Local schools honored for excellence

SANDPOINT — Local schools have once again been honored for excellence in education, solidifying the district’s place as one of Idaho’s highest performers.

The Idaho State Board of Education awarded three Lake Pend Oreille School District schools with some of its top academic achievement honors this week. Northside and Southside elementary schools earned the distinction as some of Idaho’s highest-performing schools, while Kootenai Elementary charted some of the highest progress in the state. All three schools will be publicly recognized and rewarded by the Idaho State Department of Education at a later date.

According to LPOSD Superintendent Shawn Woodward, with three schools honored in the recent announcement, the district is tied with Coeur d’Alene School District for most schools acknowledged. That’s great news on a local level, he said, but with six out of 15 schools total represented in the award distribution, it’s also an excellent sign for North Idaho education.

“We were all really excited,” Woodward said. “This award came at a great time for all our school staff.”

With district teachers and administrators working on the transition toward Common Core State Standards, the awards come as some much-needed encouragement, Woodward added. With teachers concerned about the potential drop in results compared to the more lenient standards of previous years, the regular validation of LPOSD schools as top performers is a big confidence booster.

Woodward gives credit to local elementary school teachers for this year’s strong performance. He said the teachers take great strides to evaluate each student individually and tailor specific methods to improve their results. It’s a hands-on approach that yields big results in the long run, he said.

“The biggest thing is that our teachers are very intentional in working with their students,” he said. “They’re really dialed in to what they need.”   

Sure enough, the numbers don’t lie when it came time to determine this year’s top performing schools.

The state board used two separate grading metrics to select this year’s winners. For high performance, schools must demonstrate excellence in reading, mathematics and language arts, high student growth and, in the case of high schools, a solid college readiness program. Qualifying schools had to have a five-star ranking for at least two out of three years with the remaining year being at least four stars, achieve annual objectives, be among the top 5 percent in student proficiency and be among the top 10 percent in the gap between high and low-performing students.

High progress schools, on the other hand, had to have previously been a three-star school that jumped to a four-star or better ranking, be among the top 5 percent in student proficiency, be among the top third in the proficiency gap and be among the top third in boosting low-achieving and at-risk students. High schools also had to show improving graduation rates.