Orcas High Wins Washington Achievement Award

Overall Excellence Achievement Recognized, also  Language Arts and Math 

For the fifth year in a row, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and now for 2011, OrcasIsland High School has won the stateʼs recognition award!

For the first two years, it was called the Schools of Distinction. For the last three it has become the Achievement Award, sponsored by the State Board of Education (SBE) and the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI).

The Washington Achievement Award is based on the Washington Achievement Index. It recognizes schools for overall excellence and special recognition in: language arts, math, science, graduation rate, improvement and closing achievement gaps.

This year, Orcas HS won in overall excellence and in the categories for both language arts and math. Orcas Island  Superintendent and High School Principal Barbara Kline will accept the award at an annual ceremony  hosted by the SBE and OSPI this week.

Schools are selected based on their statewide assessment data for the three previous years. This data is analyzed using the Achievement Index and methodology approved by both OSPI and the SBE.

According to the OSPI, “Both the State Board of Education and Superintendent Dorn recognize the incredible effort educators, administrators and families are putting into making our schools the very best they can be. They also know that schools need a reliable and fair tool to help make sense of assessment data and align those data with state and national priorities. By lifting up our most successful schools the Washington Achievement Award shines a light on some of the best practices that are making that success possible.”

Superintendent Kline adds, “It is worth studying the achievement index to tell us what it says about our studentsʼ performance as compared to how we are expected to do given our population. The index is found at
https://www.sbe.wa.gov/default.html?tab=3&panel=0#TabbedPanels1