Northshore School District reports mixed gains under 'Goal 3,' outlines steps to close academic and discipline gaps

Northshore School District officials presented an update on “Goal 3” of the district strategic plan — continuous academic growth and elimination of opportunity gaps — at a study session tonight, showing pockets of improvement alongside persistent disparities for some student groups.

Dr. Craig Foster, the district’s director of research and evaluation, said the district used three approaches to analyze outcomes: end-of-year percentages, within‑year (cohort) growth using iReady assessments, and comparison with Washington’s SBA results. “This is why that universal implementation of iReady is so valuable to us,” Foster said, describing four years of iReady data and noting a notable gain in some middle-school cohorts that SBA data partly corroborate.

The presentation showed improvements in early grades and a mid‑school uptick in both iReady and SBA results for some years, but staff stressed interpretation limits. Foster and other presenters warned that sampling effects, changes in participation and benchmark differences between iReady and SBA can affect apparent changes year to year.

The district’s analysis also documented persistent subgroup gaps. Dr. Eva Thomas, executive director of operational change and student advancement, pointed to disproportionality in discipline data for Black and Hispanic/Latino students, male students, students receiving special education services and students from low-income households. She outlined two parallel strategies: technical reforms (standardized data collection, a district review team, root-cause and action-plan templates, and an updated Rights & Responsibilities handbook) and adaptive change (racial and educational justice framework piloted at elementary, middle and high schools).

On supports, Director Rick Ferrell outlined counselor and therapist capacity. He said each elementary school has at least one counselor, many middle schools have three counselors adjusted by enrollment, and the district’s high-school counselor staffing is scaled to student load (he cited a typical high-school ratio of about 1 counselor per 325 students). Ferrell also noted continued grant support — Evergreen Health and the King County Best Start for Kids program — and a Care Solace contract that connects families to mental‑health and social services.

Instructional responses highlighted deeper MTSS (multi-tiered systems of support) work, adoption of the Danielson 2022 evaluation framework, expanded small-group instruction and co-teaching models, and curriculum changes intended to increase algebra-by‑eighth‑grade completion. An instructional leader described “WIN Time” (60 minutes of core elementary math instruction plus an additional 30 minutes of targeted time) and a new algebra sequence designed to double access to algebra in middle grades; a board member noted that algebra completion by eighth grade has “more than doubled” compared with roughly 15 years ago when rates were in the 30th percentile.

Board members asked for more visibility on students who enter already above grade level, questioned anomalous subgroup results (for example, an increase by race in a single grade that may reflect small subgroup sizes), and pressed staff for concrete, replicable interventions for Black and Latino students. Staff said internal, more granular analyses are used to track high-achieving students and students who exit ELL or special education pools, and emphasized targeted vocabulary and comprehension work, culturally responsive instruction, and school-level collaborative inquiry as levers for change.

On discipline reporting, a board member asked why students with IEPs appear overrepresented in suspension counts; staff explained some short removals are reported under current rules and described the use of functional behavior analyses, behavior intervention plans and additional supports intended to reduce instructional loss for those students.

District leaders also noted operational complexities in partnering with local governments because Northshore spans multiple counties and cities, which can complicate shared interventions tied to residency-based services.

The Rights & Responsibilities committee has added cell‑phone incidents as a leveled offense this year to calibrate consequences consistently across schools. Dr. Foster said the dataset presented covered the 2024–25 year, so the district will use fall Panorama data under Strategic Goal 2 to examine whether the new cell‑phone policy or other recent changes are associated with shifts in discipline metrics.

The board did not take formal votes at the study session. Staff said several next steps include taking the updated Rights & Responsibilities handbook to cabinet after spring break, continuing grant renewals and pilots of racial and educational justice supports, and publishing follow-up analyses with fall Panorama data to measure implementation impacts.

The meeting adjourned after the presentation and discussion.