Well read at White Swan High School

WHITE SWAN -- On the first day of school, Jodi Hufendick told her junior English students their reading scores went through the roof.

The kids tried to congratulate her.

"You did this," she remembers telling them over and over. "I spent a lot of time last year convincing them that they are as smart as they are."

This year's WASL results should help make her case.

Nearly 76 percent of the school's sophomores passed the state standardized reading assessment taken last spring -- up from 47 percent the year before.

No other Yakima Valley school showed such a dramatic spike in passage rates -- at any grade or in any subject. The WASL also measures math, writing and science acumen.

With just 52 juniors, that works out to about 15 more students passing than the year before. But the accolades are important in White Swan, where the Mt. Adams School District struggles with high poverty and low test scores in most subjects.

"I'd have to say we're doing something right," says Kenneth Olden, another English teacher at the high school.

The good news also came amid sobering reports of dropping math scores throughout the Valley and uncertainty over the future of the WASL. Randy Dorn, the state superintendent of public instruction, plans to replace the annual exam with something different.

Students, administrators and teachers say the turnaround was fueled by a combination of higher, more uniform standards from all the district's teachers, an unusually bright class, a burst of energy from two new English teachers and an emphasis on reading that permeates all schools and all subjects.

Raising expectations

By all accounts, Hufendick, 34, is part of the surge. The kids say so, the administrators say so.

"She just kept pushing us to get higher and higher," says Kyle Dorais, a junior.

Hufendick, known for lofty expectations and occasional Dr. Seuss readings, started at White Swan last year after a two-year break from teaching. She previously taught in a rural district near Green Bay, Wis., about twice the size of Mt. Adams.

She knew about the district's low scores when she arrived.

The district already faced federal sanctions for not making enough yearly progress as mandated by the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act.

The district recently joined Summit, an improve-ment program funded by the state's Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. Wapato and Sunnyside school districts are part of the same plan.

Schools that receive federal funding for at-risk students face an escalating series of consequences each year they do not show annual progress.

But when Hufendick met the kids, their lack of academic self-assurance surprised her.

"They're confident in who they are," Hufendick says. "They're confident in other things, sports."

But school? Many of them expected to fail.

Hufendick and Olden, who started two years ago, and teachers from neighboring Mt. Adams Middle School agreed to draft progressive standards based on the state's grade-level expectations. For example, sophomores are expected to recognize and analyze tone, metaphors and irony in the material they read, while juniors study dialect, colloquialisms and other forms of dialogue.

Teachers vowed to make  students revise work that  wasn't good enough, some-times requiring six or seven drafts, Hufendick says. She sometimes uses advanced placement questions for writing assignments without telling her class.

"We just all agreed that we are going to hold them to it," Hufendick says.

The students noticed. They weren't happy.

"We didn't like her at first," said Alfredo Galvan, a junior.

They complained Hufendick gave them too much work and was too picky about their essays and presentations. But the students say they slowly came around through the year, seeking out not only her help, but her praise.

The district also changed schedules, allowing for more reading help.

A few years ago, the three schools -- the high school, middle school and Harrah Elementary School -- added reading workshops, elective English classes for students who weren't reading at grade levels. The classes were in addition to regular English class and the same teachers taught both. (However, state budget cuts have forced the high school to cut the workshops.)

The district also has made an effort to include reading in every subject. Science classes post meta-
phors on the walls. Social studies and English teach-ers work to carry similar themes. Math teachers use extra story problems to challenge comprehension.

"We've just been emphasizing you read in every class," Olden says.

Such continuity is easier in a small district, Olden says. All the freshman and seniors get Olden, unless they are in special education classes or Running Start. All sophomores and juniors take English from Hufendick.

Also, most teachers consider the class of 2011 one of the brighter grades, which alone probably drove up the passage rates a few points.

Still work to do

All in all, the news was met with understated response at the school.

"We're very pleasantly surprised," says Jason Nelson, White Swan principal.

Hufendick announced it to her junior class. But administrators did not hold an assembly to celebrate.

The main reason, they say, is there's still plenty of work to do.

For all the gains in reading scores, White Swan passing rates are still lower than the state's 80.9 percent average.

Also, the jump in White Swan reading scores followed a significant drop the year before. Passage rates in reading among 10th-graders went from 58.1 percent in 2007 to 46.8 percent in 2008.

Then there's math.

Math scores are low nearly everywhere in both the Yakima Valley and across the state Washington, but only 12.3 percent of White Swan 10th-graders passed the math exam, while 45.2 percent of the state's 10th-graders did.

Henry Strom, the dis-trict's executive director of student learning, has worked in the district for
nearly 20 years. His grand-parents worked for the schools while his father taught PE at the high school.

He is withholding his true celebrations until even more students show progress.

"We had one good year," Strom said. "We need a couple more."

* Ross Courtney can be reached at 509-930-8798 or rcourtney@yakimaherald.com.