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About Seaside signal. (Seaside, Or.) 1905-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 6, 2015)
February 6, 2015 • Seaside Signal • seasidesignal.com • 5A Seaside group will seek sidewalk funds nue and Broadway to make it safer for children heading to local schools, he said. The commission also will contact Oregon Solutions and Oregon Consensus to deter- By Nancy McCarthy mine if funds might be avail- Seaside Signal able for sidewalks, bike paths, wetlands improvements and Seaside’s Transportation historical preservation projects. Advisory Commission may The council expressed have found a way to obtain support for the commission’s grants to pay for more side- efforts and thanked McDow- walks and other amenities ell and the commission for in town. researching revenue sources. Dale McDowell, com- Councilor Jay Barber also mission chairman, told the suggested that the city’s parks Seaside City Council Jan. 26 advisory committee be in- that the commission will seek cluded in the plans. ¿QDQFLDO VXSSRUW IURP WKH Jeff Hazen, director of the federally funded Safe Routes Sunset Empire Transporta- to School Program, the tion District, who was visiting state-funded Oregon Solu- the council meeting, told the tions Network and Oregon council that the transit dis- Consensus, an arm of Oregon trict also could partner with Solutions. the city on the Safe Routes in McDowell said the com- Schools program. mission has already discussed In addition, Hazen said the forming a partnership with transit district is embarking Seaside School District Su- on a long-term transportation perintendent Doug Dough- plan. erty in seeking funds from the “I truly feel we need to get Safe Routes to School Pro- the 101 (bus) back to hourly gram, which is administered status,” Hazen said. “We’re by the Oregon Department going to work hard as we can of Transportation. Sidewalks through the budget cycle to could be proposed for U.S. get that back.” Highway 101, Second Ave- The schedule for the The transportation commission has found new revenue routes Highway 101 bus, which connects Astoria with Sea- side and Cannon Beach, was reduced several years ago when the district suffered an economic setback that near- ly shut it down completely. Since then, the district has restored some services. In other business, the council: • Approved rate increases for rental of the Seaside Civ- ic and Convention Center. To rent the entire facility for tick- eted events, the cost will go from $1,200 a day to $1,500. Fees for trade show or exhib- its will rise from $800 a day to $1,000. Other fees, de- pending on the rooms being rented, will be from $50 to $100 higher per day. Rentals for funerals, however, won’t increase. Fees for the smaller rooms, including Seahorse, Haystack and Seamist also won’t change. Contracts reached prior to Feb. 1, when the increases go into effect, will remain at the lower fee schedule. • Nominated Nancy Mc- Cune and Vera Kaarina to the Seaside Civic and Conven- tion Center Commission. The council is still seeking mem- bers for the city Tree Board. Tell me a story! SUBMITTED PHOTO Children’s author Deborah Hopkinson shared her writing with Seaside Heights stu- dents during a recent workshop and then asked them to do their own writing. Later that evening Hopkinson shared her experiences with parents. Seaside High School undergoing accreditation review out school improvement and areas for growth. “There’s a much more de- tailed and authentic rating sys- tem,” Roley said. The system includes in- By Katherine Lacaze volvement from staff, students Seaside Signal and parents, and the outcome UHVXOWV LQ D VSHFL¿F SODQ IRU Seaside High School soon LPSURYHPHQWLQ¿YHDUHDVSXU- will begin the process of re- pose and direction; governance newing its accreditation, which and leadership; teaching and as- indicates that it meets national sessing for learning; resources standards. and support systems; and using Accreditation “sets a stan- results for continuous improve- dard that’s recognized by other ment. schools,” both at a high school 7KH QRQSUR¿W $GYDQF(' and collegiate level, said Sea- one of the primary accrediting side Principal Sheila Roley. agencies in the world, will ac- Accreditation is not re- credit the high school. quired, but another high school The process begins with or a college would not have to high school staff completing a recognize a transcript from Sea- self-assessment, and the school side High School if it was not gathering information from par- an accredited institution. ents, students and community The high school has been members. fully accredited for about 75 Administrators also will re- years, although the process for view student performance, plan accreditation has changed dra- for a visit from an external re- PDWLFDOO\LQWKHSDVW¿YH\HDUV view team and develop a school It used to consist of the principal improvement plan. ¿OOLQJ RXW D FKHFNOLVW WR VKRZ The review team is sched- the school met guidelines and uled to visit the high school Feb. was “good enough,” a process 26. Dr. Jamie Juenemann, an that led to more than 50 per- educational consultant for Ad- cent of Oregon schools labeling vanceED, will lead the team, themselves perfect. Now it is a composed of educators from nuanced process for mapping around Oregon that Juenemann Outcome will determine if school meets national standards for education pow ered b y will select. The team will collect evidence of the school’s perfor- mance on the five standards, conduct interviews with staff, students and parents and ob- serve a class run by each teacher. Following the review team’s visit, Roley said, a written report should be crafted within several days. The results will be shared with staff, the school board and district administration, and in a presentation for parents in the spring. The school then will begin implementing the review’s recommendations. From the process, the school hopes to ac- complish “authentic self-eval- uation,” stronger family con- nections with the school and a “meaningful plan for growth,” Roley said. Core State Standards and other factors, Roley said. “They (AdvancED) don’t look extensively at student re- sults but rather that we are an institution that has all the struc- tures in place for students to be successful,” she said. If students are not per- forming well in a certain area, though, the accrediting agency will request the school’s plan for improvement. Students are tested on Com- mon Core State Standards as high school juniors. Last year, 91.4 percent of Seaside High School juniors met or exceeded the standards in reading; 67 per- Accreditation versus assessment cent met or exceeded standards in math; 58.2 percent met or exceeded standards in writing; and 51.1 percent met or exceed- ed standards in science. Roley said she felt both good and bad about the results from last year. “I was pleased with many of the results that our students had,” she said. “I was happy with our increasing graduation rate, which was above the state average.” In 2012-13, the graduation rate, or percentage of students graduating with a regular diplo- ma within four years of entering high school, was 75.2 percent, an increase of almost 7 percent from 2010-11. To help improve writing scores this year, the school is expanding writing instruction in every classroom, not just in English classes. The school’s science score reveals a discrep- ancy between the curriculum being taught at the high school — which is based on the na- tional Next Generation Science Standards — and the state stan- dards the test is based on. The Oregon standards will be replaced by the Next Gener- ation Science Standards, so the high school is just moving for- ward faster than the state, Roley said. 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