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Shaver principal reports reading gains, highlights comprehension gap and staffing needs
Summary
Principal Melanie Seca told the Parkrose School Board the school has stabilized staffing, expanded tiered supports and switched to a grade‑level group intervention block; she said decoding scores are stronger than language‑comprehension scores and flagged unfilled partner positions that limit services.
Melanie Seca, principal of Shaver Elementary, told the Parkrose School District Board that the school has reduced teacher turnover since last year, reconfigured classroom hallways and shifted its intervention model so every student spends 30 minutes in a grade‑level group tailored to need.
The change replaces the prior “pull‑out” model with a regular “What I Need” (WINd) block in which some groups receive intervention, some enrichment and some targeted core practice. Seca said teachers update intervention groups every six weeks and the school progress‑monitors students every other week to decide who moves between groups.
The move is part of a wider MTSS (multi‑tiered system of supports) approach. Staff added a counselor, a media specialist, a reading specialist, a family liaison and a kinder‑care professional during the year. Seca said an Elevate support staff member is now on site daily, but a Trillium therapist position remains unfilled and that gap shifts some clinical work back to school staff.
On reading outcomes, Seca said the district’s adaptive diagnostic (i‑Ready) shows relatively strong word‑recognition or phonics skills for about three‑quarters of students, but language‑comprehension measures remain lower — in the 30–40% range in the data Seca showed. To address comprehension, the school selected a single school‑wide instructional strategy — “summarize and synthesize” — with grade‑appropriate scaffolds from kindergarten through fifth grade.
The school also opened a third third‑grade classroom, which Seca said improved student experience but created space constraints that temporarily closed a central room earmarked for a sensory/regulation space. Seca said the district is in talks with a partner organization (not yet under contract) to re‑create a regulation space within the new layout.
Student representatives asked whether all students attend the WINd block. Seca said every student in a given grade joins a 30‑minute group; groups have different instructional focuses and students are moved based on the progress‑monitoring data.
Seca emphasized that classroom teachers now lead many intervention groups (previously assistants often led those groups), which she said allows teachers to focus on targeted instruction for students who still need additional support.
The presentation included a Q&A about assessment: Seca explained that a district change in which grades are included for a phonemic‑awareness screener made the historical comparative graph appear to drop sharply; she described that as a testing‑scope change rather than a sudden decline in student skills.
The school asked board members for continued support as it implements MTSS, fills partner clinician positions and refines group placement cycles.
