Waimea High School School Improvement Status

Summary of Progress

In school year 2022-23, Waimea HS teachers continued their work on aligning instruction and assessments to standards and increasing student engagement with consultants Dave Holden and Wesley Yuu. Mr. Holden and Mr. Yuu offered differentiated support for teachers as we hired in a large number of new and uncertificated staff this year. Pacing guides continued to be adjusted to accommodate wide gaps in student learning and understanding.

We still struggled with a large number of student failures which eventually led to the highest number of 4140 and dropouts Waimea HS has ever had in one year, 10. This led to a collaborative effort with McKinley Community School for Adults and creating a GED site at our library where students are now able to begin their alternative journey towards completion of high school right here in Waimea, eliminating the need to drive to Lihue. Currently we have 14 former students enrolled and working towards completing their GED. Our master schedule was also adjusted to allow for small credit recovery classes where students received intensive support to complete their work and get back on track for graduation.

We continued to use a mix of Title 1 and ESSER funds to pay for additional tutoring and student SEL support. We continued to have our Health Guru teacher who led weekly walking sessions after school to help de-stress teachers and staff. We purchased more outdoor seating and tables for students. We continued to revise our advisory periods to focus on building relationships between students and staff and continued HA days which proved to be a much needed break from academic routines.

We had a successful full WASC visit this year in April and received seven recommendations for improvement that will be implemented over the next six years:

1. formal vertical articulation with the school’s feeder middle school.
2. need to develop a process to identify and develop future leaders at WHS.
3. identify power standards in C3, NGSS, and Common Core.
4. develop a formal Data Team System and provide professional  development and facilitation to support this process.
5. develop standards-based grading practices and expectations that are consistent school-wide and supported through professional development.
6. research, agree upon, and implement academically focused RTI in addition to their current behavioral RTI.
7. need exists for the staff and stakeholders to revisit their student follow-up process, interpret their data, and develop/implement an updated plan that is thoroughly understood and supported school and community-wide.

Professional development began immediately after the WASC visit and plans to fully implement these recommendations will be set before the start of the new school year.

Another success was the inclusion of community in more of our school events, specifically Menehune Mingle, Lā Lei, and senior culminating project that pulled in people from across the island, including our feeder schools. We tightened up the senior project process between ELA and CTE teachers that included more preparation and accountability measures put in place. Juniors were required to present their senior project proposal to a board of teachers prior to the end of the school year in anticipation of a ‘quick start’ once they return in August. We hope to continue to build out this process to ensure smoother transitions between not only our current students but also our feeder schools so students enter Waimea HS better prepared.