Ka Malu o Kaimana Hila

How do we measure how well a public school is doing in the State of Hawaii? It's definitely more than just scores on high-stakes tests. All schools should demonstrate that they're supporting our children along the educational pipeline toward college, career and community readiness. Are they attending school? Are they graduating? Are they going to college? Students should be able to demonstrate proficiency, but are they also showing growth? And how successful are schools at reducing the achievement gap between high-needs and non-high-needs students?

The Strive HI Performance System was designed to account for all these factors in student success. On November 2, 2023 the State of Hawaii Department of Education released results for all public schools using multiple measures of success.

So how did Waikiki School do on the latest Strive HI Report? Waikiki School did exceptionally well! Our school success is truly a testament to our amazing students, our outstanding teachers and support staff, our supportive families, and our long-standing culture rooted in mindfulness. Take a look at the information below.

Waikiki School students in grades 3, 4, and 5 took the Smarter Balanced Assessment in the areas of Language Arts and Math. Students in grade 5 took the Hawaii State Assessment in Science. As seen below, Waikiki School students did extremely well in all three areas, outpacing both the State and Complex Area proficiency averages. Both our language arts and math proficiency scores are in the top 2% of all elementary schools in Hawaii!

For context how Waikiki School students performed before the COVID pandemic, Language Arts and Math scores from the 2018 and 2019 school years are listed below.

While Hawaii’s student performance has not yet reached pre-pandemic levels, Hawaii’s students are doing relatively well compared to students in other states in returning from the pandemic:

Hawaii’s students are demonstrating high levels of proficiency among states administering the Smarter Balanced Assessments in Language Arts and Mathematics. Since last school year, many states experienced no change or slight declines in student proficiency levels on the Smarter Balanced Assessment.

Elementary Schools, as a means to measure literacy, look at the percent of third grade students who are Above or At/Near who are meeting grade level standards for reading .The statewide 3rd grade literacy rate is 78%. Waikiki School's 3rd grade literacy rate is 90%.

To measure equity, Hawaii public schools look at different subgroups and compare how they perform to their non-high-needs peers. This difference in Language Arts and math proficiency rates for high-needs (economically disadvantaged, special needs, English Learners) and non-high-needs students is called the achievement gap.

The 20% achievement gap in Language Arts between Non-High Needs and High Needs students is the smallest in the past 5 years! The same is true with the 13% achievement gap for Math. That number is the smallest achievement gap in the past 5 years!

Also of note is that our high-needs proficiency for both Language Arts and Math is HIGHER than both the State and Complex Area overall average.

The WIDA ACCESS for ELLs 2.0 is an English language proficiency assessment administered to all English Learners in kindergarten through 12th grade to monitor students’ progress and proficiency in acquiring academic English. Based on the WIDA ACCESS for ELLs 2.0 assessment, 75% of Waikiki School's EL students are on-track to reach English Language Proficiency. That is an amazing 10% increase from the previous school year!

For context, the numbers below show the achievement gap and English Learner on-track proficiency from the 2021-22 school year.

Growth is best understood as a comparison between academic peers. Academic peers are defined as students in the same grade with similar state assessment score histories for a given content area. So, for a student who has had low Hawaii State Assessment scores for the last few years, his or her growth is compared to students who have scored similarly, as measured by the students’ scaled scores.

To use a common metaphor to describe modeling, if your retirement portfolio grew by 10 percent over one year:

• That would be something to be happy about if the market only went up 5 percent in that time, or
• Something to be disappointed with if the rest of the market went up by 20 percent in that time.

Each year, our growth model analyzes all available assessment data to determine how each student’s new test results compare with his/her academic peers. Regardless of school or class size, individual growth can be calculated for all students who have two consecutive assessment scores.

Median Student Growth Percentiles of MGP

These percentiles are summary measures that aggregate individual student growth percentiles. Medians are simply the middle student's score or the average of the middle two students' scores when all the scores in a group are sorted from least to greatest.

For example, in a school with a median student growth percentile of 60, half of the students had individual student growth percentiles greater than 60 and half of the students had individual student growth percentiles less than 60.

For an individual student, a student growth percentile of 60 signifies that the student scored higher than 60 percent of other students throughout the state with similar prior state assessment performance.

Waikiki School's Median Growth Percentile (MGP) on the latest Strive HI report was 53 for Language Arts and 57 for Math. Both MGP scores indicate that our students are demonstrating good year to year growth.

Percent reporting positively on the Panorama Student Perception Survey. 76% of students in grades 3-5 at Waikiki indicated a positive perception of school. This is higher than the State average of 71%.

The chart below shows the previous year's Strive HI perception data. Our students showed a slight gain, while the State average showed a slight drop.

Waikiki School demonstrated a drop in the amount of students who were absent 15 or more days during the 2022-23 school year.

Statewide, student attendance improved with fewer students being chronically absent (15 days or more of absences): 30% in SY 2022-23, down from 37% in SY 2021-22. However, as with national trends, student absences continue to be high. Since the pandemic, elementary students have had the highest levels of chronic absenteeism

For 4th and 5th grade families whose child took the Smarter Balanced Assessment at Waikiki School during the 2022-23 school year, you should have received an email on Tuesday, October 17, 2023 from DoNotReply@cambiumassessment.com with the heading (Hawaii Family Portal) Access Code for your student. Once you get your access code using the link in the email, you can view your child's results at https://hi-familyportal.cambiumast.com (See graphic below)

October 30-November 13 - Parent-Teacher Conferences. Early Release at 1:15 pm for 10 days.

November 9 - Ohana Night 5:30 pm Kids 4 CPR

November 10 - Veteran's Day (No School)

November 20 - PTO CPK Night Fundraiser

November 23-24 - Thanksgiving Holiday (No School)

December 22-January 4 - Winter Break (No School)

December 5-7 - Winter Store

Email: ryan@waikikischool.org
Website: waikikischool.org
Location: 3710 Leahi Avenue, Honolulu, HI, USA
Phone: (808) 971-6900
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WaikikiSchool
Twitter: @WaikikiSchool