State of the District
Oct. 28, 2022
School Board Update
The school board was thrilled to see so many Capital Levy projects checked off the list over the summer.
The six-year capital levy, approved in February 2020, includes a wide range of capital improvements to the district's facilities. The improvements will hopefully extend the life of all the district's school buildings as the district tries to continue to use taxpayer funding wisely and responsibly.
Projects completed this summer (after multiple bids were collected from contractors) include:
- Lyman siding and painting
- State Street High School HVAC replacement
- State Street High School painting
- Evergreen Gym flooring
- Evergreen siding
- Evergreen gym HVAC replacement
- High School boiler replacement (one set of fans is still on back order, scheduled install is Nov. 11 when there is no school)
- High school boiler phase three
- Cascade Middle School Technology building re-sealed
- Big Lake B building flooring
- Clear Lake chimney and boiler exhaust repairs
- State Street High School ramp replaced
- Mary Purcell water heater has been moved and old boiler removed
- Sedro-Woolley High School C building repairs
The district will collect $2.5 million per year for six years. This will cost taxpayers 64¢ per $1,000 in increased property taxes in 2021, 64¢ per $1,000 in increased property taxes in 2022, 61¢ per $1,000 in increased property taxes in 2023, 59¢ per $1,000 in increased property taxes in 2024, 57¢ per $1,000 in increased property taxes in 2025 and 55¢ per $1,000 in increased property taxes in 2026.
The board would also like to recognize the hard work of our maintenance crews for their part in the projects above. They spent many hours working on these projects this summer to help us keep costs down where possible.
The board would also like to recognize the many, many hours our custodians, maintenance workers and mechanics keep our campuses clean and operational and buses running safely.
Superintendent's Update: District continues its return to normalcy
From passing the Education Programs & Operations (EPO) Levy in February 2022, to seeing crowded bleachers at our fall sporting events at Sedro-Woolley High school, our community continues to show up for our students and staff.
If there is one thing that I have learned about Sedro-Woolley and its surrounding communities, it's that you love our students. Despite the uncertainties and impacts of the past two years, the state of the Sedro-Woolley School District remains strong and resilient because of our communities' support.
It is with relentless commitment that we pursue our district mission to have every student graduate with the knowledge and skills for future learning and success.
Thank you, Sedro-Woolley families and community members, for your amazing support and partnership.
We continue to remember that we are STRONGER TOGETHER!
Dr. Miriam Miralles Mickelson
Superintendent
Sedro-Woolley School District
District continues its use of Ci3T
The Comprehensive, Integrated, Three-Tiered Model of Prevention (Ci3T) is a school-wide, small group, and individualized plan that identifies and addresses student needs in academics, behavior, and social skills.
There are three levels of support for students:
Primary Support: Designed as preventative and includes academic, social, and behavioral components for all students.
Secondary Support: Offered to small groups of students experiencing similar needs
Tertiary Support: Individualized for intensive support
Students come to school with a wide range of academic, behavioral, and social strengths and needs. To serve these students well, schools need a carefully crafted plan aligning supports and services in ways that address these individual strengths and needs.
A comprehensive, integrated, three-tiered (Ci3T) model of prevention is a proactive approach to meet the academic, behavioral, and social needs of students. The Ci3T model aims to prevent and respond effectively to the development of learning and behavioral challenges through tiers of support as noted above. A school-based team — which is representative of the entire school’s staff — creates and leads implementation of the Ci3T model based on the unique needs and culture of their school.
Big Lake Elementary
2022-2023 Enrollment: 270, up 27 students from spring 2022
Back to Business: Big Lake Elementary School is focusing on the whole child using academic, social, and behavioral supports through our Comprehensive Integrated 3-Tiered (Ci3T) model of Prevention building plan.
The school is also excited to open their doors to volunteers to support students during the day. Big Lake had great interest in their Watch D.O.G.S. (Dads of Great Students) program during a pizza recruitment night. The school is offering an after-school chess club on Wednesdays and are looking at more ways to provide enrichment for our students after school.
The school's parent group will be hosting a Harvest Festival on the 28th from 6–8 p.m. There will be Trunk or Treat in the school's north parking lot as well as other activities and snacks provided in the gym. Big Lake will be having a Veteran's Day assembly and a Grandparent's Day celebration on Nov. 24. The school is hoping to rekindle their rent-a-grandparent volunteer program again. This program promotes grandparents volunteering their time in classrooms to offer comfort and support to students.
Go Beavers!
Cascade Middle School
Back to Business: Staff and students at the middle school are so glad to be back to normal with assemblies, school dances, and other activities that were really missed during the past few years.
The Kodiaks are wrapping up Girl’s Soccer, Cross Country, and Drama; and are getting ready for Boys' Basketball. We hope to see our community at these events, supporting our students. Go Kodiaks!
Central Elementary School
2022-2023 Enrollment: 464, up 56 from spring 2022
Back to business: For the first time in two years, Central Elementary School was able to open their doors for a normal school year. The school hosted a well-attended open house before school started. The building was buzzing and the excitement was evident as families toured the halls, met teachers and staff, and enjoyed ice cream.
Central teachers returned to school three days earlier than the rest of the district to attend a Project Based Learning (PBL) training. Each grade level has thoughfully planned a PBL unit connected to learning goals for this fall. The PBL units will culminate with Central’s annual Cougar Pride Night on Dec. 8. Cougar Pride Night is an opportunity for every student to showcase their learning through a project of their choice. Music and Art also have returned to Central and the halls are full of students’ creativity. Each classroom is practicing songs for the school’s Veteran’s Day Assembly on Nov. 10, which will take place prior to the annual Veterans Day Parade with Mary Purcell.
Clear Lake Elementary School
2022-2023 Enrollment: 296, up 33 from 2021-2022
The school had guest speakers presenting to their sixth graders about their travels through Egypt, the Clear Lake Fire Department greeting and visiting our students in the morning, the book fair has been in full swing, and our kindies have visited a pumpkin patch! Students also participated in a walking field trip to the Clear Lake Fire Department during Fire Prevention Week.
Upcoming events include: Miss Washington will be speaking to students about kindness, the Clear Lake Parent Group is planning their Fall Festival for our students and families, and the school will be having their annual Book Character Parade, walking through Clear Lake on October 31. Clear Lake Elementary is spectacular!
Evergreen STEM Elementary
2022-2023 Enrollment: 551, up five from spring 2022
STEM skills include collaborating with others, communicating with co-workers or clients, creativity in our daily lives or when designing a product, and critical thinking to answer big questions or solve a problem.
These STEM skills should be embedded in our learning about English and Language Arts, Math, Social Studies, PE, Music, or Science.
Lyman Elementary School
Back to business: It feels fantastic to be back in the normal routines of teaching and learning. We build relationships and learn best face to face and hands on!
Lyman's focus this year is on writing skills, math alignment across grade levels and standards and brain research on executive function.
Mary Purcell Elementary School
Back to Business: Mary Purcell's enrollment will be somewhere between 446 - 460 students depending on how many Foundations Kindergarten classes we can offer. Last year enrollment was 387 without Foundations Kindergarten and 423 with our Foundations Kindergarten classes.
Mary Purcell Elementary staff and students are happy to be back together and moving forward with our programs involving our work with Multi-tiered Systems of Support/Comprehensive, Integrated, 3-tiered Models.
Mary Purcell's student body focuses on four key foundations for working together: Respect, Responsibility, Safety, and Perseverance. The school has a strong interventions team and program focusing on literacy support for their students.
Mary Purcell's teachers and parent group are dedicated with their yearly support for the school with extracurricular activities such as book fair, math night, and skate nights to just name a few. They may very well also have the best elementary library program, offering escape rooms, reading challenges, and many more creative ideas and themes presented by the school's librarian.
Samish Elementary School
2022-2023 Enrollment: 176, up 8 from 2021-2022
Back to Business: Samish Elementary is excited for the 2022-2023 school year with a focus on inclusion. Principal Laura Schmidt takes over leadership with the goal of bringing all stakeholders together to support all students. “Together is Better” means that we are ALL in for ALL students ALL the time and that “Every Piece Matters.” Our community has been invited to be a part of our school through partnering with our Samish Elementary Parent Group (SEPG) and volunteer opportunities such as “Watch D.O.G.S. (Dads of Great Students).” All students will have a voice this year through the reinstatement of ASB (Associated Student Body) and all grades K-6 are learning how to represent their peers. The school is excited to welcome families and veterans to our November 4th assembly.
Samish Elementary is implementing our Ci3T (Comprehensive Integrated 3-Tiered Model of Prevention) where all stakeholders work to support students in three aspects; academic, social, and behavioral. New to Samish Elementary this year is our STRIVE (Structured Teaching Reinforced in a Visual Environment) Program. Our new kindergarten students are working together with STRIVE kindergarteners in an inclusion model.
Teaching and learning will focus on reading comprehension, math number sense, and student ownership of expected behaviors this school year.
GO Bruins!
Sedro-Woolley High School
2022-2023 Enrollment: 1,282, Up 168 students
Back to Business:
- Recognized for Best of the Best High School in Skagit County, 2022
- Recognized for Outstanding Growth by OSPI in 2018
Sedro-Woolley High School has a proud tradition of offering an outstanding program of academic courses, career and technical education courses, athletic programs, and co-curricular activities.
CUB PRIDE and EXCELLENCE is ever-present in SWHS's student body and walking through classrooms, you will see the vast, comprehensive course offerings preparing our students for life after high school.
Students can enroll in Advanced Placement courses, College in the High School courses (aligned with Central Washington University and Skagit Community College), and advanced level courses in all content areas, including our incredible Career and Technical Education classes.
Our partnership with Northwest Career and Technical Academy also allows students to become certified in their area of study as well as meet the graduation requirements for our Sedro-Woolley High School diploma.
We are in our current fall sports season (Volleyball, Boy’s Tennis, Football, Boy’s and Girl’s Cross Country, and Girl’s Swim) about to enter post-season competition for the Cubs! Our Marching Band, Cheer Team, Student Section is one of the loudest and proudest at our home games, and our Cub Blue Fridays start the day with Pep on the Steps with our Drum Line, Cheer Team, ASB and student leaders, cheering all students into the front entrance.
Our ASB leads our school with great pride and Cub Spirit all year long and most recently led fun-filled activities through Homecoming Week in September.
Upcoming, we have festive dress-up days planned the last week of October, creating a fun, spooky, atmosphere for our Cubs.
We are grateful for the partnership with our families and look forward to seeing everyone at Parent-Teacher Conferences on Wednesday, November 9th.
“Our mission is to prepare and inspire our students for the unlimited possibilities in high school and beyond.”
Together, We Are Cub Strong!
SWHS Athletic Department Update
The Athletic Department has implemented a character and leadership based app for our student-athletes. This app is something that can help our Cubs become better students and athletes. It gives them 2–5 minutes of daily content, used to encourage the development of their character and leadership skills.
Daily work consists of: Monday Life Lessons; Tuesday Sports Blog; Wednesday Role Model; Thursday Dilemma; Friday Movie Clip; and Week 1 Goals.
- Cubs Athletics welcomes two new head coaches that were former graduates of Sedro-Woolley in Shawna Tesarik (Volleyball) and Ethan Brown (Boys Basketball). They are a testament to the love and pride people of the community have in Sedro-Woolley High School and show their gratitude by giving back to the kids they once were!
- For the 5th time in 2022, Sedro-Woolley High School has earned the top spot for all high school athletic websites. September marks the 5th time in 6th months that this has happened, and showed over 20,000 more visits (67,669) than the previous record this year which was also held by Woolley in May (47,227).
- Each year at Sedro-Woolley High School, two representatives are selected for a citizenship award and represent our school in the Northwest Conference. They earn this by exemplifying academics, sportsmanship, citizenship and character within athletics and the classroom. Many student-athletes were deserving of the awards, but Seniors Emery DeJong and Otto Tesarik rose to the top! Emery (a 4.0 GPA student) is one of the top Volleyball players in the conference while also excelling on the tennis courts. Otto (a 3.9 GPA student) is a three-sport athlete who prospers in Tennis, Wrestling and Baseball.
Average Team GPAs for our fall sports teams:
o Cheer - 3.298
o Boy XC - 3.5
o Girls XC - 3.455
o Football - 3.173
o Girls Soccer - 3.684
o Girls Swim - 3.479
o Boys Tennis – 3.671
o Volleyball – 3.702
Go Cubs!
State Street High School
2022-2023 Enrollment: 157, up seven from spring 2022.
Back to business: SSHS students have come back ready to learn. It's been a great start to the year.
State Street's focus is to continue working on getting students to graduation. It's also a year where we're focusing on gratitude and community building along with academics.
Enrollment slowly recovering
Enrollment numbers continue to return to our pre-pandemic numbers, with about 4,310 students enrolled during our early September 2022 count.
The Sedro-Woolley School District had 4,399 students enrolled during the 2019-2020 school year.
Enrollment took a substantial hit during the 2020-2021 school year, decreasing by 316 to 4,083 students, which resulted in a loss of about $3.1 million in funding.
While the return of students is a good sign, the district is still bringing its budget into alignment by using the remaining ESSER funds while watching for areas to reduce spending in the 2023-2024 to stay within our local, state and federal spending allotments.
Food Service Department
So far during the 2022-2023 school year, the Sedro-Woolley Food Service Department has been serving an average of 3,940 daily meals districtwide.
To give some perspective, the district was serving approximately 3,150-3,200 daily meals in the 2019-2020 school year and 3,700 daily meals last school year. Food Service has increased their meal production by 750 meals compared to just three school years ago, and 250 meals since June of last year.
Farm to School Efforts
The Sedro-Woolley School District was awarded a $56,000 Farm to School purchasing grant through the Washington State Department of Agriculture for the 2022-23 school year. The grant funds will be used by the Food Service Department to procure locally grown products for use in school meals.
In addition, United General District 304 partnered with SWSD on a two-year $91,832 Farm to School grant through the United States Department of Agriculture. This USDA Farm to School grant focuses on teaching students about healthy food, how it is raised by local farmers, and how to care for the environment. The garden-based education portion of the grant provides students with hands-on experience they do not receive in a classroom.
Samish, Central, Clear Lake and Evergreen elementary schools have school gardens in various stages of development, and are receiving garden education classes incorporated as part of the school day.
Both grants help the District coordinate a local Harvest of the Month program. Harvest of the Month highlights one produce item each month, and allows students an opportunity to learn about the item and the farmer who produces the food. Students are also given an opportunity to sample the item as part of the school meals program at some time during the month.
Migrant/Multilingual Program
There are 471 students in the district who speak another language including Spanish, Mixteco, Russian, Ukrainian, and eight other languages.
Students are served by explicit language instruction individually or in small groups and through meaningful access to rigorous, grade-level content.
Improved family outreach is a goal for the program this year and a recent event included a Skyward Education Family Night at SWHS. Program leaders are looking forward to a Migrant Youth Leadership Conference in November and a Literacy at the Library event in January, among other events.
The goal is to increase student and family access and inclusion through technology accommodations, instruction for students, and training and support for teachers to implement Universal Design for Learning.
Highly Capable Program
This year our Highly Capable personnel have changed, with Tim Gjefle, Assistant Principal at Central Elementary, taking over as administrator and Elli Gildnes as the elementary HiCap teacher.
Heather Swenson, Assistant Director of Curriculum and Instruction is the overseeing district administrator. There is also a Hi-Cap Advisory Committee made up of teachers from all levels, counselors, psychologists, administrators and parent volunteers.
Central Elementary is our Magnet Hi-Cap school, serving more than half of the 82 elementary students who qualify for the program, while the other students who qualify are served in their home schools by Ms. Gildnes, who will see them twice a year for two 5 week units.
At Cascade the 89 students who qualify for Hi-Cap are served through advanced math and humanities placements, and the students who qualify at the high school are supported through advanced placement and honors courses, as well as a shared advisory.
The goal for the program this year is equitable identification, screening, and qualification of students. All students are screened in second and sixth grades, although any student can be screened upon request.
Facilities/Maintenance/Grounds and Custodial Department
The Facilities/Maintenance/Grounds and Custodial Department has been hopping this year.
They have completed several capital levy projects this summer in seven schools. These projects replaced aging HVAC systems, repaired exteriors and improved safety. These repairs will allow the maintenance team to focus on other problem areas and improve the condition of all buildings in the district.
Despite increased material cost, the team has found creative ways to effectively get their jobs done while being good stewards of the buildings and budget.
The custodian team did an outstanding job adapting to the challenges and ever-changing requirements that cleaning in the time of COVID demanded.
The department is excited to get back to normal and just take care of the buildings.
Lastly, Sedro-Woolley had 3,083 district events and 3,063 outside user group events totaling 6,146 events that were supported during the 2021-2022 school year, with even more usage expected during the current school year.
Transportation Department
The transportation staff is happy to back on the road again!
The district is currently running 32 bus routes and three motor pool routes. The department is transporting 357 more riders compared to last year’s fall ridership count.
The district was able to purchase a new propane bus for the 2022-2023 school year!
The district is currently hiring substitute bus drivers and monitors — paid training plus benefits. If interested, call the Transportation Department at 360-855-3504.