The superintendent’s 100 days are up.

After completing her 100-day entry plan, not-so-new-anymore Superintendent Tammy Campbell presented her summary report to the Federal Way Public Schools Board of Directors at a board meeting on Tuesday.

Campbell embarked on her pre-entry plan well before she officially took her seat on July 1, which included visiting schools and meeting board members among other tasks.

At the meeting, Campbell summarized how she completed the five goals set forth in her entry plan, which included: 1. develop a board-superintendent relationship, 2. gain a deeper understanding of organizational strengths, 3. strengthen family and community engagement, 4. promote a positive, collaborative constructive climate, and 5. identify critical issues and challenges.

Campbell and the school board spent seven days attending retreats to enhance their skills.

“In fact, this Saturday, we’re due up for another six hours of learning and training together because what we know, when we read the research, that the most important thing in the overall health of the district to mobilize and actually act on its goal is that partnership between the board and superintendent and how key it is,” Campbell said. “We’ve invested that time and continue to do so.”

To gain a deeper understanding of the district’s strengths, she visited 39 schools, spending two hours at each, and met with every principal and office leader in a one-on-one encounter. She met with high school students who dropped out or were in danger of dropping out and even rode a school bus on its route.

Engaging in the community and with families led Campbell to do a ride along with Police Chief Andy Hwang.

“I’ll tell you, that partnership has really been helpful,” she said. “For example, he’s been really helpful to help us continue to train our own security officers and he’s got some ideas on how we can continue to partner as a city and a school district.”

The district also secured a grant for parent involvement.

“One of the most exciting things that has come out of this work is our Deep Dive 3 success,” Campbell said. “Federal Way procured the Deep Dive 3 event where w’ere going to be working with five of our schools to train parents, leaders who are bilingual to be leaders of a parent academy for other parents and to train parents on what they want to know to be successful in helping their students be successful so they can broker the culture of schools.”

To promote the positive educational environment, Campbell committed herself to visiting classrooms, meeting with families and partnering with the board to establish the “Good News” announcements during board meetings to “celebrate the success of students and staff.”

Critical issues did not go ignored as Campbell reviewed department project plans for critical work in the 2015-16 school year, which included analyzing the budget and making adjustments in response to feedback.

“One thing we did right away is we launched the English Language Arts adoption because so many people said we did not have reading and writing curriculum,” she said. “That was so overwhelming that we knew we needed to act on that right away so our student scholars had the instruction they needed.”

During her 100 days, Campbell received a lot of feedback from families and staff.

“When I asked [what’s working well] of families and the community, most of them talked about this overwhelming positive feeling about the school their child attends, and it’s not uncommon,” she said. “When you look at the… research, most people feel good about their local school.”

The community also agreed they felt staff members cared for children and they appreciated the family liaisons at elementary schools.

But many also had concerns.

According to Campbell, eight out of 10 families listed that academic achievement is an area the district should focus on. Other top concerns included late start days impacting learning and parents’ ability to work (which the district has changed to early dismissal), school lunches being unhealthy, communication and online grades not being maintained on a more regular basis.

Principals, teachers and classified staff also gave feedback, citing the need to provide updated and high quality instructional materials for students.

“New teachers as well as veteran teachers shared the negative impact of having to ‘recreate the wheel’ in writing curriculum when they should be focusing on teaching their students,” Campbell said of their concerns, noting that the themes she saw in the feedback will be used to inform strategies in the strategic planning process.

“I’m very impressed,” said Board Director Carol Gregory after Campbell’s presentation was finished. “I think that some of that we probably knew intuitively but to see the rigor you put forward to bring the community and staff together to think about this and to give some direction is really going to benefit us as we look at the strategic plan and beyond, and when people can see themselves in a process, which these results provide, I think really, that’s a strong message of what your commitment is to the community and the students.”

Board Director Hiroshi Eto said he likes the idea of gauging how individual students are doing, engaging early and collaborating with teachers to assess that.

“When my kids went to school here, they were truly the minority and today it’s really a much more diverse population,” Eto said. “So if we had a system, if we change this to minting coins, we had a system that was all set up for brass and now we have aluminum, tin, silver, gold, the process has to change. So, before it was OK with just a predominant type of student coming through to get a particular outcome and that’s not working anymore.”

Board President Geoffery McAnalloy said it was hard to believe it had been nine months since Campbell was chosen to be the new superintendent.

“I have to commend you to the work that’s been done,” he said. “I have to commend you to the dedication and commitment to all levels of this organization from the student up. The students are at the top, really, so student down, I think. Because we have to hold them up. Your student-centered focus around every decision and everything you do is clear…”

To learn more about Campbell’s 100-day entry plan and the strategic planning going forward, visit www.fwps.org.