Latest news with #PeninsulaSchoolDistrict
Yahoo
01-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
New turf football field with lights coming to Pierce County school district
Soon, Roy Anderson Field won't be the Peninsula School District's only high school turf football field. The Gig Harbor Tides will get their own lit turf field if all goes according to schedule next year, helping plug another hole in the supply of athletic fields playable in fair and rainy weather in the Gig Harbor and Key Peninsula areas. The district also plans to address several other needs at its facilities and campuses, according to a presentation from Director of Facilities Patrick Gillespie at the school board meeting on May 20. Those issues include poor drainage at the district's two high school baseball fields and an outdated auditorium lighting system at Peninsula High School. ' ... we're really excited about this project and what it would bring,' Gillespie said about Gig Harbor's future turf field at the meeting. 'We hear all the time that we need more fields for our student athletes.' The district plans to install field lighting, re-spray the track surfacing, add a scoreboard and flag pole, install 8-foot fencing and convert the grass field to synthetic turf at Gig Harbor High School's lower field, Gillespie said at the meeting. The field will accommodate football and soccer and have reference marks for boys and girls lacrosse, discus and javelin, he said. The district is working with consultant D.A. Hogan. The company has worked on turf fields throughout the Puget Sound area, including at Mount Tahoma High School and Stadium High School, and Gig Harbor High School's upper field, according to the D.A. Hogan website. The district is working on design concepts for Gig Harbor's turf football field and plans to put the project out to bid in the spring of next year. If all goes well, construction should begin around April or May 2026 and run through the end of September that year, Gillespie told the board. Since the project is still in its early stages, there isn't an official timeline or cost estimate yet, according to district spokesperson Danielle Chastaine. The district will first gather input from its athletic teams and coaches about the field's condition and specific needs, then will begin requesting proposals from contractors and determining cost projections, she wrote in an email. She added that funding for the project will come from the district's capital projects budget, which draws from multiple sources including levies, bonds, impact fees and state match funding grants. The money in this fund also collects interest over time. No additional levy or bond dollars will be necessary to fund the field project, she wrote. The district will be working with a consultant to assess the infield dirt at both the Gig Harbor High School and Peninsula High School baseball fields, and the fastpitch softball field at Peninsula, Gillespie said at the meeting. The assessment 'could lead to removing existing infield dirt and replacing (it) with new,' he said. It's a step toward addressing long-term drainage issues at the baseball fields, but the announcement didn't completely satisfy the Gig Harbor Peninsula Youth Sports Coalition, which posted a response to the meeting on Facebook on May 22. 'Unfortunately, and surprisingly, there was no mention of converting any of the dirt infields to artificial turf, which could significantly improve year-round usability and safety,' the post said. Michael Perrow, a founding member of the coalition, told The News Tribune in a phone call that he would like to see more opportunities for public input in the district's decision-making process related to its athletic fields, such as via questionnaires and public open houses. Kevin Owens, a former coach for the Peninsula High School baseball team from 2016 to 2018, told The News Tribune in a phone call that he does remember the field at Peninsula getting 'mushy.' He sees drainage as a problem across the state because of the rainy weather, he said. 'Other than getting turf, what other solution do you have?' Owens said. Drainage issues at the two fields go back decades, former players and a former coach told The News Tribune. Gig Harbor High School's field has had particular issues because of its proximity to wetlands. A few days of rain can make the field unplayable, causing players to miss out on outdoor playing time, The News Tribune reported. Other school and parks districts in the Pacific Northwest have converted their baseball fields to artificial turf in recent years, including at PenMet Parks' Sehmel Homestead Park and schools in Skagit and Clark counties. School board member David Olson asked Gillespie at the board meeting if it might be possible to raise the Gig Harbor High School baseball field, which he described as 'the swamp,' so that the players aren't 'running around in a bunch of mud during the games.' That option 'would be a pretty massive undertaking,' Gillespie said. '... there would be a lot of work and costs associated with that.' Gillespie added in response to a question about the purpose of replacing the dirt that the typical options for dirt are sand, clay, or a combination, and certain soil types are better-suited to certain kinds of weather. Sand is better to help the field drain in the winter months, but turns the field into a 'sand pit' in the summer, he said. Clay is better for the summer but worse in the winter, 'so you tend to go with something in between,' he continued. He said that he's talked to people involved in working on other fields including at Seattle's T-Mobile Park — a grass field with a specially designed drainage system including 'layers of drainage pipe, pea gravel, sand, and grass,' according to the Major League Baseball website — and has gotten conflicting opinions on what works best. The consultant will be able to share insights into how the district can address its issues with the water-logged fields, according to Gillespie. District spokesperson Danielle Chastaine did not immediately respond when asked by The News Tribune about the cost of working with the consultant. The district also plans to replace the aging outfield fence at Gig Harbor High School's baseball field and look into adding more storage space there this summer, he said. Another aging system will also get an upgrade: Peninsula High School's electrical/dimmer panel system and associated lighting for the auditorium. The estimated cost is $150,000, according to Director of Career and Technical Education Kelsey Parke. The school's electrical/dimmer panel system, which controls lighting in the auditorium and is also known as the 'matrix,' is over 50 years old, Parke wrote in an email Wednesday. It's used by students in the school's drama program to control lighting during theater productions. 'While it was well known that our auditorium lighting was outdated, stepping into my role as the new director provided a fresh perspective on our fiscal responsibility,' Parke wrote. 'We realized that the amount being spent on ASB lighting rentals was nearly equal to the ticket revenue brought in from each production.' A student representative at the board meeting who has participated in school drama productions expressed enthusiasm for the new system, saying that the company that made the old system doesn't exist anymore and that there aren't any manuals available online. The district will begin the process of replacing the panel system in July, and will upgrade the lighting systems before September, according to Parke. The district will provide training to students and staff to use the new equipment, and students will also be able to access it through courses like 'Theater Tech: Lights and Sound' as they 'gain hands-on experience designing lighting sequences for upcoming productions,' she wrote.
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Pierce County school district suspends its controversial free speech policy
A staff expression policy that regulates Peninsula School District staff members' speech as employees has been suspended. The school board suspended Policy 5254 in a unanimous vote at their meeting on May 20. 'I think over the past few months since we implemented the policy, the board has heard quite a bit from the community,' board member David Olson, who made the motion, said at the meeting. ' ... I would have to admit that there was some unintended impact of the policy, mostly that there's a lot of misunderstanding, ambiguity about the policy, what the potential intent was.' Policy 5254 states that the district can regulate employees' expression when they 'speak within their official capacity' and thus represent the district. Employees' free speech is protected under the First Amendment when they speak as individual citizens 'on a matter of public concern,' but they may still receive 'disciplinary action up to and including termination' if their expression 'has an adverse impact on district operations and/or negatively impacts an employee's ability to perform their job for the district,' according to the policy. The policy describes staff expression to include 'the performance of job responsibilities and how (staff) represent the district in their use of district email accounts, school district buildings, district property, classrooms and how they present themselves to students.' It also includes a line about social media: 'Employees who use social media platforms are encouraged to remember that the school community may not be able to separate employees as private citizens from their role within the district.' The board adopted Policy 5254 in October 2024, and has heard several public comments at board meetings since then criticizing the policy's breadth and possible impact on staff, according to The News Tribune's reporting. One member of the Minter Creek Elementary Parent-Teacher Association told the board at the April 22 meeting that the staff expression policy has silenced some teachers from speaking out about the district's controversial plan to switch principals across several schools starting in July. In a statement shared at the school board meeting on May 6 and posted online, Superintendent Krestin Bahr addressed a number of concerns shared by parents and staff including those around the staff expression policy. 'We value the input of our educators,' Bahr said at the meeting. 'Feedback from our staff informs ongoing decision-making, though we remain bound by confidentiality and professional standards ... Staff are not just permitted, but encouraged to have honest conversations with their principals and share their perspectives.' She also said that a workgroup would be taking place later in May to 'help clarify the policy's enforcement,' working with the district's 'labor partners to ensure it protects employee voice while upholding (their) shared professional responsibilities.' School Board President Natalie Wimberley asked Superintendent Bahr prior to the vote May 20 to provide an update on the group gathered to discuss the policy and its implementation. Bahr said that district staff and union members visited another school district where the policy first originated to learn more about that district's process and reasons for adopting it. Based on the apparent differences between that district and the Peninsula School District's approach to the policy, she supports the policy's suspension, she said at the meeting. After the vote, Peninsula Education Association president Carol Rivera told the board during public comment that the association supports the policy suspension and 'welcomes the opportunity' to work with the district's task force on the policy. The Peninsula Education Association is the district's teachers' union.
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Pierce County school district passes on controversial K-5 reading curriculum
The Peninsula School District board voted to adopt a new elementary school language-arts curriculum called Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) at its May 6 meeting, passing over a second program, Wit & Wisdom, that drew opposition at a school board meeting last summer and has generated controversy in other districts across the country. The new curriculum will roll out in K-5 classrooms this fall, replacing the Reading Wonders curriculum used in the district since 2015, according to the district curriculum adoption webpage. The change is part of the district's efforts in recent years to close student literacy gaps by changing how their teachers teach reading. Here's what to know about the new curriculum, Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) 3rd Edition, and how it won out over its alternative. After a screening process led by a curriculum adoption committee of K-5 teachers and staff, the district landed on CKLA and Wit & Wisdom, paired with Really Great Reading, to pilot in 37 K-5 classrooms during the 2024-2025 school year, according to the district website and a staff presentation to the school board. Wit & Wisdom and Really Great Reading were paired together because they teach different skills. While Wit & Wisdom 'builds language comprehension and reading and writing skills,' Really Great Reading 'focuses on foundational skills, such as phonemic awareness, decoding, encoding, spelling, handwriting, and vocabulary,' the Great Minds curriculum company website says. The News Tribune reported that several parents, including members of a local Moms for Liberty group, opposed Wit & Wisdom at a school board meeting last June. Seven people spoke out against the Peninsula School District's potential use of the Wit & Wisdom curriculum at the June 18 board meeting, according to The News Tribune's reporting. One speaker, a parent of a part-time homeschooler in the district and of another child who formerly attended a school in the district, expressed concern that the curriculum taught kindergarteners about the Great Depression and race-based discrimination during the Harlem Renaissance. A special education teacher in a nearby district who was not a Moms for Liberty member said that the content in Wit & Wisdom texts was triggering to some of her middle school students, making it difficult for them to read and learn, The News Tribune reported. Moms for Liberty is a national nonprofit that generally opposes diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and LGBTQ+ initiatives in public schools, and describes itself as 'dedicated to fighting for the survival of America by unifying, educating and empowering parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government,' according to the group's website. Moms for Liberty has been labeled an antigovernment organization by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a legal advocacy nonprofit that advocates for civil rights and racial justice. Wit & Wisdom has also sparked controversies in states such as Tennessee and Kentucky, with some arguing that it teaches critical race theory or introduces content that isn't age-appropriate, according to reporting from The Tennessean and The Lexington Herald-Leader. Critical race theory originated in the 1970s in academia and is based on the premise that racial bias is embedded in U.S. policies and institutions, according to an explainer from Reuters. The Great Minds website says that the Wit & Wisdom 'curriculum complies with the laws of every state in which we operate and does not teach critical race theory (CRT).' Natalie Boyle, the district's director of elementary teaching and learning, told the school board at the April 22 meeting that the adoption committee's recommendation for CKLA 3rd Edition was unanimous — something she said has never happened in all of the curriculum adoptions she has worked on. The adoption committee had 23 members, according to the presentation. It 'was very evident that our teachers felt strongly about this,' she said. Boyle and other staff presenters didn't speak in-depth to the differences in content between Wit & Wisdom/Really Great Reading and CKLA, but second-grade Discovery Elementary teacher Ashley Trinh said that one factor in CKLA's favor was the fact that it teaches all necessary reading skills in one curriculum. 'Wit and Wisdom and Really Great Reading were just so different, it was hard to pair them in a cohesive way,' Trinh said to the board at the April 22 meeting. CKLA would also be cheaper to implement than Wit & Wisdom, Boyle told the board. The estimated cost of purchasing all teacher and student materials for Wit & Wisdom paired with Really Great Reading over a three-year period would be about $1.3 million, compared to about $840,000 for CKLA. Those costs wouldn't include professional development costs to train teachers to use the new curriculum, Boyle said. The 'Core Knowledge' in CKLA refers to the knowledge that students build in literature, the arts, science and social studies via the curriculum, said Kelly Pruitt, the district's elementary instructional facilitator, at the board meeting. A graphic included in the staff presentation showed the progression of topics students learn about in each grade, from taking care of the planet and Native American cultures in kindergarten to global architecture and oceans in fifth grade. The curriculum also teaches foundational skills of reading, beginning with skills like letter recognition and understanding the features of a sentence, and progressing to skills like word recognition and grammar, according to the CKLA website. Teachers praised the CKLA curriculum at the meeting and said they received a lot of positive feedback from students and parents. 'The first thing I would say as a classroom teacher is that my students were really engaged in a new way that I hadn't seen for the last few years, with the content with CKLA,' Trinh, the second-grade teacher at Discovery Elementary, told the board. 'They were excited to hear the next story, asking me if they could read ahead, (saying) 'I really want to find out what happens next,' and they just were really excited each day for the new knowledge lessons.' Her students were 'obsessed' with the Greek myths unit, and she saw them making a lot of real-world connections to what they were reading, she added. Marci Cummings-Cohoe, a first-grade teacher at Swift Water Elementary, told the board families were reporting 'pretty in-depth' conversations at home. Students were talking about the Mayans and the Aztecs at the dinner table, she reported hearing from families. The district kept 'the science of reading' front-and-center during the process of choosing a new K-5 English Language Arts curriculum, staff told the board. The 'science of reading' is a term that describes a large body of research from areas including cognitive psychology, education, linguistics, neuroscience and other fields into how people become proficient in reading and writing, why some face challenges and how these skills can be taught most effectively, according to The Reading League. The Reading League is a national nonprofit that supports 'the awareness, understanding, and use of evidence-aligned reading instruction, their website says. In years past, parents have spoken to the school board about their concerns that the district was failing to adequately support students with dyslexia. In June 2023, a literacy task force convened by Superintendent Krestin Bahr presented its findings to the board about how the district could implement systems to ensure all third grade students are reading at or above grade level, and introduced a professional development course that the district was beginning to roll out for teachers to learn more about the science of reading. The four district staff members designated as facilitators for this course, Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS), helped screen potential elementary school reading curricula, Kelly Pruitt, the district's elementary instructional facilitator, said at the board meeting on April 22. They reviewed each program based on an array of criteria from sources like The Reading League and the Institute of Education Sciences, an independent and non-partisan research arm of the U.S. Department of Education, according to the rubrics posted on the district's curriculum adoption website.
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Norovirus outbreak sickens dozens of Gig Harbor students
On Tuesday, dozens of students and staff from a school in Gig Harbor were home recovering from a Norovirus outbreak. Discovery Elementary School said 50 people have gotten sick since Thursday, but the illness didn't start in their kitchen. Out of those 50, 35 of them are still recovering at home. University of Washington Professor Dr. Ferric Fang said the virus is highly contagious. 'The most common symptoms are nausea, vomiting, diarrhea,' Fang told KIRO 7. The Peninsula School District said they are actively working with the Tacoma Pierce County Health Department to stop the outbreak. Also noting the health department's 'investigation confirmed the school kitchen was not the source of illness, we have implemented precautionary measures.' Fang said a norovirus outbreak of any size isn't uncommon, especially in crowded settings. 'It's normal for it to be in a school, it's so infectious the schools can't control it, for students and staff, it's a nightmare dealing with it,' Fang said. The district told KIRO 7 the school kitchen was closed yesterday for cleaning and making sure nobody preparing the food is sick. Today, they said the threat is clear and the kitchen is open again. Doctors said most people get the virus multiple times in their life. 'It's an aggravating problem, even though most people don't die and get over it on their own there's no specific treatment for it,' Fang said. The health department said they are working with the school this week to ensure everything is properly cleaned and the outbreak is contained. The full statement from the Peninsula School District can be seen below: 'On Thursday, May 8, Discovery Elementary identified multiple students displaying symptoms of gastroenteritis, prompting staff to follow district protocols by sending affected students home and notifying the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department when absence numbers reached the reporting threshold. By Friday, May 9, approximately 50 students were either absent or sent home with similar symptoms. Following their investigation, TPCHD suspects norovirus as the cause affecting both students and staff. Our school team promptly communicated with all Discovery Elementary families Friday morning, sharing TPCHD's guidance that children and staff showing symptoms such as vomiting or diarrhea should remain home until they have been symptom-free for 48 hours. Although the investigation confirmed the school kitchen was not the source of illness, we have implemented these precautionary measures: · Temporarily closed the Discovery Elementary kitchen for thorough sanitization · Arranged for meal preparation at an alternate location, with packaged breakfast and lunch options provided to students · Enhanced cleaning protocols throughout the building · Scheduled periodic restroom closures during school hours for additional disinfection We appreciate our partnership with the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department and the quick response from our health services team, custodial staff, and school administrators."
Yahoo
27-04-2025
- Yahoo
Verbal, race-based harassment is up in this Pierce County school district
For months, parents have been coming forward to the Peninsula School District board with stories about their kids being bullied and harassed. One dad said another student threatened and punched his daughter in elementary school. A mom said her son was called slurs after he came out as LGBTQ in his middle school. And concerned parents, who accused the district of ignoring what they say is a pattern, formed an advocacy group called Moms for P.E.A.C.E. Representatives spoke at many board meetings over the last two years. On Tuesday, district staff presented the school board with a long-anticipated report to get to the heart of the issue: what's not working? The complex answer to that question wasn't immediately clear from the presentation, which provided general recommendations for the district to improve their prevention and response to harassment, intimidation and bullying incidents. It found that certain types of incidents have increased in recent years, such as race/ethnicity/nationality-based incidents, but didn't explain how the numbers stack up against other districts or national trends. The report didn't provide measurable goals to tackle the problem, but district officials told the board they will make a plan before next school year. Led by district staff in partnership with Puget Sound Educational Service District, the report was supposed to audit existing school policies, practices and procedures and identify recommendations for change over the long-term, according to Chief of Schools Michael Farmer when he introduced the review at a board meeting in September. Presented by Farmer, Deputy Chief of Schools Julie Schultz-Bartlett and district paralegal and HIB (Harassment, Intimidation and Bullying) Compliance Officer Shelby Morng, the presentation lasted about one and a half hours and covered a slew of areas that staff and members of a separate task force examined to try to find answers: district policies and procedures, reporting and investigation processes and systems, student feedback on school culture and staff support, and more. At the meeting Tuesday, three people spoke during public comment about the presentation. All three said they wanted to see more action from the district to address the issue. One of them was Jud Morris, who said he has worked and volunteered in the school district for the last 20 years. 'I thought about (the) meeting after I left and see one of the issues to be how does PSD connect pain families feel from (harassment, intimidation and bullying) with implementation of effective policies/procedures to stop HIB,' Morris wrote in an email to The News Tribune the next day. 'That's the challenge.' A copy of the full report will be available on the district's new harassment, intimidation and bullying website, Farmer told the board Tuesday. A chart in the presentation showed that reported verbal incidents of harassment, intimidation and bullying took up a larger percentage of total incidents in 2023-2024 than in previous years. Verbal incidents took up 72.16% of total incidents in 2023-2024, up from 60.8% in 2022-2023; 68.69% in 2021-2022; and 45.83% in 2018-2019, according to the chart. Physical incidents decreased, from 47.92% in 2018-2019 to 25.77% in 2023-2024. The data skipped over the years impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The district has previously said publicly that harassment, intimidation and bullying incidents as a whole have increased in recent years. At the March 2024 study session, a district staff member told the board that the number of incidents at the elementary level recorded in PowerSchool, a cloud-based K-12 software provider, increased from 14 incidents in 2018-2019 to 51 in 2022-2023. At the secondary school level, the number went from 24 recorded incidents in 2018-2019 to 53 incidents in 2021-2022, the staff member told the board. Data from the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction shows that enrollment numbers were similar in 2018-2019 and 2023-2024 in the Peninsula School District at about 9,000 students. Another chart in Tuesday's presentation showed that harassment, intimidation and bullying incidents related to race, ethnicity, or nationality are also on the rise as a proportion of total incidents reported. Race/ethnicity/nationality-related incidents increased from 11.93% in 2022-2023 to 29.9% in 2023-2024. The presentation recommended that the district look to districts, including the Bellevue, Snoqualmie Valley and Vancouver School Districts, to emulate their systems and policies. Deputy Chief of Schools Julie Schultz-Bartlett told the board the district's Bullying Action and Prevention Task Force, which she headed, found a gap in curriculum educating students about discriminatory harassment. Students are already learning from curricula like Second Step and CharacterStrong, which teach students life skills and address bullying, but the district lacks training around racial language, homophobic language and identity-based harassment, according to Schultz-Bartlett. There's now a central location on the district's website for information about harassment, intimidation and bullying, as well as where to report concerns, through the efforts of the Bullying Action and Prevention Task Force. 'One of the pieces that we heard repeatedly from family and community members was that they don't know how to report when something has happened,' Schultz-Bartlet told the board. 'So we've made two pages.' The harassment, intimidation and bullying page, explains definitions, how to report an incident, the district's prevention efforts, and related policies. It also features buttons to report a concern directly to school administrators or to the state-sponsored platform, HearMeWA. Another page, can be found under 'Report a Concern' from the district's Quick Links tab on the homepage. That page also features buttons to report a concern or tip, as well as a dropdown list showing who to contact for specific topics including school-related concerns, disability discrimination, sexual harassment and other issues. The Bullying Action and Prevention Task Force met five times over six months for a total of about 10 hours in-person, and examined a variety of materials including student handbooks, social and emotional learning curricula, school board procedures and more to identify gaps in the district's anti-bullying strategies, Schultz-Bartlett said at the meeting. One of their exercises included looking at write-ups of real student behavior incidents requiring discipline and categorizing them as harassment, intimidation and bullying or something else, such as inappropriate conduct or violence. All the incidents were inappropriate, but the task force decided some that staff may have deemed harassment, intimidation or bullying didn't actually fit into that category, according to Schultz-Bartlett. The district's Policy 3207 defines harassment, intimidation and bullying as any intentional act that 'physically harms a student or damages the student's property,' 'has the effect of substantially interfering with a student's education,' 'is so severe, persistent, or pervasive that it creates an intimidating or threatening educational environment,' or 'has the effect of substantially disrupting the orderly operation of the school.' 'We know transparency is important, but we also experienced it ourselves how hard it is to categorize some of these activities that we're seeing,' Schultz-Bartlett said. Asked by board member Jennifer Butler to speak to the challenges of coding incidents more consistently, Schultz-Bartlett said that the district's principals and assistant principals are already working on aligning their schools' student handbooks to consistently decide what types of behavior fall under which categories. That work will likely continue through next year, she said. Responding to a question from board President Natalie Wimberly, Schultz-Bartlett said the task force hasn't set any measurable goals to target the issues studied at this point. 'Mostly we set forward actions that we wanted to take with the goal that we would decrease overall (harassment, intimidation and bullying) incidents within our buildings and increase our sense of belonging,' Schultz-Bartlett said. She added that existing data for tracking bullying-related incidents 'is not very clean,' in part because the district recently switched data collection systems. Now that the district is using Navigate360 to track incidents, they'll have some benchmark data later this year that they can use to identify metrics to track, she said. The district superintendent and cabinet will review the report and recommendations and make a plan for 2025-2026 and beyond, Farmer said near the end of the presentation. He also said focus groups with students, school principals' work to streamline discipline processes and monitoring the effectiveness of staff training and professional development will continue.
