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West Salem board highlights strong report-card results, outlines SEL rollout at elementary
Summary
District staff reported gains across elementary and middle schools, with the district composite rising to 72.3; presenters described a coordinated social-emotional learning curriculum at West Salem Elementary and an 18-month plan to address high-school assessment gaps.
The West Salem School District reported measurable gains on this year’s state report cards while updating the board on a formal social-emotional learning (SEL) rollout at West Salem Elementary.
Alyssa, a district presenter, told the board the district “exceeded expectations with a 72.3,” noting the elementary school “exceeded expectations at 81 with a score of 81.8” and that middle-school performance rose to a raw score of 80.2. The high school scored 60.2 — essentially stable from last year — and shows strong achievement alongside lower measures of growth. Alyssa said growth for the district’s lowest-performing learners and other target-group measures were particularly notable.
Why it matters: the report-card composite combines achievement, growth, target-group outcomes and on-track-to-graduation measures that districts use to compare performance across regional and statewide cohorts. Alyssa said the district will pursue an 18-month strategy to align instruction, interventions and test formats — including targeted ACT alignment — to improve high-school growth measures.
Presenters also outlined the district’s approach to social-emotional learning at the elementary level. Charlie Alexander, described in the packet as elementary associate principal, said the school adopted selected CASEL competencies, used the 2nd Step curriculum as a primary tool, and developed a guaranteed scope-and-sequence so students across classrooms receive consistent SEL instruction. Alexander described teachers’ use of rubrics and monthly data meetings to track student progress and group students for tiered supports.
Alexander described an active partnership to validate SEL work: “We’ve been really fortunate to work with Jenny Riggle from CISA … and through that, we were contacted by Yale University to work with their … social emotional observation checklist,” and he said the district will record lessons and compare checklists as part of that pilot.
District staff and board members said the SEL effort mirrors the academic cycle: identify standards, select or adapt curriculum to local needs, and use frequent assessment and feedback to guide instruction. Alyssa and staff said the high school will also adopt targeted teacher collaboration and two-days-per-week resource time to reteach students who are not yet meeting proficiency on specific targets.
Next steps: the board will return to report-card grades in the “discuss and consider” portion of future agendas; the administration will implement the 18-month assessment-alignment plan and report progress to the teaching and learning committee.
