Davis High details schoolwide push to lift multilingual learners' literacy

Davis High School principal Heather Hasty told the Yakima School District board on Oct. 6 that the campus will make multilingual learners’ literacy a schoolwide focus for the 2025–26 school year. Hasty said the school has "over 500 multilingual learners" among approximately 2,300 students and that staff are deploying targeted strategies to close large proficiency gaps.

Hasty said the districtwide English language arts baseline is 34.1%, Davis overall is 46.4%, and Davis multilingual learners are at 7.5% proficiency in the data shown to the board, and added that the differences are "not acceptable." The principal described a suite of interventions: restructured professional learning teams (PLTs) giving teachers choice and focused meeting time; concentrated staffing for freshmen (including volunteers to teach only ninth grade); a dedicated freshman transition specialist; monthly instructional priorities tied to the "7 steps to a language-rich classroom" training; and use of STAR Renaissance benchmarks three times a year to monitor reading growth.

Hasty said the school has shifted students to track their own reading progress and report Lexile levels at student-led conferences, and that teachers are using common templates and formative assessments stored in a shared drive to monitor progress. She told the board that while Davis has raised graduation rates and reduced discipline incidents over the past several years, much of the work going forward is about narrowing the achievement gap for English learners.

Superintendent Doctor Green and board members praised the presentation and noted additional data available in the slide deck in BoardDocs. Hasty said more detailed and historical assessment information is provided in the materials submitted to the board and encouraged members to review it. The board took a brief campus tour after the presentation.