TIMES/NEWS

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced last week a $5.6 million grant to the Highline School District.

It is the largest grant ever received by the district.

"The support will help focus the district around a mission of high achievement for all students," according to a Gates Foundation press release.

It will "increase support for students and teachers; improve high schools; and support the ongoing community engagement efforts."

The grant will provide funding for ongoing professional development for teachers, according to district spokeswoman Catherine Carbone Rogers.

Grant money will also be used to more precisely track student academic progress and support more rigorous coursework in district secondary schools that will prepare students for college-level work, Rogers added.

District officials have set a goal of having 90 percent of students achieve state standards at all grade levels by 2010.

"The Gates Foundation is interested in our outcome," Rogers noted. "How we get there is a local decision."

Earlier this year, Highline Schools for Excellence Foundation received a $300,000 Gates grant to involve residents in district plans to transform its high schools into small learning communities.

Highline high schools will all have elements of personalized small communities "but not all the schools will look exactly the same," Rogers said.

Tyee in SeaTac has split into three autonomous schools covering all grades this year.

Ninth and 10th graders at Evergreen in North Highline belong to one of three communities. Next school year, all grades will be part of autonomous schools within the larger campus.

Ninth-graders at Mt. Rainier in Des Moines belong to two academies with some 10th graders part of a learning community started last year.

Mt. Rainier officials are planning for ninth and tenth-grade to join academies but juniors and seniors may not be broken into smaller communities, according to Rogers.

All Mt. Rainier students will have advisors assigned to them through all four years.

All students at grade level or above grade level may take honors courses this year at Mt. Rainier.

Highline High in Burien has ninth graders grouped into academies with the same teachers this year and staffers are working on a plan for next year.

In announcing the grants, Gates officials noted that more than half of students in the racially and ethnically diverse Highline district qualify for free or reduced lunch.

Also, test scores have shown significant achievement gaps between white and Hispanic and white and African American students, they observed.

"The successful efforts in the districts we are supporting combined with high standards set by the state point us in the right direction," said Tom Vander Ark, executive director for education at the Gates Foundation.

"These districts have raised the ante in the state - setting clear, ambitious goals to help more students graduate, and graduate eligible and prepared for college. The importance of this work cannot be understated, either in terms of local community development or statewide economic impact."

Highline Superintendent John Welch added, "This is an incredible opportunity that will benefit our students. We are fortunate to have in the Gates Foundation a partner that is ready to support the work we are doing to prepare every student for further education and family wage jobs after high school."

Eric Mathison can be reached at hteditor@robinsonnews.com or 444-4873.P