Test scores rise at Hood Canal Schools

For perhaps the first time in district history, the middle school students at Hood Canal topped the state average in four of five learning subjects.

In the state Smarter Balanced Assessment results released recently, the district's seventh and eighth grade students from last school year scored above the state average (in competency) in seventh grade English/language arts with 53.6%, eighth-grade English/language arts at 48%, seventh grade math at 39.3% and eighth grade science at 41.4%. Eighth grade math was the only subject where the students fell below the state average of 23% with 20.7%.

In 2023, the Hood Canal seventh and eighth graders scored below the state average in all five subjects.

"This is a pretty remarkable improvement over last year," Superintendent Lance Gibbon said in an interview with the Journal.

Eighth grade is the final year at Hood Canal. "For us as a school, our primary goal is to help our students be successful at high school because that's the next step in their career," Gibbon said.

Most of the students will move on to be ninth graders at one of the three high schools in the Shelton School District. "We want to send them off with the knowledge and the skills to succeed in high school and beyond," Gibbon said.

A contributing factor in the improved test scores might be the district reducing chronic absenteeism by half from last school year, Gibbon said. "Students need to be in school to learn," he said.

What makes the testing improvements more notable is that 81% of the district's students come from low-income families. Some of them are homeless, and some have single parents who have two jobs and aren't as available to help with schoolwork, Gibbon said.

Students can get free food and clothing at a school pantry.

"It's really trying to meet their basic needs," Gibbon said.

The district's 30 seventh graders and 30 ninth graders have four teachers. Heather Akiyama teaches science, Toby Syrett social studies, Jessie Sage English and language arts and Dr. Suzanne Close math.

"These students get the same set of teachers for two years," Gibbon said. "They have continuity."

Gibbon points out the students also spend time with their teachers outside the classroom. The school clubs were reborn after the pandemic. Akiyama is the adviser of Bryds, an outdoor environmental science lab with team-oriented activities. Syrett runs Boots, which helps students develop teamwork, group decision making, leadership and outdoor skills on hikes, overnight field trips, wilderness backpacking, mountaineering and other activities. Sage runs the Dungeons & Dragons Club, the Yearbook Club and Associated Student Body.

On the state assessment test, the teachers say they convinced the students to take it seriously.

"We decided that if the students aren't motivated to do well, they won't," Close said.

"We collaborate in meeting student needs," Akiyama said. "We challenge each other ... I have a team of people I'm working with."

If we focus on the low income of many district families, "There's an expectation that they're not going to do better," Syrett said. "They get brushed off."

Instead, "We don't run it that way ... We meet the kids where they're at," Syrett said.