Investments in Recovery and Learning Acceleration

At the secondary level, school-wide systems for student empowerment and leadership are necessary to build student efficacy and effectively problem-solve to address concerns such as increased chronic absenteeism, lower average daily attendance, increase in fighting/assault behavior, and low levels of sense of belonging as measured on Panorama in our secondary programs. A one-time investment of for the 2022-23 School Year, the Student Empowerment Initiative supports a workgroup at each respective site to ensure the development of centralized, long-term coordination of middle school and high school student leadership teams and the implementation of a high-quality curriculum for student leadership classes. 

• Investment Period: 2022-23 SY 
• Accessing this Resource: This is a system level support not available for school based allocations.

The purpose of the Acceleration Support dollars is to provide schools with additional resources to accelerate the learning of specific students based on classroom assessment data.  Program and targeted support must be based on classroom-based assessment of students’ learning needs and aligned to current lessons and standards in students’ classes.

 Portions of this funding are available across two years (21-22 and 22-23); schools applied for learning acceleration grants October 2021.

• Investment Period: 2021-22 SY; 2022-23 SY 
• Accessing this Resource: This is a system level support, available for school allocations, that could be applied for during the 2022-23 school year. 

For students and families requesting remote instruction for the 2021-22 school year, Highline has assigned the FTE needed to provide both in-person and remote instruction that is strongly aligned with the goals of each instructional modality. Elementary remote learning provides both special education and general education support, through which students will receive the services aligned to their IEPs from certificated and classified staff, and all remote learning instruction is aligned to our district’s guaranteed and viable curriculum for the duration of the 2021-22 school year. The anticipated investment for the 2021-22 school year is upwards of $1.5 million. 

• Investment Period: 2021-22 SY
• Accessing this Resource: This is a system level support that can be accessed through remote instructional programs for elementary. 

This investment supports additional days and extra service contract hours within the school calendar for instructional educators and other school staff to meet one-to-one with student families in September/October of both the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school year.

If teachers meet with their students' families at the beginning of the school year, exchange contact information, and allow families to share key information about their children, a relationship is formed and an authentic partnership, centered around the students' strengths, needs, and successes can be developed, contributing to the student's educational success.

The total investment between 2021-2023 is anticipated to be roughly $6 Million. 

• Investment Period: 2021-22 SY; 2022-23 SY

• Accessing this Resource: All Highline families are offered family-connection meetings with teachers or other school staff, coordinated between the family and their classroom teacher. 

If we support development and implementation of meaningful and culturally grounded, student centered supports specifically for American Indian/Alaska Native middle and high school students, who have become disengaged and disconnected from learning and our schools during the pandemic, then we will address negative impacts on learning during school closures, improve student outcomes, and make deeper connections with students and their families. This initiative supports 1.0 FTE in a Native Education Secondary Success & Re-engagement Specialist who engages Native secondary students and their families. In 2021-22, students connected with our Native Secondary Success & Re-engagement Specialist (NSSRS) received direct 1:1 support and small group cultural learning opportunities across 6 different middle and high school sites. The Native Education Program at large participated regularly this year in culturally-grounded student-centered offerings such as our Highline Native Student Success Summit (NSSS), Native Student Success Forum, intergenerational learning experience at Cedar River Watershed, and the Native Youth Leadership Academy (NAYLA). In 2022-23 we hope to build on the success of this last school year, having increased our number of students on track to graduate by 15%. This investment pays for salaries and benefits. 

• Investment Period: 2021-22 SY; 2022-23 SY
• Accessing this Resource: The Native Education Secondary Success and Re-engagement Specialist supports schools with highest concentrations of Native students: Highline High, Mount Rainier, Evergreen High, Sylvester Middle School and Glacier Middle School.

If we provide culturally responsive interpretation and translation services and training to school staff on interpretation and translation best practices, schools will access services and families will receive meaningful two-way communication regarding programs, services and opportunities in order to partner with schools to support student success. This initiative allows the district to hire an additional, full-time world translator (Spanish) who will be more available to support schools with written translation needs, due to increased communication and family engagement needs due to the pandemic; the investment pays for salaries and benefits (including Extra Service Contracts for Translation and Training Supports). 

• Investment Period: 2021-22 SY; 2022-23 SY

• Accessing this Resource: This is a braided strategy within our current SS&FE department, supporting and expanding the work of our existing world translators. A form for submitting translation requests can be found here. 

Over $5 Million will be invested over multiple years to purchase and maintain technology; in the 2021-2022 School Year, ESSER supported the purchase of technology such as iPads, chargers, amplifiers, projectors, hotspots, and other devices that support student learning. 

In 2022-23, we will evaluate the need for instructional technology and purchase from the source that will ensure we have the technology needed to support students. 

• Investment Period: 2021-22 SY;  2022-23 SY

• Accessing this Resource: This is a braided strategy district-wide, supporting and expanding the work of our existing technology department. 

The demands on our technology department have increased tenfold since the start of the pandemic; both in day-to-day operations (ensuring our infrastructure can withstand the demands of simultaneously remote, hybrid, and in-person instructional models) and long-term strategy (operationalizing becoming a 1:1 district).

In order to ensure that our district can provide strong customer service, provide timely and effective tech support, and ensure our network and Highline Technology can continue to support students and staff, we have invested ESSER funds in seven new technician positions. 

• Investment Period: 2021-22 SY; 2022-23 SY
• Accessing this Resource: This is a braided strategy district-wide, supporting and expanding the work of our existing technology department. 
• Additional FTE & Staff Support: 

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, student attendance has dropped significantly; attendance impacts student learning, including their GPA, whether they are on- track to graduate, and their ability to access further educational opportunities. For the past seven years, Highline Public Schools Americorps coaches have had tremendous success in supporting cohorts of students working to improve their attendance, grades, and postsecondary plans. These Americorps coaches (who are often alumni from HPS, mirroring the experiences and cultures of our student population) work with individual students to further our promise of knowing every student by name, strength, and need; they are a key component of our equity agenda. Our coaches offer services to students who are not receiving other Tier 2 services in their school. If we invest in additional AmeriCorps members who serve as near-peer mentors while working with a cohort of students to build relationships, offer SEL support, provide academic tutoring, and college and career planning, student’s sense of belonging in the school building will grow and attendance rates will improve. The total anticipated investment of this strategy is upwards of $300,000. 

• Investment Period: 2022-23 SY

• Accessing this Resource: This is a system level support not available for school-based allocations; all secondary schools have access to the positions covered by this investment. 

During the 2021-22 School Year, Highline Public Schools Initiated an RFP process for a supplemental reading program for our P-3 students. In the 2022-23 school year, we will adopt and implement these supplemental materials, totaling no more than $250,000. 

Learning acceleration is contingent on having both formative assessments and the infrastructure to support teaching teams with implementing those formative assessments to transform instructional practices; ESSER funds are providing the district with 3 district data literacy specialists. Throughout the 2021-22 school year, these specialists supported the increased volume of data and public information requests, as well as direct support to new programs such as Highline Virtual Academy and Elementary Remote. Additionally, the team collaborated with schools to add dashboards and data reports for annual action plan progress monitoring for school specific goals; dashboards represent trends across programming, race, ethnicity and gender in order to holistically engage equitable strategies. In 2022-23, if we continue to assign these data-coaches to support instructional planning teams, professional learning communities and school leaders in effectively using data, then schools will develop the routines and practices needed to use formative assessments/assignments and respond to student strength and need. That anticipated investment of this strategy is primarily in salaries and benefits. 

• Investment Period: 2021-22 SY; 2022-23 SY
• Accessing this Resource: This is a system level support not available for school-based allocations; all schools have access to the positions and professional learning opportunities paid for by this investment. 

In addition to a contract that will provide summer recovery services based on student progress and referrals throughout the 2022-23 SY, we have multiple projects supporting Learning Recovery in Special Education:

This initiative supports targeted interventions at the elementary level, providing additional braided support for the Team Read program that will allow the program to serve an additional school site and providing up to 6 annual substitutes for the 2022-23 SY who will support release time for educators to engage in literacy unit planning and data analysis. The total anticipated investment for the 2022-23 SY is roughly $790,000.

Investment Period: 2021-22 SY;  2022-23 SY

This initiative supports summer learning opportunities for students. If we provide strong summer learning experiences for students in math and literacy that builds both skill and confidence, students will have increased student success in grade-appropriate standards the following year.

 The total anticipated investment of supporting summer school is anticipated to be upwards of $800,000 over the 2022-23 SY. 

Investment Period: 2021-22 SY; 2022-23 SY

 In alignment with our long-term goal to ensure that all students in Highline Public Schools will have access to research-based culturally responsive instructional materials in all content areas, we have invested ESSER funds in identifying and implementing high-quality, research and standards-based, instructional materials that will ensure every student can experience academic instruction from a guaranteed and viable curriculum. Between 2020 and 2023, the anticipated total investment in Curriculum Adoption, Development, and Implementation is over $7 Million. 

Curriculum Adoption, Development, & Implementation supports various projects each funding year

• 2020-21 School Year: ESSER funds were used to adopt Language Arts Instructional Materials for K-12 (ARC). Information on the 2020-21 Language Arts Curriculum Adoption is linked here. 
• 2021-22 School Year: For the 2021-22 School Year, we implemented additional curriculum materials for remote and dual language learning from Sponge to strengthen Highline’s Remote Instructional model. Led by Bernard Koontz, the district also convened the IMC with several workgroups to evaluate and recommend a new curriculum for district-wide adoption in K-12 Music/Arts, K-5 Science, 6-8 Science, and Higher Level Math (some of these committees will continue into the 2022-23 SY). Highline anticipates investing upwards of $3 Million in total for district-wide curriculum adoptions in 2022-23. 
• 2022-23 School Year: For the 2022-23 School Year, there is an additional focus in curriculum development for dual language settings and targeted professional development in Language Arts. 
  • Secondary Dual Language Literacy Curriculum: Inquiry By Design will co-develop with Highline one literacy unit per grade 6-9, in both Spanish and Vietnamese, that will include the same materials that English language arts teachers have access to for one unit of study (e.g., daily lessons, class texts, essential tools, rubrics, student readers). This investment in the secondary dual language literacy curriculum is also an investment in Highline's Bilingual and Biliterate Goal, and it will address the equity disparities throughout the K-12 Dual Language Programs by ensuring that every DL student has access to a guaranteed and viable curriculum and to equitable opportunities for success in all subject areas.
  • Elementary Language Learning: Highline Public Schools has recently adopted a new ARC literacy curriculum for grade K-5. This K-5 ARC curriculum has a Spanish component for our Dual Language spanish program. However, it does not have a Vietnamese translation, and it does not fully integrate Social Studies and Science into the curriculum. Our K-5 dual language programs currently do not have a clear model to teach and integrate social studies standards with the literacy curriculum. This investment funds a 3 day work session with DL teacher representatives from all grades in June to work on improving the Dual Language units and integrating content curriculum into the ARC Dual Language program units. As a result, Highline would have a comprehensive Curriculum Map for Dual Language K-5 schools that would include integrated unit plans that include the ARC literacy curriculum and science social studies standards.
  • Secondary Language Arts IBD: In 2019 we began the process of adopting new Language Arts material for grades 6-12. Due to the on-going COVID-19 restrictions we have been limited in our ability to completely engage teachers in robust professional learning to support successful implementation and use of the new materials. In order to provide substantial support in year 2 of implementation we will utilize funds to compensate teachers for participation in professional learning throughout the year that will assist them in supporting students in their reading and writing development.
• Accessing this Resource: This is a system level support not available for school-based allocations.
• Investment Period: 2021-22 SY; 2022-23 SY