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ESD 105

ESD 105 is serving as the fiscal agent for a $625,000 grant awarded in September that will assist in the drug prevention activities of the multi-agency Safe Yakima Valley Communities coalition. This grant from the Drug-Free Communities program of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration is designed to help facilitate citizen participation in local drug prevention efforts.

The funding will provide the coalition with $125,000 for each of the grant’s five years. The money will be used to collect local data to help develop strategies to reduce drug activity, with a focus on reducing alcohol and marijuana use among Yakima County youths. The research will then direct the development of anti-drug education campaigns and programs aimed at schools, parents, and Yakima County communities.

The grant is also funding a drug prevention staff position at ESD 105 that will interact with coalition members to develop programs toward reducing substance abuse rates among teens in Yakima County schools.

ESD 105 also received a grant from OSPI this fall to coordinate a consortium of five schools in the regional implementation of the statewide Teacher/Principal Evaluation Project (TPEP) for the 2011-2012 school year.

The Cle Elum-Roslyn, Easton, Royal, Selah, and Toppenish school districts are involved in the current phase of the state’s process to develop new evaluation criteria for improving Washington’s teacher and principal evaluation systems.

The new model maximizes focus on high expectations and student achievement, in contrast to the existing evaluation system that has placed much of its emphasis on an educator’s professional preparation and content knowledge. It also expands the evaluation of learning professionals into four tiers, rather than the current categories of either just “satisfactory” or “unsatisfactory.”

“This new evaluation system reflects the instructional paradigm shift that has happened in classrooms today and paves the way for better intentional teaching in the future,” said ESD 105 Superintendent Steve Myers. “Our consortium’s five school districts provide a cross section of our region’s school communities, and other school districts in our region will be watching their work in this new initiative and will be looking for the consortium’s guidance in implementing this new system.”

~David Goehner, ESD 105
Public Information Officer