Lutacaga presents on closing student achievement gap

OTHELLO — Representatives from Lutacaga Elementary School presented to the Othello School Board on the school’s ongoing priorities and monitoring student success during Monday’s regular meeting following the board’s Feb. 5 site visit to the school.

Lutacaga Principal Christina Benjamin and Assistant Principal Paul Oursland were the primary presenters.

“One thing that we take very seriously is that we really owe it to ourselves, our community and most importantly our students to make sure that we are measuring our impact and knowing that impact,” Oursland said.

Benjamin broke down Lutacaga’s instructional priorities, saying the focus is on being driven by data and feedback for the 2023 to 2024 school year. 

“Interim assessments are assessments that build upon themselves,” Benjamin said. “They're given strategically throughout the year so that we have time as educators to sit down, look at the data and not guess what the kids are doing but know what the kids are doing. What are the kids telling us and how are they showing us their knowledge? Then that gives us as educators time to do some course correction if need be, maybe fill in some holes or some misconceptions before too much time has gone past. It also gives us a really good opportunity to understand student language level and how they're using their languages to bridge between the contents.”

Lutacaga is a dual-language school, teaching in both Spanish and English.

“What we're finding in our dual system is that it's all about the concept, the skill and the task, and the language is a vehicle to get us there, so making sure the kids understand how to translate language between those two areas in all those content areas,” Benjamin said. 

To demonstrate the school’s data collection and student assessments, the presentation used a model to represent a percentage of a year’s worth of learning and help determine what factors impact that learning pace and where Lutacaga students are now that they are halfway through the school year. A year’s worth of learning is represented by the number 0.4, with a 0.2 representing where students should be midway through the year.

“That's what all this work that we're talking about, that our teams are doing here at Lutacaga, is about; reaching that 0.4 and above because that's where we close the achievement gap,” Oursland said. “It's not good enough to just keep on pace; we really have to work to get our students growing more than a year's worth to make sure that any gaps that there are for our students are being closed and that our students have the best chance for success moving forward.”

Oursland elaborated on the school’s average progress and learning pace so far for 2023 to 2024.

“In order to have that one year's worth of growth by the end of the year, right now at halfway we need a 0.2,” Oursland said. “What you're seeing here is … we're at 0.3, so we are outpacing a year's worth of growth, which means that we're working at closing that gap for our students overall.”

Board member Lindsy Prows asked about the one specific assessment measuring below a 0.3, the Indicadores Dinámicos del Éxito en la Lectura (IDEL), which is the Spanish version of the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills test (DIBEL). 

“Has that been pretty on par with past years, that Spanish is a little bit behind?” Prows asked.

Benjamin said that gap has been roughly the same in past years, but that the Spanish version of the assessment is more difficult. 

“DIBEL … is at a second-grade reading level whereas IDEL, we'd be giving it to our second graders but it would be reading at more of a third-grade level, so it is just a little different in the ranking of levels for text,” she said. 

Othello Superintendent Pete Perez detailed how the school can use this scale to prioritize certain efforts towards preventing negative impacts from reversing that learning growth.

“When we talk about, ‘we need more counseling support, we need to advocate for funding, why are we redesigning the (McFarland Middle School) Counseling Center, why are we partnering with (Columbia Basin Health Association),’ it has a direct impact on student learning,” Perez said.

Perez gave another example, saying poor attendance can subtract .46 from a year’s growth on the scale.

“Losing a whole year because you don't come to school enough,” he said. “Why do we have home visitors, why are principals putting pressure on staff to call home and see what’s going on, how can we support families to get there? … (We know) how important it is that when those gaps are created that we're filling them, that we're getting more than a year's growth in a year's time.”

Gabriel Davis may be reached at gdavis@columbiabasinherald.com. Download the Columbia Basin Herald app on iOS and Android.

    Lutacaga Elementary School Principal Christina Benjamin. Benjamin and other Lutacaga staff members presented to the Othello School Board on the school’s progress in analyzing student assessment data and increasing student achievement.