At its May 8 meeting, the Olympia School District presented its Outcome 1 monitoring report on students’ compassion, kindness and social-emotional skills, citing modest gains on some Panorama survey measures while also reporting continuing disproportionality in exclusionary discipline.

The report matters because the district links Outcome 1 — students who are kind and compassionate — to students’ academic success and school climate. Staff told the board that while some survey indicators improved, discipline data show groups of students are still excluded at higher rates and the district will pursue changes to discipline procedures and supports.

Superintendent Kevin Murphy told the board the district is tracking both quantitative indicators and qualitative examples from schools. “We went out and did a ballot measure and got 70% support to go out and put 1 on 1 devices in every kid’s hand,” Murphy said while noting the trade-offs of screen time for social-emotional development. Autumn Lara, executive director for elementary education, summarized school examples — from student-led kindness projects to cross-school volunteer partnerships — as part of the qualitative evidence supporting Outcome 1 work.

Director of assessment and accountability Billy Harris presented spring Panorama survey results. Highlights included an adjusted “sense of belonging” score of about 66% for elementary students and a 55% score for emotional regulation in grades 3–5, the highest the district has recorded. For grades 6–12, the combined middle/high-school sense-of-belonging metric was reported at 49% (adjusted historical comparison at 45%). Harris said the district’s cultural-awareness measure rose to about 57%, also a high point.

At the same time, staff reported fewer emergency exclusions overall compared with the prior year’s September–February window (139 → 126) but said exclusions remain concentrated among certain groups. The presentation flagged overrepresentation of male students among elementary exclusions and an increase in reported disproportionality for Black students at the secondary level (cited as a move from about 4.8% to 7.5% on the disproportionality index). Staff also noted that the “undeclared/gender x” category rose, largely because many recently registered kindergarten families left the gender field blank.

Staff walked the board through discipline categories and trends: declines in some categories such as electronics misuse and marijuana/vaping incidents, and continued incidents described as inappropriate behavior, refusal to comply and classroom-management problems. Executive staff cautioned that differences in how adults label behavior can affect write-ups and said principals have been working to “calibrate” definitions across schools.

District leaders described next steps and directions (not formal board votes):
- Strengthen Panorama administration and analyze responses by demographic groups; improve parent response rates.
- Compare and align the district discipline matrix with the WASDA/OSPI model matrix and update local procedures.
- Finalize a revised student handbook table of contents and add AI-use language already drafted into the handbook.
- Continue training and roll-out of restorative practices, MTSS and RTI approaches; present an end-of-year professional-learning summary and a plan for 2025–26 at the May 22 board meeting.
- Require reengagement plans for students returning from exclusions and review instruction-loss metrics (staff noted about 617 student-days of instruction lost this school year and said they will include instructional-loss calculations in future reporting).

Board members lauded the mix of qualitative highlights from schools and the data but pressed staff for deeper breakdowns. Director Maria Flores and others asked for more detail on the distinction between short- and long-term suspensions, the effect of exclusions on course credits at the secondary level, and the growth in the “undeclared” gender category. Staff said some kindergarten registrations left the gender field blank, and noted that small subgroup sizes (for example, some Native-identified categories) can produce large percentage swings in the data.

The district emphasized that the response is primarily discussion and planning: no new policy was adopted at the May 8 meeting. Staff repeatedly said the goal is to reduce unnecessary exclusionary discipline, strengthen interventions and ensure supports are in place for students who return to school.

The board set additional follow-up steps, including a more detailed breakdown of discipline incidents by days and by type of suspension, and committed to a May 22 presentation on this year’s professional learning and next year’s plan.

Less urgent details: staff noted that the district used ESSER funds in prior years for instructional coaching positions that were cut when funding ended; teacher-librarian hours and family-engagement work were raised in public comment and by board members as connected concerns. The superintendent also reminded the public that candidate filing for school board was open through May 9 at 5 p.m.

What’s next: the district will return to the board with follow-up data, a proposal for a unified discipline matrix, and a restorative-practices implementation plan intended to reduce disproportionality and lost instructional time.