Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
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.
New episodes drop throughout the week, featuring interviews, community spotlights, and extended versions of the stories you hear on the air at KMAS.
Subscribe, listen, and stay connected to your community—wherever you are.
Another week in the books time to check in with Superintendent Jessee from the Shelton School District. How you doing? Good, how you doing Jeff? Great, I saw this week at the school board meeting two schools presenting their school improvement plans. Can you explain what those are again to the listener? Yeah absolutely, so it's a state requirement that each school creates some academic goals so that you know you're moving student performance and so they put you know put together a plan that says hey we're gonna go from this baseline score to increasing you know whatever or decreasing whatever that goal is.
They're traditionally very traditional. It's been around for so long my entire career so I'm just so used to them but they you know you have a thing where you know you increase the reading scores for example you know at OMS Olympic Middle School they're gonna increase you know the number of sixth graders meeting standard you know I got 31% a lot of those are kids that experienced COVID to getting up to 37% and they're gonna decrease the number of kids that are highly trained. Attendance seems to be an issue overall for us as a district you know just trying to get more kids to come to school.
It's gone up but it's a chance and so they put those those goals right into a school improvement plan for each of the eight schools that we have here and then they list Jeff the strategies that they're gonna use to implement across their school to get to that goal. Those are the main moves they're gonna do to get there and just simply you know we monitor whether we talk about in that plan how do you progress monitor you know that goal and then any adjustments you're gonna make to get there. We submit those plans to the state they do review those and they're just that I call them the binding green agreement you know that's the thing that we say to our community to you know ourselves as a district to the state this is the goals are setting and this is the work we're gonna make and they are like I said a requirement so they are a legal requirement and it is upon us as staff to follow them.
So I can see why you would have those at the different levels but you have one for each individual elementary school is that right? Yeah yep every school has them including our three elementaries. So why wouldn't they be kind of lumped together as the elementary grades of Shelton School District? Yeah that's a great question so each you know we kind of like to break things down anyway I mean if we if we took all of the you know said all of the elementaries you know that for us is 1,400 kids and a goal kind of starts to lose its value when you group too many kids together and so and each school does have a common goal because we do work as a system here we have a strategic plan our goals that go underneath the strategic plan the work of district offices to support the strategic plan and the school's goals we we're all accountable to these are they're not just evergreen elementaries school improved plan they're everybody's we do work as a system but the school itself has some unique strategies they have and they have unique populations and so they they follow those they create those goals and they move it and it's just easier for the school to be a you know their staff to focus on their students at that school as opposed to a larger goal we do have district goals though Jeff on the strat plan for example my goal is to get all of the third grade students across the three elementaries at least 43% or more meeting standard in reading and writing this next year so we do have those goals and just it's broken down by each school and that's by law. What is it about the Shelton School District you think that has the challenge for attendance? You know that is a great question when I look at the data versus other districts that look like Shelton you know they have a free and reduced lunch number they have multilingual special education districts that have a similar population they do you know there's about probably about eight districts across the state that are similar in population and size as Shelton and they all started since COVID had a higher rate of attendance as a student body in their district we are about ten percent less so that's where we started from come back from COVID and we've had incredible growth in fact our growth is exceeds or at least matches any of the other comparable districts over the last four years for attendance so you know we're doing a better job getting them we're just still lagged behind when you start behind this is harder to get to be a higher rate right at a precipitous level so I don't have a to your direct question I don't have it I don't have a real answer I think it's cultural you know there's just for us it's it's just a thing of like sometimes the tenants may not be as as important in some places as it is in some others I don't I don't know I got a wonder I mean at the end of day we're trying to get them here and be warm and welcoming but at the end of the day also I'm like it's hard you know you start having conversations with families I don't know you know I don't I don't have always an answer for that I know having to do that in other districts some schools just have a harder challenge on attendance you know and it's just part of the things that just happen to be to be part of the makeup yeah it's just an interesting phenomena really honestly and you know when we talk to families sometimes just like the habits you know like like Mary Johnson uses an example mental health break I'm like well mental health breaks if you miss a couple days this month and a couple next month and you take off three the next month over the course of the school year you'd be surprised all of a sudden you're missing 20 some days out of 180 days and maybe we haven't done our job of making folks aware of just a couple days a month does make a difference so if anybody's listening those couple days a month do matter and so you know our job is to communicate that and that's why it's a goal for all of our schools to increase attendance because you know obviously have ownership in that Clinton Sherman the finance director there was presenting to you and the board as well on some fiscal numbers as well as starting to lay out some of those replacement levy scenarios can you talk a little bit about what those were for folks who may have missed the meeting yes so we we have a renewal on our it's called an EP you know it's really let EP no levy so for us it's our education and operations levy that helps support a lot of the what I think some people term is basic education but it's you know it's really related to all of our staffing and our utilities and maintenance cost and as well as athletics and activities and then we putting out this renewal levy so it's you know taxpayers are currently paying this and the three options are about the rate really is for the school board to consider what's the current rate what's the ceiling what are our options for it and then obviously what does the average homeowner pay for it to you know pay for the staffing the athletics utilities the activities all of those things and so those three options one is really kind of staying flat but you're not gonna keep up with inflation the other one is keeping up with inflation the other one is a slight increase in the current tax rate really so you know one is a very flat you know like current tax rate and that's what I'm not keep up then you have one that keeps up which means SSS values that matches it and then the last one is a slight increase to exceed that because we are getting behind a lot of our current things like technology we're way behind in new updating computers and servers maintenance a lot of issues we need new roofs I mean a million dollars to get a roof on a school you know like that has to come from somewhere and the state's not has cut the funding so that's why districts just like Shelton are more reliant on these levies the ceiling is ultimately though Jeff two dollars and fifty cents per assessed thousand dollars on each house so that's the levy no matter what district you are out of the 300 districts in the state you can't can't create a an operations and education levy that exceeds that two dollars and fifty cents again per thousand dollars assessed value on a house Shelton School District over the many years that I've been following this the station has traditionally supported these renewal efforts but at the same time without you know relying on that past knowledge how much are you looking around at the current climate considering you know well North Mason has failed a few yelm has failed a few in a row now and you're looking at that well we're gonna find out next week North Mason is gonna have their second vote on a levy and so you know I wish them good luck for sure and we'll see that you know yelm it was tough you know they we run into them and some of their the families there and you know it's thirteen fourteen hundred dollars to play a sport there and you got to provide their own transportation so you know those are the stories and it's you know I just think sometimes the news you know doesn't do a good job portraying what's the real actual going on for public education you know I think a lot of people are skeptical of government in general and we recognize that and I said okay so we're number one in the state for third graders for growth for third graders over the last three years third graders meeting standard and reading writing number one in the state out of 300 districts the Shelton Scooters number one we've decreased suspensions we've increased attendance we've got more kids on ninth grade on track raised our graduation rate so I like to say like what other better place to get a return on your taxes so that's why I'm like if you're skeptical government and how's it providing you something I say well this sounds good as she's doing a really good job taking the money we have and we work in a lean way and get the most for the kids and families that are here in Shelton and that's what they deserve you know you I seen you guys out you've been at the trunk retreats and you're this and that the other thing in it when you explain it that way and somebody responds yeah but sure what do you how do you what what more can you do to you know share with them I guess you know because yeah there's usually a personal story behind it Jeff right like what did you hear what did you experience what's going on and it's and it's our job to listen what what happened why would you think that right and so I most the time it's a situation that they heard something that is pretty pretty pretty wildly false so you know I can happen to walk them through and go okay so this is why you know this situation let me tell you some things that happened in this instance why this why this occurred why people did this and reacted this way and here's what we did because we you know when I say hey we care about the kids we want to educate him we want to move forward we have a great positive stress we all want that I've yet to meet anybody who doesn't want that at the same time I oftentimes hear things about individual kids and their behavior and I go well it's school and we are here to educate the whole child so it's not just to give them core academics but we want them to be really outstanding citizens we want them to grow up to be responsible and respectful and got some grit and resilience you know welcome to life and so and to be to giving you know like not just be a taker for your community so we you know I say hey if we want to do that and if I just simply you know suspended or threw the kids away and then invited back which again would be illegal but we got it our job is to educate him because what it is they do become adults and so the Shelton school district holds that responsibilities let us continue to educate the whole child for that because when they do go out there we want them to be you know employees or neighbors that are also giving and respectful and all those things so that's a lot that's a lot but I just let's usually some story about something about somebody this and then I've had a lot of families turn around and go I'm glad you don't punish the kids because I do need my kid to be taught and may have turned around we have so many turn out stories it's pretty wild yeah kids do some stuff that you're really challenging I see it front and center I saw it today when I was out at schools at the same time I I look at a minute of a learning opportunity with natural consequences and sometimes that is suspension for sure but we're invited back and teach them so that we can eventually show them that you can't trust other people you are going to be held accountable and here's some strategies and skills to be a better just to be a better person remember well we're moving into November and there's a lot of folks that'll kind of start gathering around the dinner tables and talking about these things as we move into Thanksgiving in the holiday season so we'll continue to update on things that are happening in the district and all the good the bad the this the that that happens out of the school district again you're off always welcome to check in on the school district meetings they're live in person at Mountain View they're also available on video stream where it's more of just the passive watching what's happening if you're there you can make comment yourself as well superintendent Wyeth Jessee thank you so much all right thanks so much Jeff