By Joel Aune, Snoqualmie Valley School District Superintendent

Next week, we will welcome more than 6,500 students back from the summer break as the 2015-16 school year gets underway. They will be coming back to schools where principals, teachers, and support staff are doing some truly exceptional work to ensure our students enjoy a successful school experience. In fact, the level of student achievement in our schools continues to be on par with the highest performing schools in the entire state.

However, there is always room for improvement. The ultimate goal for us is to ensure every child and young person finds success in our schools. At this time, an area of particular focus for us is to boost graduation rates. While the rates have been trending upward in recent years, there is opportunity to further improve them.

Back in the spring of 2014, a special task force comprised of 25 Snoqualmie Valley educators was established. The task force was charged to develop a comprehensive three-year plan with specific recommendations on how our graduation rates might be improved.

Over several months of study and conversation, the task force interviewed students, evaluated current systems, and conducted an extensive review of the research related to on-time graduation.

Task force members discovered that many different factors can cause a student to drop out of school. Those factors are related to the individual, the school, the family, and the community.

At a high level, the task force identified excessive absenteeism, lack of engagement in learning, social and emotional barriers to learning, and grading practices as four of the most significant impediments to graduation here in the Snoqualmie Valley School District. Another finding was that our current systems center primarily on remediation, rather than a more proactive, systematic approach of early intervention for students who profile the potential for dropping out of school.

The task force developed a number of recommendations that focus on improving teaching strategies in every classroom through professional development, instructional coaching, and more support for teachers. The recommendations also place an emphasis on prevention, through development of an early warning system, using data to adapt instruction, a focus on early learning and classroom instruction to increase rigor and augment engagement strategies, and implementing a comprehensive behavior framework across the entire district. Other recommendations proffered by the task force define strategies to improve attendance, build stronger relationships with students, improve work ethic among at-risk students, address academic readiness through intervention, and provide more individualized support. This important work is now predominant in our strategic plan and will be emphasized during the upcoming school year.

We aspire to reach a place where 100 percent of our students graduate with a high school diploma. It is only by aiming high that our already outstanding schools will continue to improve.