Review of Academic Achievement at the Paschal Sherman Indian School

The Paschal Sherman Indian School, located on the Colville Confederated Tribal Reservation in Omak, WA, is a grant-operated boarding school for students in kindergarten through grade 9. According to school officials, the State identified their school to pilot a new assessment tool, identified as AdvancED. Therefore, we evaluated the AdvancED assessment and found it only partially addressed the eight critical areas related to strengths and the eight critical areas related to needs and priorities that we had identified.

 

We had identified the critical areas for our analysis by reviewing guidance from the U.S. Department of Education (ED) as well as needs assessment materials in place in a number of education programs outside BIE. Though not specifically required by statute or regulation, we view these areas as widely accepted in the educational community.

 

Our discussions with ED officials also revealed their belief that completion of the comprehensive needs assessment, and actions that keep assessments up-to-date and routinely reviewed, were key steps to ensure every school had a blueprint to keep them on target for improved academic achievement.

 

We noted that the AdvancED assessment did demonstrate some strengths that could benefit the school. Specifically, the assessment took a systematic approach to its completion; it was conducted by an external review team; and it offered areas for improvement. In addition, it addressed some critical areas we identified. The AdvancED assessment should be considered a complementary report to the more holistic comprehensive needs assessment, providing additional information and data. It should not, however, be considered a replacement for the full comprehensive needs assessment tool.

 

Also, all states require some type of ELL assessment that ranges from simply asking parents to identify the primary language spoken in the home to a formal test administered to all students. Upon enrolling their children in school, Washington parents are asked if their children speak a language other than English in the home. Should they provide a positive response, the student is then given the Washington English Language Proficiency Assessment (WELPA) placement test. During our inspection we learned that Paschal Sherman Indian School officials had given parents/guardians a Home Language Survey to identify ELL students; however, in the past 3 years, the school has not had any students who needed to be tested using WELPA.

 

We provided one recommendation to help Paschal Sherman Indian School improve its efforts to promote educational achievement among its students and close the achievement gap.