Federal Way School District is continuing its foray into the high-tech world of blogging.

The most recent topic? The District Improvement Plan.

Adelaide Elementary principal Jason Smith blogged Monday night about what the district plans to do in the next year to keep its Washington State Assessment of Learning (WASL) scores up and get the district out of its current “in improvement” status.

“I am looking forward to receiving input on the draft,” Smith said prior to the blogging.

Smith facilitates the committee charged with the improvement plan. Smith said he’s received a great deal of questions since the process started in October.

The district gained the dubious “in improvement” status after failing to meet the benchmark set by No Child Left Behind for two years. As a result, the district must come up with a District Improvement Plan.

At the beginning of the school year, a team was assembled consisting of administration, parents and principals.

The focus will be on K-12 alignment, professional development and coaching, leadership, and family and community partnerships.

Smith said one of the main resources for the committee was the McKinsey Report, which looks at how schools that made a great deal of improvement were successful in doing so. The main conclusion of the McKinsey Report was that quality instruction has the most impact.

Currently, committee members are traveling to each school to present the draft and garner feedback from the teachers.

The committee will create a revision, then present a final recommendation to the school board on April 28.

There will be two public readings of the report before the board makes its decision on May 26.

The plan will be implemented next school year.

Improvement

The areas where the Federal Way School District needs to improve, according to the OSPI’s official report from Aug. 28:

Elementary schools: Hispanic reading, Hispanic math, black math, limited English reading, special education reading, special education math, low-income reading and low-income math.

Middle schools: All math, black math, Hispanic reading, Hispanic math, limited English reading, limited English math, special education reading, special education math, low-income reading and low-income math.

High schools: All math and low-income math.

To make comments or suggestions for the committee, e-mail Jason Smith at Jasmith@fwps.org or call (253) 945-2300.