The Mary Walker School District is located about an hour outside of Spokane, deep in the heart of rural and rugged Northeastern Washington. The majority of students are poor and many high school students possess more education than their parents.
While many urban schools struggle to help their poorest students with a network of community support, being isolated by geography and population presents an entirely new layer of challenges: Quality teachers are difficult to recruit. Districts often struggle to collaborate. Maintenance of aging facilities often takes precedence over necessary curriculum updates. And, until recently, getting students to think seriously about going to college was more a dream than a reality.
The Panorama Rural Education Partnership, however, has turned these challenges into opportunities by pooling their resources and holding students to higher standards.
In 2002, as a consortium of rural districts, they began to offer and encourage more students to take Advanced Placement (AP) coursework, provide increased access to college counseling and funding and spread the promise of college to earlier grades. And, in Mary Walker, where previously little college-going culture existed, now more than 70 percent of students attend postsecondary education and the number of students entering four-year colleges has increased more than three-fold.
“We’re really just a good story about the power of high standards for ‘average kids,’” says Jerry Dyar, Mary Walker’s college counselor and a strong advocate for the Panorama Partnership. “Teachers want to teach AP classes and students want to take them. They want to get ahead. So when we gave them the tools, we started seeing results.”
Dyar’s modesty hides the incredible amount of work he and others have done to unite the Panorama Partnership and bring together nine rural districts (Stevens County, Curlew, Cusick, Inchelium, Mary Walker, Northport, Republic, Selkirk and Wellpinit) under the mission that all students should be prepared for postsecondary success education.
“There has been some pushback from the community and some staff who think not all students are going to college,” said Mary Walker Superintendent Kevin Jacka. “But this is a place to start a discussion—the idea that college is limited to four-year programs is not the case. We stress that the skills and knowledge that make you successful in a university help you through technical programs, as well.”
Through the Panorama Partnership, Dyar and Jacka’s efforts to create a college-going culture in rural schools have included a scrappy, but highly effective, blend of the state’s college-readiness resources. Due to the high-poverty levels of their districts, the Panorama Partnership was able to qualify for a GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) grant that allows them to take middle and high schools students on college visits and put on an array of parent financial aid nights.
The highly successful Navigation 101 program—which challenges students to create, present and stick to a high school and beyond plan—has also become an essential part of the Panorama Partnership’s efforts to engage students and their families in academic, career, and college planning.
“We try to connect all existing resources to create this culture,” said Jacka. “We will be promoting the College Bound Scholarship Program (which promises full four-year tuition to low-income middle school students who pledge to graduate high school) to our 7th and 8th grade families during student conference week. The great majority of our students will qualify for the scholarship and will know before they even get to high school that college is affordable. We also give all of our 9th, 10th, and 11th grade students the PSAT at no charge.”
Though the addition and expansion of AP coursework in Panorama Partnership schools has been just one of the elements that has increased college-going rates, Dyar says that is an important one.
“AP classes aren’t the only answer, but they are an external validator—a tangible piece that tells students that they can go to college and succeed.”
Currently, almost 50 percent of Mary Walker students have enrolled in an AP class upon graduation—an amazing feat considering the districts only received AP materials through the Panorama Partnership in 2002. They have also begun to add pre-AP curriculum at the middle school level to improve AP readiness.
With the help of the GEAR UP grant, the Panorama Partnership recently dug deeper into its schools to mine the college aspirations of middle school students. In a Spring 2007 survey, they found that approximately 90 percent of 5th- through 8th-graders planned to go to college.
“The numbers are good, but the most encouraging thing is the variety and specificity of the career plans. Some examples: mechanic, architect, engineer, game designer, plumber, pharmacist, detective, linguist, orthopedic surgeon, x-ray technician. Very few of the obvious choices for this age group,” Dyar said.
For their efforts to improve college readiness, in 2007, Mary Walker High School was selected as one of the top 500 high schools in the nation (and awarded a silver medal) by U.S. News and World Report. Four other Panorama Partnership districts—Curlew, Northport, Republic and Selkirk—won bronze medals for being among the top 1,000 schools in the nation.
“[The ranking and awards] are adjusted for poverty, which we have an abundance of—so what it says is that we are outperforming our demographics. It’s good thing, but it doesn't mean our kids are on a level playing field with kids from affluent districts. That's our goal: give students the same chance as students in Bellevue. The recognition is nice, but bittersweet,” said Dyar.
In the future, Jacka and Dyar want to continue to build the richness of the consortium’s AP and college-readiness curriculum and to be identified, not just as a group of rural schools, but as a place known for rigorously preparing students for college.
Math and Science Teachers Study Receives Funding
Last week, the Senate appropriated more than $140,000 to HB 2809 - a bill that seeks to quantify the number of math teachers we need, accelerate recruitment programs and introduce financial incentives to attract math and science teachers.
Nearly half of recent high school graduates attending community college in our state need remedial math before they can begin credit-bearing work. This is not only unfair to students, but wastes millions of dollars of taxpayer money every year. Improvement has been stymied due to a shortage of qualified teachers, which is projected to increase. Accurate data is the foundation needed to work toward solutions.
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