By PAT JENKINS

Editor

Racial and economic barriers to learning would be toppled under a plan for equity and achievement in the Federal Way Public School system.

To improve the academic fortunes of underachieving students, third and sixth-graders reading one year below grade level wouldn’t advance to the next grade, students who speak English as a second language would be expected to improve their reading and writing by 10 percent per year in statewide tests, and struggling students would receive extended-learning opportunities.

Those are among the goals in the plan that was presented to the School Board last week by superintendent Tom Murphy.

The plan addresses disparities noted earlier in certain minority students’ results in the standardized Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) test. Hispanic, Native American and black students scored well below other ethnic groups and, in comparison to their percentage of the district’s total enrollment, were underenrolled in advanced or honors classes and programs.

“All kids are capable of meeting the standard” and will be helped toward that goal by steps outlined in the plan, Murphy said.

The plan, formulated since last year with the community involvement of a 26-member task force and an 11-person advisory council formed by the district, seeks to raise the achievement level of students who are farthest behind. Officials said those students tend to be ethnic minorities and from poor families.

There are high numbers of both in Federal Way schools. Forty percent of the district’s students are minorities, and about one-third of the approximately 22,000 students districtwide receive free or reduced-price lunches because of their families’ low incomes.

Unless the district sets an aggressive course for improving the academic performance of these segments of students, a “two-class” system will grow, with troubling results for communities, Murphy said. “There will be the haves and the have-nots.”

“That’s what’s so important about the work coming out of this plan,” said Diane Turner, the district’s director of community relations.

Officials propose partnerships with community organizations and businesses to promote improved academics. Also emerging from the plan is a new job with the title of parent liaison. The position, not filled yet, would be an on-call troubleshooter for concerns parents have about their children’s education.

“Corporations have a customer representative, so why shouldn’t parents” have a district representative helping them, said Earl VanDorien Jr., president of the School Board.

Staff development of teachers is another goal of the plan. Murphy said black high school students have told him they don’t feel encouraged to enter open-enrollment advanced placement classes. Sometimes the problem is a lack of racial sensitivity, he said. In one instance, a teacher reportedly cautioned a black pupil that a class was difficult, but didn’t give the same warning to white students.

“If a kid thinks that somebody cares about them and accepts them, they’ll do better,” Murphy reasoned. He said teachers will be urged to “check your assumptions at the door and don’t make any.”

The ethnic gap in student performance is a statewide issue. In the Iowa Test of Education Development taken last spring by Washington ninth-graders, American Indians, blacks and Hispanics scored as many as 26 points lower than white and Asian students.

Editor Pat Jenkins can be reached at 925-5565 and editor@fedwaymirror.com

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