State school directors laud La Conner's math turnaround

The La Conner School District is making headlines this fall – in a good way.

The strides its students have made improving math scores the last two years is the cover story in the current edition of the Washington State School Directors Association quarterly newsmagazine.

President Susie Deyo announced at the close of the Sept. 23 board meeting that the district’s success implementing its new K-12 math curricula – along with several other supportive initiatives – is featured in the fall issue of Direct, the WSSDA publication.

La Conner elementary students are pictured on the magazine’s cover, a photo taken during last spring’s Math Night event.

Several other photos of La Conner students and a lengthy article addressing how the district “solved its math problem from multiple angles” grace the magazine’s pages.

The account cites statistics showing growth in math demonstrated by La Conner students and credits that improvement not only to the math curricula but also the commitment by teachers to collaborative planning, the district’s embrace of new assessment platforms and a focus on mastery-based learning.

In the article, Deyo praises teachers for their buy-in.

“They’re doing the hard work,” she is quoted. “They’re with the kids every day, ensuring every student is successful.”

Board vice-chair J.J. Wilbur agreed. He told Direct that the new curricula and related programs have helped spur greater student interest in math.

“Kids have expressed how much fun math is,” the magazine quotes Wilbur. “That’s something we had not heard in this district for a very long time.”

The board, with its monthly standing meeting agenda item entitled “What About Math,” was saluted by WSSDA in 2023 as the Board of the Year for Small Districts. The statewide honor, Direct notes, was in great measure an acknowledgement of the district’s willingness to take new approaches to address academic challenges.

“We couldn’t keep doing things the way we were doing them,” Deyo explained, “if we wanted to close the achievement gap.”

Monday the board:

* Accepted a $500 donation by the La Conner chapter of Soroptimists to help families eligible for assistance under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act purchase fuel for student transportation.

* Approved a new four-year plan for its Career and Technology Education programs.

* Approved overnight trips for district students and teams that qualify for state-level competitions.

* Approved a new two-year, 82-page contract with the La Conner Education Association covering base and supplemental salary schedules and observation and evaluation procedures, among other topics. Under the agreement, beginning teachers will start at $61,108 annually. Salaries increase incrementally based on years of service and levels of continuing education.

* Student representatives Kellie Cayou-Lockrem and Emmalin Goodman provided feedback on the district’s new cell phone free zone policy. “Students are more sociable,” Cayou-Lockrem said. “And it’s a nice environment without phones. Students are more engaged with asking questions. More questions are being asked in class.” Goodman agreed. “When teachers ask for them, there’s always questions now,” she said.