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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
ANSWERS ON :
Service
Accreditation is separate
from the state’s assessment of
how schools are performing
based on attendance, gradua-
tion rates, meeting Common
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