Olympia School District says cultural‑awareness measures rose; staff outline hiring, language‑access and student supports

Superintendent Murphy and district staff told the Olympia School District Board of Directors on March 27 that the district has recorded measurable gains on indicators tied to Outcome 4 — the strategic plan goal saying students will “have the skills, knowledge and courage to identify and confront personal, systemic and societal bias.” The report paired Panorama survey results with staffing, language‑access and program updates and pointed to specific steps the district is taking on hiring, multilingual student supports and digital accessibility.

The monitoring presentation opened with Superintendent Murphy acknowledging the district’s long‑running effort to define Outcome 4 and why it matters. “If somebody cannot speak English…that’s not a disability,” Murphy said during the presentation, describing the district’s effort to reduce disproportionality in special‑education identification for multilingual students.

Panelists cited Panorama student‑survey measures to illustrate progress. District staff said changes in Panorama’s question set altered comparability to earlier years but that certain results were clear: a new baseline for elementary self‑efficacy is about 48 percent under the revised questions; secondary sense‑of‑belonging at grades 6–12 registered about 46 percent, which the presenters said places the district near the 70th national percentile when middle and high schools are combined; and a Panorama item on “cultural awareness and action” rose to 46 percent, the highest level the district has recorded. Two separate Panorama items — “how often are you encouraged to think more deeply about race‑related topics?” and “when there are major news events related to race, how often do adults at your school talk about them with you?” — each rose roughly 35 percentage points from the previous spring, presenters said.

Scott Neiman, executive director of human resources, reviewed hiring and workforce‑profile data the district is piloting in a new HR dashboard. Neiman said classified Hispanic representation grew from about 2.36 percent in 2016 to 9.45 percent in February 2025, and certificated Hispanic staff rose from about 1.2 percent to 4.3 percent over the same span. White staff remain the majority but have declined in proportion districtwide; the presentation contrasted staff demographics with 2024‑25 student enrollment figures the district reported: white 60.7 percent, Hispanic 15.1 percent, multiracial 11.8 percent, Asian 7.5 percent, Black 3.2 percent, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander 0.9 percent and American Indian/Alaska Native 0.5 percent.

Neiman described hiring changes intended to build pipelines and reduce bias in selection: supplemental equity questions on applications, an equity‑question rubric for interviews, bias‑awareness training, partnerships and alternative certification routes with local colleges including Evergreen State College and a new Washington Education Association teacher‑residency collaboration.

Presenters described multilingual and cultural supports. Heather Randolph, director of multilingual services, and Sandra Gordon, Native Education and Tribal Relations program manager, said the district has been working to align multilingual MTSS processes with special education screening to avoid misidentification. Randolph noted the district’s WIDA ACCESS results have shown steady gains and said the next statewide scores would be released May 19.

Gordon described culturally relevant pathways and partnerships: two students combined Title III (multilingual) and Title VI (native education) supports while spending a summer learning cedar gathering and weaving with an Evergreen State College instructor to earn mastery‑based credit; the district had formed Native student alliances and scheduled a May 6 consultation with the Squaxin Island Tribe to plan collaborative work and curriculum implementation. Gordon said the district would hold a tribal flag‑raising and consultation day; she invited board members to attend.

Sandra Gordon and Randolph also described growth in the Washington State Seal of Biliteracy program. District staff said 151 students were tested in spring 2025 (36 of them eighth graders), a cohort that will translate to more high‑school students entering with biliteracy credit and possible college credit; presenters said tested languages included Spanish, Vietnamese and several others.

Connor Schobert, communications director, summarized the district language access plan and translation work. Schobert said the district is translating key documents into Spanish and Vietnamese, using Skyward home‑language data to target translations, and using ParentSquare’s two‑way translation features for family communications. He said the district had processed 87 translation‑service requests so far in the year and had added contract capacity for languages such as Dari.

Staff also described assistive‑technology (AT) and library programs that intersect with Outcome 4. Megan Hansen and Suzanne Anthony, the district’s AT specialists, said requests for AT training, consultations and purchase support had increased; they outlined plans for AAC (alternative and augmentative communication) handbooks, multilingual playground communication boards and training to build capacity beyond the central team. Teacher librarians led a classroom example of a facts‑and‑frames activity on evaluating evidence and bias; Reeves Middle School librarian Emily Waugh said the exercise shows how framed assumptions shape which facts students accept and how librarians are teaching lateral reading and source evaluation.

Why it matters: presenters and directors said the combined work — recruitment and retention strategies, multilingual instruction and access, library‑led critical‑thinking instruction and assistive technology — aims to increase students’ sense of belonging and to make the staff reflect student diversity.

Board members and student representatives praised several elements of the report during questions. Director Hoffman and others noted the large increases in Panorama measures and thanked staff for the work. Several directors asked for more clarity about dashboard methodology and about how the HR dashboard counts turnover; Scott Neiman said the district is still cleaning historical data and learning how to present consistent snapshots for year‑to‑year comparison.

The presentation did not include new board policy actions. Staff said follow‑up work will include continuing updates to the HR dashboard, presentation of WIDA ACCESS scores when they are released, ongoing translation of key documents, and next steps on the Seal of Biliteracy testing outcomes. The board did not take formal votes on the Outcome 4 content itself at the meeting.

Ending: District staff said they will return with updated data, including state WIDA results and more refined HR dashboard outputs; they invited board members and the public to the May 6 tribal consultation and to future monitoring reports.