Investments in Recovery and Acceleration

The purpose of providing additional funds that support emerging needs across the district is to be able to respond to schools and students now.

For the 2021-2022 school year, Learning Recovery Programs have consisted of strategies to respond to needs when identified. Snap and Read services have allowed students additional access to digital texts, and creating opportunities for 7th grade students to attend Waskowitz in the Spring has allowed this student access to learning experiences missed due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. These programs further strengthen other ESSER funded strategies such as remote instruction and Social Emotional Learning efforts.

• Investment Period: 2021-22 SY; 2022-23 SY
• Accessing this Resource: This initiative overlaps with Remote Learning, Waskowitz Instructional, and SEL.

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 (2021-22 and 2022-23); 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 2021-22 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 anticipated investment of supporting family connection meetings 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.

This initiative allows the district to hire a highly specialized Native Education Secondary Success & Re-engagement Specialist who will engage and re-engage Native secondary students and their families. This position supports students who have been most negatively impacted by the pandemic by engaging in a broad range of culturally grounded Native secondary student & family-centered engagement services and support activities.

Many of these services will be coordinated across schools, district departments, providers, and community partners/agencies that serve the urban Native community in the Highline/Seattle area. 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.

In doing so, we will respond to the equity disparities experienced (pre-pandemic and currently) by Native students in accessing quality secondary supports, graduating on time, and developing pathways for lifelong success. This investment pays for salaries and benefits. 

• Investment Period: 2021-22 SY; 2022-23 SY
• Accessing this Resource: The Native Education Secondary Success & Re-engagement Specialist supports schools with highest concentrations of Native students: Highline High School, Mount Rainier High School, Evergreen High School, Sylvester Middle School, and Glacier Middle School. Limited support/engagement provided to schools with lower numbers of AIAN students may also be provided. 
• Additional FTE & Staff Support: This investment adds 1.0 FTE to the District who will re-engage Native secondary students in their school communities. 

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. Translation requests can be found in this form. 
• Additional FTE & Staff Support: This investment adds 1.0 FTE to the World Translation team.  

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. 

• 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: 

In Highline, we believe that if we prioritize strengthening relationships, provide intentional supportive transitions, and maintain a clear focus on accelerating social emotional and academic learning, our youngest learners will be set up for success.

For the 2021-2022 School Year, Highline received additional term-limited funding through Title, and those funds are being used to support our P-3 Initiatives for the 2021-2022 school year.

P-3 support will be funded under ESSER for the 2022-2023 School Year.

Learning acceleration is contingent on having both formative assessments and the infrastructure to support teaching teams with implementing those formative assessments in ways that inform and transform instructional practice. If we assign regional data-coaches that can support instructional planning teams, professional learning communities and school leaders in effectively using data, schools will develop the routines and practices needed to use formative assessments/assignments and respond to student strength and need.

ESSER funds are providing up to four district data literacy specialists, who work as coaches at the school level, to support the implementation of data redesign across the district; developing aligned data literacy skills within our instructional teams on key formative assessments, such as iReady and the new assessments provided within our district’s recently adopted Language Arts materials.

With this investment supporting our instructional planning teams, professional learning communities, and school leaders in effectively using data, 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.

Includes multiple investments, as outlined below:

Learning Recovery, special topics, focuses on providing students with targeted learning support in Reading. 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.  

• 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 greater than $2.5 million over the next two academic years. 

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

If we identify and implement high-quality research and standards-based instructional materials will ensure every student can experience academic instruction from a guaranteed and viable curriculum. Thus far, our investments have included purchasing Language Arts instructional Materials K-12 in 2020-21 (ARC).

For the 2021-22 School Year, we have implemented additional curriculum materials for remote and dual language learning from Sponge to strengthen Highline’s Remote Instructional model. In alignment with our long-term to goal to ensure that all students in Highline Public Schools will have access to research-based culturally responsive instructional materials in all content areas, additional curriculum adoptions will occur through Highline’s Instructional Materials Committee (IMC), who will commence course reviews and provide recommendations for additional adoptions during the 2021-22 academic year. Between 2020-23, the anticipated total investment is over $6 million. 

• Information on the Instructional Materials Committee can be found on the HPS' Language Arts Adoption web page. 
  • Information on the 2020-21 Language Arts Curriculum Adoption can be found on HPS' Language Arts Adoption web page.
  • Information on the Highline’s ongoing Music Curriculum Adoption process can be found on this press release. 
• Investment Period: 2021-22 SY; 2022-23 SY

• Investment Period: 2021-22 SY