Education
Rural districts put to the test

By Lynn Thompson
Times Snohomish County Bureau

Dayn Brunner Darrington's senior high school shares a campus with the district's preschool, elementary and junior high.

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It was a bear rummaging through garbage cans about a block from Darrington schools, and not low test scores, that was on school administrators' minds recently.

The first dusting of snow on Whitehorse Mountain had apparently stirred the bear to some last-minute foraging, and neighbors called the school-district offices to tell them to keep the littlest children from the far edges of the playground, just in case.

In this town of 1,400 people, the preschool, elementary, junior and senior high schools sit on one campus and serve fewer total kids — 565 — than attend some suburban elementary schools.

It's a place where cellphones, ballet lessons and college exist in a world locals refer to as "down below."

But when it comes to how well students perform on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning, the WASL, Darrington is held to the same standard as every other school district in the state.

Darrington's scores on the 2004 WASL were the lowest in Snohomish County, with just 13 percent of seventh-graders and 20 percent of fourth-graders meeting standards in all three tested subjects: reading, writing and math.

Rural districts generally scored lower than their urban and suburban counterparts in the county. Only 29 percent of Sultan seventh-graders and 34 percent of Granite Falls seventh-graders met standards in all three subjects. That compares with 43 percent of seventh-graders in Mukilteo schools and 44 percent in Edmonds. The state average was 36 percent. Students in all districts took the same tests.

Darrington educators and residents say they're confident about the quality of their schools. They point out that they already have what many big schools are writing grants to obtain: the smaller learning communities that make it easier for teachers to meet individual students' needs.

But the low test scores also highlight some of the challenges facing rural districts, from recruiting and retaining quality teachers to reaching kids from poor families whose parents in many cases did not attend college.

The median income in Darrington is $34,000, according to DemographicsNow, a private data provider. Almost half of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, a federal measure of family poverty. That compares with 31 percent of students in Everett schools and 26 percent in Edmonds. And only 5 percent of Darrington residents hold bachelor's degrees.
 
Until about a decade ago, most kids in Darrington had a job waiting for them in the timber industry, whether they finished high school or not. The school's sports teams are called the Loggers. The remodeled high school has fir wainscoting salvaged from the walls of the original school.

"The guys could go right to the mill or to the woods and find employment. Now the timber mill wants people with high-school diplomas," said Trudy LaDouceur, the district's community- resources director and a Darrington native.

Brett Galbraith, the district assessment director and high-school counselor, said Darrington's WASL results, though down overall from three years ago, show marked improvement from seventh to 10th grade, where 33 percent met standards in all three subjects. In 2001, only 14 percent of 10th-graders were proficient in the three subjects.

Galbraith, who also grew up in Darrington, said test scores give only a "snapshot" in time, one measure of one group of kids on one day. And with only a small number of students tested, individual scores can dramatically affect the overall results, he said.

Galbraith was critical of parts of the federal No Child Left Behind Act that require schools to complete an individual improvement plan for all ninth-graders who didn't meet standards for any subject on the seventh-grade WASL. The act didn't provide funding for the extra work needed to create these learning plans.

"These are unfunded mandates. It takes a lot of time," Galbraith said.

Much of the pressure to improve academic performance falls on the teachers in a small district. Rob Wales has taught English in Darrington's junior and senior high school for 18 years. For him, the small-town experience has been "a complete positive."

"I know the students before I ever have them in class. They know me. We meet in stores, talk," Wales said. "If there's a problem, it's caught before it ever develops. There's a real connection that's missing in large schools."

When senior-high reading and writing scores were lagging two years ago, Wales said, parents complained to the School Board, and he was moved from the junior high to the high school. The test scores soon rose.

"One teacher can have an enormous impact," Wales said.

But the flip side, he acknowledged, is that not all instructors are similarly motivated. "Some teachers just come to work and collect their check," he said.

Some critics of the No Child Left Behind Act say the pressure for higher student achievement adds to the difficulty small districts have in recruiting teachers, particularly in math and science.

Roger Padgett, who taught in Darrington for 17 years, was credited with creating a strong math program at the high school while teaching everything from basic math to advanced-placement calculus. But when Padgett moved to the Ilwaco School District in Pacific County a year ago, former students said the math department went with him.

Padgett said good teachers in small districts feel enormous pressure to help students succeed.

"If I did a poor job, it would hurt those kids," he said.

When he left, only a few people applied for the job.

Some recent graduates have ambivalent feelings about the education they got in Darrington.

Lesley Koch, who graduated in 2002 and is commuting from Darrington to Western Washington University in Bellingham, said she felt well-prepared for college in basic subjects such as math and English, but would have liked the opportunity to take more specialized classes such as photography or journalism. There was little exposure in Darrington to the range of ideas and people she finds on a liberal college campus, she said.

Casey Brown, a 2001 Darrington graduate who is working on a teaching degree at Western, played on the Darrington girls volleyball team and called it "the best time ever."

But there was no drill team, no track and field. She said her Spanish teacher was learning the language along with the students.

"By the end of the year, I could say 'Hi' and 'Where is the bathroom?' " she said.

Brown said she was always aware that many kids were from poor families whose primary concerns were about having enough clothes and food.

Other school officials say Darrington is doing the best job it can with limited resources.

Linda McPherson is Darrington branch manager for Sno-Isle Libraries and has served on the School Board for 15 years. She grew up on a farm outside Darrington, went to the University of Washington and for 10 years worked as an oceanographer. But when she wanted to start her own family, she and her husband returned to Darrington.

She said the School Board has discussed the low test scores but doesn't dwell on them.

"I know the teachers and know they're doing the best job they can, and they're always looking to do better," she said.

All Darrington students should be expected to reach a basic standard of education, even if it's not a particular WASL score, she said. And on balance, she added, Darrington students have an advantage that might not show up on standardized tests.

"They're on a better course in life because people here take care of each other," she said.

Lynn Thompson: 425-745-7807 or lthompson@seattletimes.com