McGilvra’s ‘Field of Dreams’ has a sequel

Guest Posting
by Will Lomen

One day a little girl fell on the rough McGilvra Elementary School dirt field, scraping her hands and knees. Years later in October of 1999 that little girl was the president of the McGilvra PTSA and the field was in even worse condition. Zimmie Caner had had enough so she approached another McGilvra parent, Deb Kahn, about chairing a committee to research the possibility of resurfacing the school's field. On that day the "McGilvra Field of Dreams" was born.
Reaching out into the neighborhood the committee found broad support within the entire Madison Park/Washington Park community. Raising funds through City and County matching grants, donations from local citizens and businesses and money jars at local stores the committee raised over $380,000 for the project.

During the field evaluation process the committee realized that the Astro Turf generation was over and that the "infill" generation was on the horizon. The "good news" about Astro Turf is that it is durable and doesn't require a lot of maintenance, but the "bad news" is that the abrasive surface causes rug burns; and its hard sub-surface results in bone-jarring thumps to the head and unyielding hits to shoulders and collar bones. The term "infill" refers to a green-bladed polypropylene material that is supported by millions of tiny rubber granules that are mixed into the synthetic carpet to provide a cushioned, more grass-like surface for sliding and falling athletes. Put simply it is padded carpet installed over an efficient stone aggregate drain field.

Finally, on the hot and dusty day of June 25th 2001, Jo Shapiro, McGilvra Elementary School's principal, attempted unsuccessfully to dig a ceremonial shovel into the rock hard surface of the school's 35 X 70 yard athletic field. If ever there was a validation of the committee's vision, this was it. Throughout the summer, heavy equipment came and went, holes were dug, the drain gravel was laid and one day in late August ten large rolls of carpet were delivered and rolled out looking like an installation for a giant's living room. Then a few weeks later the first soccer game was played between two nine-year-old boys’ teams from the McGivra Soccer Club, the Terminators and the Nomads.

Now nine years later, using funds from the Building Excellence III project approved by voters in 2007, the Seattle School District is in the process of replacing the field built in 2001. According to David Standaart of the Seattle School District, the project, which cost nearly $250,000, should be finished by early August; and he confirms the field will be ready for the McGilvra Soccer Club's practices next month. According to Standaart the existing sub-surface needed a little laser leveling but was otherwise in good shape. He also stated that the District will conduct G-max testing once the field is completed. G-max measures the impact of a body when it makes contact with a surface. Once they establish a "baseline" they will compare that to tests done in the future to evaluate how hard the surface has become. The School District will also be responsible for the yearly grooming and general maintenance of the field.

Bruce Clarkson, the McGilvra Soccer Club president, is excited about the new field and says that it will be complete with lines defining the soccer field and extra markings denoting kickball bases for the school's PE classes. He also pointed out that the original field had reached the end of its life expectancy, with fraying seams and a slippery surface. "It was becoming a safety issue," he said.

One difference between the original surface and the new Sportexe field manufactured by Shaw Flooring is the addition of sand into the rubber infill. According to Hailey Towne, a resident of Madison Park and a project coordinator for contractor D.A. Hogan, this mixture provides a firm surface that enhances speed and accurate ball movement. Supporting the surface are panels called "Brock Pads" which provide safe cushioning and prolong the life of the field. D.A Hogan, with offices locally, has built over a thousand athletic fields all over the country including synthetic surfaces at the Seahawks’ Virginia Mason practice complex and the natural grass surface at the Mariners’ Safeco Field.

It's heartening to have the Seattle School District recognize that the McGilvra Field is not only a public-school asset but also a field that is used by the local community, as well as kids and people from all over the city. The Madison Park/Washington Park neighborhood is pleased that the legacy of the "Field of Dreams" is continuing as a "Field of Reality".

[Will Lomen is a lifelong Madison Park resident who also has his own blog, Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here. Photos above show the 2010 installation and are by Will Lomen.]

McGilvra gets new principal in September

The Seattle School District yesterday named Mary Lane, who has been serving this school year as a principal with the Shanghai American School (SAS) in China, as the new McGilvra Elementary School principal for the 2010-11 school year. Lane's most recent experience in Washington was as the principal of Hawkins Middle School in Belfair (located on Hood Canal in Kitsap County). According to the School District, her experience also includes a stint as an assistant superintendent in a Dominican Republic school district. She began her career as an elementary classroom teacher, later moving into administration.

Lane has been in the role of SAS's elementary school principal at the Puxi campus, which provides a pre-kindergarden though fifth-grade education to 650 students from approximately 40 countries. The are more than 100 teachers and staff connected with the school, whose mission is to provide an education on a par with what would be offered in the best American private and public schools. Puxi is an area at the core of urban Shanghai.

Lane's academic credentials include a Master's Degree in education from the University of Tennessee and a B.S. in elementary education from Tennessee Temple University. Why Lane chose to go to China and why she is now returning to the States are questions unanswered in the District's press release. We hope to have the opportunity of asking her about all of that and more. She will be attending the PTA meeting at McGilvra this evening at 6:30 pm.

.

Lane's selection occurred after a round of interviews with a team composed of McGilvra parents, teachers, and staff. She was named one of the finalists for the job by the school's interview team, with Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson and Susan Enfield, the District's Chief Academic Officer, making the final choice.

.

McGilvra's Interim Principal Birgit McShane will continue in her role through the end of the current school year, which has certainly proven to be an interesting one administratively.

McGilvra honored with State school award

McGilvra is one of only five Seattle elementary schools to receive a 2009 Washington Achievement Award from the State Board of Education and the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. The awards, recently announced by the Superintendent (prior to his DUI arrest), are part of the Education Board’s accountability program, under which all State schools were indexed for the performance of their students in statewide reading, writing, math and science tests for the last three school years (2007-2009), as well as for the schools’ extended graduation rate. The State awards are being given to schools that have “profoundly affected student learning.”

McGilvra is one of 51 elementary schools in the Seattle School District. The four other Seattle elementary school award recipients are Beacon Hill, Bryant, Hay and Laurelhurst. Statewide, only 70 elementary schools were recognized. So for McGilvra, this is a big honor. Congratulations to the teachers and staff of the School—as well as to those studious kids—for their achievement.

Incidentally, McGilvra’s demographics were posted to the Seattle School website recently (though mining the data there practically required a request under the Public Disclosure Act). McGilvra has 257 students enrolled this school year, which is in line with last year’s level. Of these, 77% are white (compared to 46% for the District as a whole) and only 6% qualify for a free or reduced-cost lunch (compared to 40% District-wide). Much of this difference in school demographics, relative to the rest of the City, is the result of neighborhood characteristics; but only 59% of McGilvra’s students live in the general area (within the boundaries of the McGilvra school-assignment area). Almost all of the students in the School are there because their parents chose the school as their first choice for assignment (only 7% are in the school as a result of a second or lower choice).

Some changes may take place next year in the enrollment mix, according to PTA co-President Bob Steedman. This is the result of the New Student Assignment Plan, which among other changes, mandates that students living within a school’s enrollment area are automatically allowed to attend their neighborhood school. This alone should not impact McGilvra, since McGilvra already is able to accommodate the children of area residents and still have 40% excess capacity for students from other areas. This year is a transition year for the new plan (previously enrolled students are allowed to stay in the school whether or not they would qualify under the new rules), and it is not clear how the plan may work in future years when grandfathering goes away. Siblings of grandfathered students, for example, will not be automatically assigned to the same school. This has been a big issue for many parents. The introduction of special education programs into certain elementary schools may also cause changes in enrollment. For McGilvra, as for the rest of the City’s schools, the assignment plan remains a moving target.

McGilvra’s new principal says ‘I’m loving it”

Though she’d only been on the job for seven weeks, I thought it was about time for me wander down to the old school and find out what the new principal has to say about her unanticipated mid-school-year assignment. Fortunately for me, Principal McShane was a good sport when I suggested it was time for us to have a chat. And when I sat down with her earlier this month to get her impressions, I found her to be engaging, energetic, and generous with her time. She was even candid, though I still did get an occasional admonishment: “please don’t put that in your blog.”

First of all, regarding the pronunciation of her first name, Birgit. “It’s pronounced as in birdJET,” she tells me, noting that the name (it’s Danish) was always a problem for her when she was in school. She arrived in America from Denmark when she was five and was sent off to school knowing little or no English. She’s a product of the Seattle Public Schools (Roosevelt High School) and lives in Ballard with her husband in a house they’ve owned for many years. She says she doesn’t mind the commute to Madison Park, but the getting up early to head off to work was a bit of a challenge in the first few days. She’d been retired for three years when the call came from the School District: ‘Would you be willing to come back and take on the principal’s role at McGilvra?’ She said yes, and she admits to no regrets so far.

Unsurprisingly, McShane was circumspect about the circumstances under which she learned that her days of sleeping in late were over. So I didn’t press her for an answer to exactly how long before her arrival at McGilvra on Monday, January 25, she knew she would be replacing DeWanda Cook-Weaver, who had vacated the principal‘s office the previous Friday. As we reported at the time, Cook-Weaver suddenly took an extended “leave of absence” only five months into the school year—with no public goodbyes. The issue was then (and still is) a “personnel matter” that the School District is unwilling for legal reasons to discuss.

McShane told me that she is a forward-looking person and doesn’t see any reason to focus on what may have happened before she arrived at McGilvra. The school is known for having strong parental involvement, and I wondered if McShane has found that at all disconcerting. Far from it, she told me. “Parental involvement is paramount to having a successful school. In fact I don’t know how you’d do it without that support.” She noted that her experience includes taking on the principal role at Daniel Bagley Elementary, a school that at the time had only a few active parents. She said she immediately began working to change that, and by end of her tenure there she felt that the school had one of the highest levels of participation by parents of any elementary school in the City.

As for McGilvra’s parents, she says she is pleased with them and hopes they’re as pleased with her. “I believe they are happy to have an experienced principal” in the interim role, she told me. “They’ve been wonderful, very welcoming.” She said that she’s had the same reception from the teachers and staff of the school.

But it’s the kids that she is enjoying the most, she told me. She says that one of the real fun parts of the principal’s job is taking on lunch and recess duty “because I get to be with the children.” On her first day in the lunchroom, however, she said it was difficult for her to communicate with her charges because of the noise level. She solved the problem with the introduction of a P.A. system, which has really helped with the interaction. “I have fun with it—and I hope that they are having fun with it as well.”

After seven weeks has she discovered anything that has shocked her about McGilvra? “Nothing at all,” she told me, adding “but I usually don’t get shocked.” She did say, however, that the intensity of parent involvement could have been shocking to someone who had not already experienced something like it in a previous position. She commented that she began her career as a Head Start teacher, and parents are highly involved with their children’s education under that model. With that background, she said, she’s developed a philosophy about being successful that starts with the idea that “parent involvement is not a threat.” What a teacher—or a principal—needs to do with parents, she noted, is “build trust.”

I asked PTA co-President Bob Steedman what the parents’ reaction to McShane is after her first few weeks on the job. “We’re enjoying her being here,” he said, noting that the parents have found her to be personable, professional, and very approachable. “She really took the bull by the horns” when she arrived, he told me. “She communicates well and has already resolved a lot of issues that we were having.”

Steedman reports that the teachers and staff of McGilvra seem to really like McShane, especially because she listens and then acts on their concerns. He also gives her solid marks on discipline. In his view, McShane knows how to lay down the law as principal, making the rules and expecting the students to follow them. “But the kids really respect her.”

Steedman’s bottom line on McShane: “She’s great, she really is. I wish she could stay.”

But that’s not in the cards. McShane is officially retired under the State teacher pension system and could not remain on “active duty” into the next school year. When she took on the “interim” principal role, McShane expected it might be an assignment of only a few weeks. Sometime before I interviewed her, however, she said she got a call from the School District in which “I was invited to stay” through the end of the school year. She said that she and the District agreed that she's a “good match” with McGilvra.

The process is now underway, however, to pick a principal for the new school year. A committee appointed by staff and the Building Leadership Team (BLT), composed of teachers, parents, and staff, will advise the District on the new hire. That role will include interviewing the candidates and recommending some of them to the Superintendent. McShane told me that while it is probably not impossible that a principal from another Seattle school could be a candidate, it is more likely that the candidates will be from outside the District or Seattle assistant principals or head teachers who hold principal credentials. The process is expected to last into April.

.

Will McShane be sad when it’s all over? She’s not saying, but I suspect it will be a regretful departure on both sides. “I love the action of being in school” she told me, “and I feel I can still offer something. McGilvra’s a wonderful place in which to work."

Day Two for McGilvra's new principal

McGilvra Elementary's new "interim" principal, Birgit McShane (at center in the photo above), listens as seven McGilvra students speak extemporaneously on the subject "Why I Like McGilvra." It was Open House at the school this evening, and several dozen parents who are planning on (or at least considering) sending their children to McGilvra were in attendance for the presentation by PTA members, School District officers, and students. The event was held in the school library, following which there were tours of the classrooms, interactions with some very well-behaved McGilvra students, and questions for McGilvra's teachers and staff.

Also making a presentation was Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson, who gave an overview of the District's plans for the year, including how the new student assignment plan will (hopefully) work. Goodloe-Johnson proved quite adept in cutting off questions on why the school's departed principal, DeWanda Cook-Weaver, is now on leave.

It's my impression that many of McGilvra's parents are pleased with the change in leadership at the school. I had an opportunity to speak with McShane, who seemed pleasant, open, ready to get down to work--and perhaps slightly dazed by the suddenness of her return to the principal's role. She had retired from the district in 2008 after a long career, which included stints as principal at both Bagley (Green Lake) and Sacajawea (Lake City) Elementary schools. She herself is a graduate of the Seattle Schools (Roosevelt High School) and currently resides in Ballard. She is expected to be on board through the end of the school year (though the school district cannot confirm this because of the "personnel matter" involving Cook-Weaver that it's currently dealing with).

McShane agreed to let me quiz her once she gets acclimatized at the school. This I plan to do.

McGilvra principal is out

Effective last Friday, DeWanda Cook-Weaver is on an indefinite leave of absence as principal of McGilvra Elementary School. “We can’t say anything about it because it is a personnel matter,“ says Seattle Public Schools spokesperson Teresa Wippel.

Effective today, Birgit McShane, a former elementary school principal in the Seattle Public School system, has taken the reins at McGilvra as “interim principal.” It is possible that she will serve in that role through the end of the school year, according to Wippel. Officially, the school district will not comment on whether Cook-Weaver might return to McGilvra at some future date. To quote a statement this afternoon from a school district spokesperson: "We are not legally able to comment on the terms of the leave or speculate on the timeline."

McGilvra PTA President Bob Steedman was reticent about discussing the situation publicly, except to say that Cook-Weaver’s decision to leave was made for “personal reasons.” It is well known, however, that McGivra benefits from having a high level of parent involvement in the school, meaning a very activist PTA. This is a fact Cook-Weaver herself acknowledged when I interviewed her at the beginning of the school year (“What’s new in the schoolhouse?”). I’ve been told that some parents felt that her management style was not a “good fit” for the school. She had only been in the position at McGivra for four months at the time of her departure last week.

Steedman was full of praise for the district’s handling of the situation and, having just met McShane this morning, says he is excited that she’s on board. Both McShane and Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson, he notes, will be attending the open house tomorrow evening at McGilvra (6:30 – 8:00 pm). The ostensible purpose of the event, scheduled earlier this year, is to provide information about the school to parents of children not yet enrolled. But the curious are also welcome.

[Photo courtesy of the McGilvra School Messenger]

Short takes - 6

We’ve just experienced another glorious, sunny weekend in the Park; and I can’t help but wonder whether we might have to pay some future price for all of the beautiful weather we’ve had this year. Of course, as anyone who knows me will tell you, I’ve always been a “glass-half-empty” kind of guy.

Today is Columbus Day and therefore a bank holiday (we bankers make every excuse for a day off that we can). This gives me the opportunity to do an unusual weekday-afternoon posting covering a variety of previously unreported topics.

Official maps promulgated (yawn)

Virtually every other blog in town got all excited and did posts last week about both the City’s new snow-removal-plan map and the Seattle school district’s new school boundary maps. If you are interested in taking a look for yourself, just click on the hyperlinks. I think I can sum up the import of both maps by stating that pretty much nothing has changed relative to Madison Park.

The snow removal plan designates E. Madison Street as a “Level 2” road, meaning that the City will try to keep one lane open in either direction in case of snow. Whether this means that it will actually happen, or not, is something that can hardly be predicted from reading the map. Madison Park was, after all, clearly on a second-priority street (or was it third?) when the last snow fell. And we all remember how that worked out.

With regard to the new assignment plan for the public schools, McGilvra’s school boundaries are changed only slightly. Instead of extending south to E. John Street, the attendance area now extends one block further, to E. Denny. Also, a few more blocks around 23rd Avenue E., up the hill, have been added. The biggest advantage of the new assignment plan is the fact that parents are guaranteed that if they live within a school’s boundaries their children can attend that school. It’s not apparent, however, that this policy change will have any impact on McGilvra’s students, only about half of whom currently live within the school’s attendance area.

.
Fishin' is easy in the Park?

It’s news to me, but several websites state that Madison Park is a great place to go fishing. Apparently the dock at the E. Madison Street road end is known for “fair-to-good” perch fishing, in season; and smallmouth bass and catfish are also supposedly catchable from that location (maggots are reportedly good bait, but who has them?). We are past the peak fishing season, I am told, but that hasn’t stopped all of the fishing activity. I accosted several people who were fishing off the dock late last month, but no one had caught any fish—or if they had, they weren't willing to tell me about it. I wasn't checking for licenses.

Book sale a great success

The efforts of the Madison Park Community Council to raise a little extra money through a book sale paid off last month. MPCC President Ken Myrabo reports that about $1,200 was raised, including $250 paid by a book wholesaler who purchased all of the remaining unsold books as the one-day sale ended. The extra income is just about enough, Myrabo notes, to pay the Council’s liability insurance premium for the year.

Tile artists happy with the Park venue

At dinner last night I happened to run into one of the artists participating in the Northwest Handmade Tile Festival, held over the weekend in Pioneer Hall. She told me that the show was a great success, with a lot of attendees and quite a lot of tiles sold. Given that success, it is highly likely that the Park will be the venue for the Festival again next year, she said.

McGilvra scores high in 2009 WASL testing

Although the Seattle school district has yet to release the scores for its individual schools, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction recently posted the spring 2009 results of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning; and the numbers for John J. McGilvra Elementary School look pretty impressive.

Parents who may have been concerned about the low scores for McGilvra’s fourth graders on the 2008 WASL writing test will be happy to know that this year the fourth-grade writing scores dramatically improved, with 91% of the students passing. In 2008 only 59% met the WASL standard, but this year’s results show that 2008 was simply a one-year aberration for the school. A similar outlier occurred in the 2000 WASL, when only 34% of McGilvra’s fourth graders passed the writing section. Overall, the trend line for the school on the writing test has been positive.

The following chart summarizes the school’s scores since the inception of WASL, comparing McGilvra to the rest of the school district and to the state as a whole:

When I asked former McGilvra principal Jo Shapiro to comment on the school’s success in raising the 4th grade writing scores, she gave credit to the 4th grade teachers, Barbara Bash and Maria Breuder. It has also been noted by current principal DeWanda Cook-Weaver (and by a McGilvra parent who commented on this blog) that PTA funding last year supported a part-time instructor at the school who was trained in the Writer’s Workshop method. The combined teaching efforts clearly worked.

The fourth graders were also tested in reading and math, with 95% and 83% passing these tests respectively. McGilvra’s scores were consistent with past years.

The school can also boast of its improvement this year on another WASL test: the school’s fifth graders increased their passing rate on the science portion of WASL from 73% in 2008 to 88% in 2009, an increase worthy of being touted in a recent Seattle Public Schools press release. Kudos should go to McGilvra's science teachers--Lisa Calvert, Kimber Kierstead, and Dirk Vonderlage--for their successful efforts at improving science education in the school. Here’s the positive trend line for McGilvra’s fifth-grade science scores:

As usual, McGilvra’s fifth graders also did well this year in the reading portion of WASL, with 95% passing; and in the math section, with 88% passing. The third grade class, meanwhile, received 91% passing scores in math and 88% passing scores in reading.

Overall, McGilvra has demonstrated a pretty solid record of achievement under WASL. This, however, is the last year that the test will be administered. The State’s new schools superintendent, Randy Dorn, was elected last year after a conducting an anti-WASL campaign. As a result, the State will replace WASL with Measurements of Student Progress (MSP) for grades 3-8. The details of MSP have yet to be finalized.

[Source: OSPI Report Card]

What’s new in the schoolhouse?

With the school year just underway and a new principal in place at John J. McGilvra Elementary School, I decided it would be interesting to learn what’s new in the ninety-six-year-old building. With that end in mind, my trusty photographer Jeff Romeo, his assistant Paul, and I all traipsed over to the school last week to meet with incoming principal DeWanda Cook-Weaver, on what was day nine of the new school year.

I can faithfully report, first of all, that the school district has categorically not spent too much money providing McGilvra’s principal with luxurious quarters. Cook-Weaver’s office probably measures no more than 10’ x 10’; and on the day we visited, it was still crammed with the new principal’s unpacked boxes (“I just haven’t gotten to them yet”). The remaining space was filled with file cabinets, a small table, a couple of chairs, and a utilitarian desk. The office was decorated, in part, with poster-sized sheets of paper on which were hand-written discussion points concerning McGilvra’s various incoming classes (“no pictures of them, please”). These, she said, had been used in her meetings with the school staff to help with planning for the new school year.

Although Cook-Weaver’s assignment as McGilvra’s principal technically began with the new contract year on September 1, she told me she made good use of the summer to get ready. “I made a point of meeting with the teachers and staff,” she said. “It was an informal opportunity for them to get to know me and for me to know them. I believe that good relationships are important.” She added that no one was required to meet with her in advance of the school year, but she “strongly suggested” that they do so (and apparently they all bought into the suggestion).

She also met with many of the parents, who she described as being “ultra involved” in the school and concerned about the education of their children. “This is good,” she told me. “I’ve had the experience of working in schools where there’s been a need to beat the bushes to get parent involvement.” That’s certainly not a problem here, she noted.

Cook-Weaver replaces Jo Shapiro as principal. Shapiro moved to Hamilton International Middle School to serve as assistant principal this year. Cook-Weaver’s last assignment was as co-principal of Lowell Elementary on Capitol Hill. Prior to that she served as principal of Emerson and as an assistant principal of two other elementary schools in the Seattle district. So she’s had more than ten years of administrative experience; and she said she feels well prepared to lead the school, which this year has 21 teachers (including specialists) and seven support staff.

There are 255 students currently enrolled at McGilvra, with the students divided pretty equally between kindergarten and each of the five grades. Although detailed demographic information for this school year is not yet available, it is unlikely to be much different from the makeup of the school last year, since 80% or more of students each year are returning to the school. Last year the students were about half male and half female, with not a lot of ethnic diversity relative to the Seattle Public School population as a whole (which last year was only 43% white):

Interestingly, McGilvra was the “first choice” school for the parents of 75% of enrolled students. Almost exactly half of the school’s students (49.6%) lived in McGilvra’s “reference area”:

McGilvra has a solid academic reputation and a waiting list of students for enrollment each year. “We have some excellent teachers,” Cook-Weaver told me. “This is definitely a high academic achievement school.” McGilvra’s scores on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) certainly seem to prove the point. The school compares very favorably with other elementary schools in Seattle and with students across the State:

There is one area of academic concern, however, resulting from the WASL test last year. The writing skills of the school’s students, at least as tested at the fourth grade level, fell dramatically between 2007 and 2008. Last year only 59% of McGilvra’s students met the state writing standard, down from 90% the year before.

I asked Cook-Weaver what the school is doing to counter this apparent dip in writing skills. She said that improving writing had also been an issue at her last school, Lowell; and the approach there was to get approval from the school district to implement a special program at the school through Writer’s Workshop (WW). The goal was to bring up test scores by establishing “an interdisciplinary writing technique which can build students' fluency in writing through continuous, repeated exposure to the process of writing,” to quote WW’s statement of purpose.

Cook-Weaver attended K-2 training at the Writer’s Workshop in New York in 2007, she said, and followed that up with additional training this summer for the upper elementary grades. Whether the program should be or will be implemented at McGilvra, however, will depend on assessments made this year, Cook-Weaver said. “We know here at McGIlvra there is a need, and I have been in contact with (the school district) about the ways we might approach the problem.”

She told me that she is excited about having a new tool this year to measure ongoing academic progress at McGilvra. The school district has just implemented something called MAP, short for Measurement of Academic Progress. Unlike WASL, which is conducted only at the end of the school year for certain grades, MAP is a three-times-a-year computer–based testing program of all the school’s students in the areas of math and reading skills.

.

“I am elated to have something systematic to help us look at how our children are doing throughout the year and which lets us compare our progress with what’s happening across the district,” Cook-Weaver told me. “It will allow us to focus on how to help an entire class or even look at individual students.” The first MAP testing is already well underway at McGilvra, with the results becoming available to teachers in early October.

It was clear from my conversation with her last week that Cook-Weaver is both enthusiastic and dedicated to the job. I noted that last year’s survey of student attitudes gave McGilvra very high marks in almost every area. Here’s a sample of the students’ average responses (4.0 would represent absolute agreement with the statement):

“I like school” 3.3
“I try hard to do good work in school” 3.8
“It’s important to me to get good grades” 3.7
“I feel safe in my classroom” 3.8
“I like my teacher this year” 3.8
“I know what my teacher expects of me” 3.5
“My teacher is fair in dealing with students” 3.6

Cook-Weaver told me it’s her responsibility as principal to see that the “student climate” remains high at McGilvra under her leadership.

What’s the single biggest surprise of her brief tenure? “The intensity of parent involvement,” she said. Although she said she had heard about McGivlra’s parents and had been at other schools with highly committed parents, “now that I’m in the actual job at McGilvra, I have a real feel for what everyone was talking about.” Not that there’s anything wrong with highly interested parents. “We all are working for the same goal,” she noted. “The goal is to ensure that our children get what they need while they are at McGilvra.”

[Photos by Jeff Romeo Photography. Data source: Seattle Public Schools.]