January 22, 2008

Dear Parents and Guardians,

I am proud of how hard our staff and students have worked to meet our achievement goals over the past few years. Their hard work, coupled with the district’s targeted academic support, has produced substantial gains in Federal Way High School’s WASL (Washington Assessment of Student Learning) scores.

Our successes in 2007:

• Our 10^th grade reading scores were 84%, up 4.5 points from the year before and more than 3 points over the state average of 80.8%.
• Writing scores rose to 85.5% for our 10^th grade students, up more than 8 points from the year before and above the state average of 83.9%.
• Our 10^th grade science scores were 30.1%, up almost 8 points from last year.

With the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act or ESEA (also known as “No Child Left Behind”), federal law requires that schools meet improvement goals in 37 separate categories. Some of those categories include specific groups of students and how they score on the WASL tests.

Where we missed our goals in 2007:

In 2005 and 2006, Federal Way High School did not meet its goals in all 37 ESEA-required categories and ultimately did not meet the benchmarks for Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP).

In 2007:

• We missed AYP in math in both the Black and Low-income student categories.
• Because our special education students did not participate in the math test at the required levels, we failed to meet AYP due to lack of participation. ESEA requires that schools have at least 95% of students in each group take the test.

For these reasons, Federal Way High School did not meet the federal definition of Adequate Yearly Progress in 2007 and we are now in Step 2 in the ‘school improvement’ designation.

We take our achievement results seriously, and we will use all local, state and federal resources available to address our school improvement needs so we can help all of our students meet Washington’s Essential Academic Learning Requirements. A few of the recent measures the district has implemented in all of our schools include:

• The district’s Student Support Services and Curriculum Departments are providing substantial staff training and strategies to address the learning needs of all our students.
• Algebraic Thinking curriculum has been added at all five middle schools to ensure that all students entering high school are better prepared to take higher-level math classes.
• The Equity and Achievement training for staff provides them a better understanding of how cultural backgrounds impact student learning and provides the tools to enhance instructional techniques.

Building and maintaining high-quality schools is a job for the entire community, and we appreciate your assistance in reaching our academic achievement goals. We encourage you to become active participants in our school improvement efforts. Read more about Adequate Yearly Progress at www.k12.wa.us/Resources/pubdocs/AYPChangesfor2007FINAL.pdf.You can also go to the Federal Way Public Schools website, www.fwps.org/cur/assess/ to see district-wide scores and read more about ESEA and its academic goals and requirements.

Sincerely,

Lisa Griebel, Principal