Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the School Improvement Olympic Ms topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Olympic Middle School reports gains in suspension reduction, outlines vocabulary-driven literacy push
Summary
Principal Mary Johnson told the board Olympic Middle School aims to raise sixth-grade ELA SBA outcomes to 36% and reduce chronic absenteeism through systemwide vocabulary instruction, no-opt-out participation strategies, team-level attendance trackers and targeted academy instruction.
Olympic Middle School Principal Mary Johnson reported on the school’s improvement plan, its recent reductions in suspensions and steps to boost literacy across disciplines.
"This year, we have 5 20 students. We saw a pretty big reduction. We had a lot of students leave us in sixth grade last year and very few come in," Johnson said, then described current demographics: roughly 71% free- and reduced-price lunch, 31% multilingual learners and 17% of students with disabilities.
Johnson said last year 31% of sixth graders passed the ELA SBA and the school is targeting 36% this May. She credited a drop in suspensions—from roughly 46 per year when she arrived three years ago to 24 last year—to classroom practices that increase engagement and voice and choice. To raise ELA outcomes, the school has embedded three core strategies: universal daily vocabulary instruction tied across ELA, math and science (two to three words per week in each class); deliberate use of sentence stems and scaffolds; and a 35-minute “academy” block for tiered instruction using flexible scaffolds (low/medium/high) identified in unit plans.
On chronic absenteeism (15+ absences), Johnson said the school seeks to reduce a 47% rate to 43% by increasing weekly attendance tracking, family outreach, and one-on-one or team-level interventions for students already trending toward chronic absence. Assistant Principal Mr. Kraft and the attendance secretary monitor weekly lists and conduct conference conversations with families to identify barriers.
Students from Johnson’s sixth-grade classes presented storyboards summarizing books and showing plot-structure learning objectives; board members praised the public speaking and classroom work.
Why it matters: OMS is using cross-curricular vocabulary and tiered scaffolds to create multiple exposures to academic language and reduce barriers to participation — strategies the principal said have shown early promise and will be measured further with interim assessments.
Ending: Johnson invited board members to visit classrooms; the board expressed appreciation for the team’s reductions in suspensions and early literacy gains.
