of being curious and connected can really benefit our students. So asking open-ended questions are really beneficial.
Mary does a really good job in her weekly bulletin outlining what is expected during the week so that you can kind of start some questions that you can kind of focus around and get to know. Just like at school, those structures and routines are important, too. So also influencing families to have those at times, all that stuff can really be beneficial.
But starting to just open-ended questions about, well, how was your fractions today? It can be really beneficial to even know what they're even covering in math and all that stuff. So if you get something to eat now for the future, I think it will be a good idea to just let them know for a guideline or something. Yeah, each of our teams, every month, sends out a team newsletter that's really specific to kind of the things that they're doing on their team.
And then every Sunday, I send a memo to our families and our staff that just talks about the exciting things that happened the week before, what's been the most fun, just future information, and then we also post it on Facebook. So we're just trying our very best to reach as many as possible so they do know what's going on. We have a lot of exciting things that go on going on in the classroom.
And then just a lot of phone calls. I'm really proud we have a pretty good class of teachers this year. And, you know, calling parents can be very difficult.
It can be daunting, right, especially for first-year teachers. And so we've been able to go in and model with them how to make an important phone call. And we really encourage all of our families, I mean, all of our staff, to make positive phone calls to all of their first-year students.
So if you do have to make a phone call, it's maybe a little bit difficult. You've already made that connection. And so there's just so much power that can be done with just reaching out, because what usually gets us in trouble is the assumptions that are made about things.
And I would say, Mr. Pratt, or Mr. Principal, I suspect that the classroom minimum of 20 families a day, not because things that are happening in the community are necessarily major issues, but because we need our parents to be aware of what works in the moment. So we do go through those things. So is there a drop-off or pick-up? It's on the phone.
Constantly, just, hey, here's what went on. And we bring our children into those conversations with them. And we just need them to have learning moments that we can use more.
And this is how we just can work together and help our kids be successful. This is a beautiful school. And we talked about this last time in Bordeaux.
Why I thought this whole, how the systems work, and all the teachers that are here, and the additional help. Bringing it up to everybody's turn to kind of think and talk about this, living impacts, what, 10% of the budget we talked about last year, with some matching for the state. What are some things here that you've seen that you can explain that are tied in with how the living impacts of the budget and OMS specifically? A lot.
There's a lot. It's actually almost 13% of our budget. And so it touches everything.
You know, I use the same lines. Just so that people understand, like, you know, the utilities, for example, just the school. No one wants to talk about all the utilities for things that I'm like, well, the state shorted us $3 million over the last four years.
That levy is what takes up and allows this place to be heated and air-conditioned. This place also has two heat pumps that we've had issues with. We need to replace them at 20 grand apiece.
That's expensive, for sure. I've got parent educators here that are world-class educators. And this fine professional in front of me, Stanley, she loves these parent educators, the librarian, the people that come through, the front office staff.
Those are all lovely, fun people. And counselor. My God, I get very sexy.
She knows that. She said, I think she almost kicked me on the cheek. You know, those are, you know, that's, you know, everything about the teacher and the principal almost, and it's that, it's that much.
And it gives me goosebumps. It makes it very, you know, it's really tough when you're doing all this work and work every day and making connections and doing all these things that has to come down to a one vote that would change dramatically about, it's kind of like a, you know, it's the funding cliff almost, you know, and it's just, because there's, we've got so much momentum to walk the halls here. I get invited to come through.
You see all the great things, but could you imagine it without Grace to be there to greet them at the front door, as well as their other new counselor, who's also fabulous, super positive and knows lots of other kids that work with them. And if they're educators, they're going to reach out and make sure everything across the line, no matter what it takes, reaching out to families to help them answer tough questions or what they need for resources. Pononko staff that, you know, literally like they, whatever it is, they jack of all trades, you know, to assist.
That's what it is for us, Jeff. I'm not trying to be dour. I'm just trying to say, if you fund it, you are continuing to fund the future of Shelton and you're going to fund the great, amazing things, because when you have 100 students that now can read and write right here in this district, since COVID, that wouldn't if they went to the average school in Washington state.
They're coming here and then they go on to do other amazing things. And you see it. I was at the high school over there.
I had to say this one story. I had to write something about leadership team. And they're already like, yeah, we're all in the books.
Like we are down tonight. They're already came to that. Can you imagine what happens when they're coming through here? And then it's been felt connected, respected, because their issue there is still with kids doing drugs and alcohol.
And when you know how to read and you can navigate, you're going to make healthier choices. You're going to engage yourself. If you don't have that in Fordham, I know what Fordham was like as a kid.
You don't. We know, come on, Fordham was a thing. And, you know, your troubles come when you're the first.
And so we want to cut that down. And now it's kids to be able to write a book, be strong friendships, having opportunities, being able to access an opportunity wherever they choose to do. We want to make that a good living.
And that's where we come from. You know, things like this. Let me let you wrap up this a little bit.
Can you explain for those who may not have ever seen a better educator in a classroom, what that is and what they do? Absolutely. Well, it's everything here. I mean, it remains alongside the teacher.
So, I mean, they clearly are teaching right alongside the teacher. Our parent educators are the animals who really do work. Just they're extremely dedicated, but they're also very talented.
So a lot of our parent educators that are not necessarily working, you know, in specialized programs, like special education, are there, focusing privately on getting students access to reading. So we've done a lot of work for last year and this year, ensuring that the time that they're spending with students is direct, discreet, skill-based, and it's moving those students forward. So we'll talk about we need to learn to slow screen history.
That's what they need to do. So there are some students specifically that are on large list of students that we want to help get across the line. And we're just working with them at the same level as the teacher to convert us to the more unique, providing real discreet instruction around things that might be holding back a little bit.
We can do the pushing forward. And then just supporting them in general, making sure that they can access the grade level curriculum, because we do have students who work a lot of reading. So we have a lot of student parent educators that are able to go into some of the outside learning, a lot of bridging, perhaps, between a topic that they're drawing on that maybe the student doesn't have the prior knowledge or background knowledge, without enrolling in class to just kind of clear that for them and give them some information to fill that in quickly.
And then working specifically with students to make sure that they have the supports that they need, not just academically, but also just emotionally. And then we, of course, if we could never go to school without them, because they're also the ones that are helping us feed our students, supervise our students, make sure that they're safe on the playground. We think about how much we've lost in the day.
If that's who the students need first. All right. Very good.
Crystal, folks, that's a new concept to hear that term, as a local co-teacher alongside the teacher there. Do you have anything else on this? Yeah, I'll just say, you know, really, really important to this grade level, you know, jokingly say this, but it really is the truth, that our students kind of choose a different school, choosing the entity that they need to be in here. And we do, if you look at our data, we have a lot of emotional mental health type things going on as a graduation salary.
And we are blessed to have two faculty counselors. And as a leader of a club, we're blessed to have an assistant principal who is so dedicated to the students' well-being and make sure that all of them, every day, are able to be successful. And I think one of the things that I enjoyed coming from the elementary up here is that we're also able to provide some interviews, school socials, and activities that are starting to go on for students who want to do some self-exploration, all those things to help students want to come to school, but it isn't always just about the academics.
Sometimes it is about data. And about play. And about the new world of sports.
And so we just want to make sure that we're feeding both of the need of the child and providing them just a really great way to have activities and supports. And those are all things that are definitely going to be interesting. So the sixth graders, if I'm thinking back, it would have been at the onset of their education with COVID, right? So half of kindergarten, roughly, and most of first grade would have been outside of the classroom-ish.
I think it's our fifth graders, yeah. So what are you doing? What have you seen in some of the emotional, social-emotional ways that they interact? I guess how do you, maybe that's a good race question, how do you guys work to, I don't want to say, get these kids up to speed a little bit better, but kind of get them back in the swing of things after missing some months? One of the things I'm super excited about, so I've been in the district for a few years. I've actually been blessed to work at all three schools, and now I'm here at both schools.
And every year, our teachers say, I cannot imagine how much more prepared our students are to jump right into school. And a big part of that is because we work super hard as a district to make sure that there are common experiences, and common language, and common curriculum for our students. You know, just probably five years ago, we used to have three different groups showing up in one school and three different things, three different ways, right? Not only different, that's the way it was.
Now some teachers are like, it's so much easier. They know some general language. They know what structured activities mean.
They know what expectations are. And so that is making the jump much easier, but they're hearing that, and they'll just hear that in my building, and they'll hear that in the fourth building, and they'll hear that in seventh and eighth grade as well. We're all the same age, so it's going to be the same direction, and that is safe for our students, and it's going to be equal for our students.
Well, as we talked about for the last week, when I was interviewing you on how they're going into the next grades, everybody knows, where does that come from? Is that a school board directive? Is that a new thing? Is that a team coming up with these? Well, you get to where you say, everybody's got their own, you know, everybody's got their own culture. We've got their own, that stuff, whatever. But at the end of the day, everybody needs to kind of be moving along at the same length of the medium here at LMS.
They all are able to meld together, I guess. This was an actual great scenario. We keep using this thing about structure of the routines, right? I mean, it's like predictability, and what kind of, what if I understood expectations? And so when we started, again, at the pre-school level, when it comes up, year to year, they know how to navigate the spaces of education.
I think that's something for newer teachers. God bless them. They come in and they're like, having to navigate, like figure out how to manage 20 kids in a classroom.
And over time, they realize that you have to explicitly teach every master. And so that takes a lot of time. A lot of teachers complain, and maybe it's probably, just been around a long time, like I have, just to know that like, a lot of teachers like, oh, it took like a month to get them to understand what we were trying to do.
Now we're finally beginning to get some momentum, and there's enough other hiccups in education to get in the way. But it's, you save all that time. This year, I walked into classrooms here at LMS, and they're already teaching, and kids are already in their journals, because they know how to navigate the journals.
They already do great jobs. They already know how to do some independent reading. They know how to pick their book.
They know how to get their book. They know how to do without wrestling somebody, without touching somebody. That's a big thing for these kids.
They already know those things. That allows us to not waste time. Every minute, we have a lot to teach.
And to work with the students, we don't have time to waste. And that's really this whole concept of, working together. What's these evidence-based practices? This is what kids need in the Shelton School District.
At LMS, keep working on it. And, yeah, that's in our strategic plan, but it's what we know works with kids and what actually works for the educators too, because they've got to give something. It's usually taught to kind of get in your own little world and do your thing.
And that doesn't actually work very well for the kids. The kids are a lot smarter these days in many ways. They know where the holes are in the system and they're not ordinary.
They don't know what's going on in their cake. They love it when I teach. I'm just about done with my question.
I don't know if anybody wrote anything down for me or not, but I think Mary mentioned sports that happened here, dance, perhaps that happened here, some extracurriculars. What else is on the school calendar for the boys? Absolutely. Or you can look at our great new chocolate fundraiser.
You cannot believe how much chocolate we're still trying to sell. What's that go to? It goes to our playground at the second. So it's a joke.
We put a bunch of TSO on ourselves to be able to build, you know, we were able to submit a traditional playground. So the last two years, the TSO has brought in close to 50,000 musculars. And this year we're just in the process of to have four new basketball hoops and two new telephone groups installed on our new playground.
So we used to be out back, but the temperature of the new year is so strong that we can't play there. So we moved our playground and that's what the parents and the students that we wanted to do something for. So we're getting some permanent basketball hoops and cover balls.
We've been able to talk about goals for both soccer and football, keep our cooking up and running. And the kids are really enjoying that kind of a lot of the same purchasing out there. And so we had tentatively had a right set.
Don't miss that target because we're still waiting for the stuff to be installed. We want to make sure to provide that to the families of the last generation that also worked in today, you know, to help us make this money so that they can see that those efforts do make a difference in the day for our students. We're in the process, three months last year, we just had this amazing idea about some game things that we could do here.
And so we're working with ESB to see if we can start our new game theory club in a couple of days a week. We would like to extend it. So these two boys are in the process of putting together a survey to find out what other things the students would like to learn.
So we're hoping that we can use an acting theory for a while and then we could do drawings on it. Some things that just are not necessarily linked to the story. So we're in the process of working through that.
And just listening to what the students want to do, the things that they're interested in and seeing how we can do that without taking away from all of the work that we do. So now let's just think to the end of the year here, it'd be everybody's getting ready to move on either to OBJ or to the sixth grade middle and past. What are some of the things that you would like to see from them as they're ready to move to the next year? Whether it's some sort of a reading aptitude or math aptitude, this is open to all three of you.
What would you like to see either to get that to the next school or just to the next grade? The next grade of standards. So I know the original students have passion. There's something to be said about that.
The next year you're going to come up and know that the standards of the third year middle and the sixth grade. So just really helping our students setting their high expectations and expecting them really goes a long ways. Then there's some things they're not going to try very hard.
And so we're students that just don't know that they can all make absolutely amazing growth. We know that we're all very challenged and a little bit different, but we are just not blamed for others. We are going to do what we can to make sure that we're doing the math advancing because that's one of the biggest challenges.
It's a good reason to come to school because we think they are going to be successful. And they just continue to work so much on their distance learning facility and the way they see themselves and just continue to give them the tools so that they can maneuver a simple route because that's different. It's not fair.
And it's not easy. Yeah, I would say definitely their individual voices and how they navigate the next years to come, how they work through those friendship things. That's a big thing that I look to see throughout this year.
And it's always so fun for me to see when you start out the school year and maybe not like that same friend or group, but by the end of the school year, they found their people, as they say. And so that's one thing that I really enjoyed is having their voice as well as connecting with parents is probably my favorite thing. This is what I like to see is giving some more tools and voice to the parents as well and how we can help those students with the skills that I would like to see.
I just want to support both of those. I'm just going to give everyone a little time for questions just in case they could. Yeah.
I do have one final question. I noticed the high school implemented this. Cell phones here in Perseverance.
Oh, yeah. Well, I'll tell you the first year, this is my third year here. I started three years ago and it was a really, cell phones were a big problem.
Our students are not mature enough to navigate all the things that happen in cell phones. And so as a staff, we spent an entire fall talking about the changes that we wanted to make to really be able to make sure that our students don't sleep at school. And so when we came back in January, we went into a no cell phone policy.
Cell phones are in lockers and turned on every day until 3 or every single day. And we had so much support for our families. We had students within the first two months who would say, we hate you so much, I can't even go to sleep when I'm in the bathroom because someone is not committed.
So we had no cell phones for a year and a half and we were able to get students back. We had no problems. We were very supportive of that.
Okay. Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome, Mike.
That's where, you know, navigating those things too. And they have phones, they got watchers that are in tables somehow. And everybody, everybody tries to, like you said, find the holes in those systems.
It's important to ask. Does anybody have any questions? Anybody? She does. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, sometimes I see that the equipment is not operational, such as computers and technology. Why is that? Let me just reprint that so I can get it on the paper.
Why is the equipment, some of the equipment here, non-operational? Oh, this is a high school, but it's kind of a good overall. Yeah. Go ahead.
Let's do it. You do it, Mary. You're on it.
Think about something here. You know, I'm putting it in terms of the equipment. So I would say that we gave up a lot of programs for COVID-19 that took us a slide of months to get, to rebuild that stuff.
I can't remember the percentage, but there were a lot that didn't come back and then came back. So in our building, this is our first year that we said launch every classroom with an update. It's functional and it works.
So kids can be hard on that. If we think a little bit about the students who are falling off, so there's the screens that work. So we work pretty closely with our students around, they're not like, probably something happening.
We want them to tell us so that we can be the best place. Our testing department is just absolutely amazing at getting right in here and making sure that we get our school back as soon as possible. We want technology to be as update and as highly functional as possible.
We have some high tech equipment up at the high school because that's where your professionals come from. Sorry, I love this question. That lot of that kind of equipment is funded by what we call CTE technical education.
We get funded very well for CTE, but that money can only go to those specific activities. I wish we had additional monies for other things, including for here at OMS, for example, if it's no CTE money, the levy is what supports that money. You were asking me a levy question because what happens is the levies, the monies come in and we can use that to support technology, which we do, but it also, unfortunately, also pays for so many other items that you've might've heard me say earlier.
The counselors, the educators, the fixing the VHP period, all of that. And so things like technology, unfortunately, take a bad suit to sometimes what we can do. So we operate technology.
We do have carts in all the schools. If they are an operational way, we can do more testing and get to know everybody first. High poverty districts in Washington state still are underfunded compared to the rich districts because the rich districts can do a capital, what's called a capital levy.
And so they get additional dollars that go straight to the funding technology that looks really nice and fancy. And that's that's how I look. That's unfortunately how it is.
And tell your state legislature, why is that? Tell me why? Sorry. Thank you for asking that question. Yeah, thank you very much.
I think if there's no others, we're going to put a wrap on this one. So again, we're going to all the schools in the district and we'll be there throughout the next couple of months. Our next one is going to be at Evergreen on November 4th, again, from five to 6 p.m. So we'll be down at Evergreen in front of the conversation with the principal, either a teacher or a counselor.
And Superintendent Jessee, maybe even a school board member as well. On November 4th. So we would love to see you there.
I want to thank everybody here watching in attendance. I also want to thank the principal here at OMS, Mary Johnson, Grace Reneker, one of our counselors here, and then Superintendent Jessee for your time. So with that, thank you so much, everybody.
And yeah, have a great rest of your day. Bye.