Issaquah Valley Elementary

In the 2022-23 school year, we were excited to see our student leadership team, events and community gatherings return and even a variety of school assemblies. Some of our highlighted events were the Washington State author visit, Taproot, school-wide celebrations, and King County Curiosity Quest assemblies. We also welcomed back our student leadership team and welcomed our green team this year.  These teams are led by grade-level students from classrooms from grades 2-5.  These student leaders supported by IVE staff members can show leadership within IVE and support student voice and ideas to cultivate our sense of belonging. Our green team leaders supported our school by teaching and monitoring our school's compost and recycling use in our school cafeteria.

AT IVE we are very fortunate to have a highly supportive and involved PTA. They support our staff with a classroom budget that helps teachers in adding more books, supplies, technology, etc., in their classrooms.  With their support this year we were able to welcome back many community events and field trips.  A few of the favorites were: Trunk or Treat, Family Literacy Night, Scholastic Book Fair, Glow Bingo Night, and Color Fun Run.  Our PTA also supported 5^th  grade camp, 3^rd grade Air and Space Museum visit, in-house Toymaker, and Kirkland Theater for our 1^st graders.

Our students represent a diverse demographic both socioeconomically and ethnically. We strive to celebrate diversity and Issaquah Valley is very proud of our community.  This year ALL students and staff engaged in learning and signing an Equity Pledge.  In which all students and staff at IVE treat ALL people with kindness and respect.  The signed pledges were displayed in our hallways to represent that at IVE we treat everyone with kindness. A few other highlights were our 2^nd annual IVE Day of Service in which ALL classrooms were involved in an act of kindness or service to the school or their classroom. We were also so excited to watch our students with their buddy classrooms thrive and enjoy time reading, creating, and learning from one another.

Several special programs work together to help meet the varied needs of students. The Title I Reading programs provide instructional support for students. Our MLL Program meets the needs of our Multi-Language Learners. SAGE (Special Approach to Gifted Education) and PEP (Primary Enrichment Program) programs provide weekly pull-out instruction for gifted students as well as Challenge Math. A Special Education program, full-time MTSS specialist and full-time Counselor provide additional support for students in need. Issaquah Valley Elementary has partnered with Swedish Hospital to provide a full-time Health Counselor. This amazing partner provides students and families therapy for those who are at risk or who need additional social or emotional support.

Issaquah Valley Elementary is happy to have a close relationship with the Issaquah Schools Foundation. The Foundation’s generous fiscal support for IVE programs allows us to provide greater support for students and families, such as classroom grants.  For the second year, our librarian was awarded a $3000 grant to purchase diverse reads. The ISF also supports our families with Tools for schools at the beginning of the year to support students needing supplies and backpacks to start a successful school year.  The Issaquah Schools Foundation also gifted IVE $1000 to purchase breakfast items for students. Also, with the support of the ISF, we were able to bring IVE, a Cultural Festival.  An event to represent our community, especially our Dual Language students.  Part of the event was bringing delicious food from Spanish-speaking cultures and a Mexican Folkloric group.

I-Ready Reading and Math diagnostics and assessments continue to give our teachers and students focused data on the learning targets, in each subject area, where students needed additional small-group instruction to develop deeper comprehension. These small learning groups were key to increased student engagement and increased learning. The I-ready diagnostic data has also supported the work of our MTSS Tiered teams. Using this data our team has been able to increase our support of teachers and students through more targeted Tier 1 and 2 instructions.  Additionally, our students are invited to continue their i-Ready programs over the summer in an effort to keep their momentum of growth moving forward, as developing readers, writers, and mathematicians.  All this is part of Issaquah Valley’s school improvement plan to provide and prepare ALL our students academically.

For the 2022 -23 school year, improvement in Reading, using the Reading Foundation Skills Curriculum and i-Ready Reading program, was IVE’s focus. Participation in IVE’s professional learning development meetings saw staff collaboratively glean an understanding of how to best meet our students’ learning needs in reading with the staff attending multiple sessions dedicated to growing their instructional skill set and teaching strategies for all learners.

We recognize that supporting the social and emotional well-being of our students is of utmost importance and at IVE we prioritize SEL support for all Issaquah Valley students. In classrooms, teachers hold daily Morning Meetings and greet students at the door every morning which functions to build and strengthen both student-to-teacher and student-to-student relationships and helps to build community and family in the classroom. The IVE principal and assistant principal film weekly announcements where they remind and re-teach learning expectations and share content provided by IVE students. The IVE counselor and MTSS specialist support classroom teachers and students daily.  The MTSS specialist and Counselor also work closely with the principal and assistant principal to support all students and staff.  

In 2022-23 we were very excited to expand the Dual Language Program at IVE.  We added 3^rd grade and welcomed all our students and families from Clark Elementary who had been participating in the program. Dual language education programs integrate English-speaking students with native Spanish-speaking students. Academic instruction is presented in both languages. Social and academic learning occurs in an environment that values the language and culture of all students and sets high standards to ultimately achieve academic success in both Spanish and English.

The Issaquah School District provides a tuition-based before and after school childcare program here at Issaquah Valley called Cougar Club. In addition to this school-age care program, a wide range of activities and after school classes are available to Issaquah Valley students through the school PTA and private instruction.  

We heard voices of our community through an end-of-year climate survey we conducted in April of 2023. Another exciting event in the 2022-23 school year is to welcome 4^th Dual Language classrooms to continue our traditions of community events and welcome new events that include ALL our families.