Welcome to our monthly gallery of best practices and tools from your Center for High School Success partner schools in Oregon and Washington. Below, your coaches have collected timely tools and featured practices from across our region to help support you, your team, and your 9th graders! Please reach out to your coach if you have any questions, feedback, on input.
June 2024
Congratulations for wrapping up another successful year in support of your 9th graders! Your work is inspiring, and having a powerful impact.
CHSS News:
In a departure from past practice, we will not be hosting Summer Institutes for returning schools. Looking ahead to August, work with your coach to make a plan for your first meeting for onboarding new team members and starting strong!
CHSS will be launching a series of webinars in August, see our calendar below (New Members, Team Leads, Data Champions).
Washington State OSPI Update:
2023-24 Funding: Be sure all money is spent via all appropriate fiscal channels by June 30! Remember that the process takes time, talk to your business services department to make sure they’re aware of our timeline.
2024-45 Funding: OSPI will be sending out an invitation to apply during the month of July. To access this grant, each district must have an Electronic Grants Management System (EGMS) account, OSPI’s new grant management platform.
Calendar
For all of these events, this information is intended for you to hold the dates! Registration links and details are coming soon.
New School Institutes:
Monday, August 19: This will be held in the greater Seattle area. Please hold the date.
Regional Fall Collaborations: Please hold these dates.
Central Washington #1: Thursday, September 26
NW Washington: Thursday, October 3
Central Washington #2: Thursday, October 17
Southern Oregon: Thursday, October 17
Puget Sound: Tuesday, October 22
SW Washington: Thursday, October 24
Portland Area: To be determined
New Team Member Onboarding: Tuesday, September 24, 3-4:30 pm
2 part Data Champion Training: Tuesday, September 17 and Thursday September 19, 3-4:30 pm
2 part Team Lead Training: Tuesday September 10 and Thursday September 12, 3-4:30pm
Timely Tools

Belonging and Engagement Assessment
As we highlighted throughout the year in our Interventions 201 collaboratives, our interventions to support 9th graders begin with creating a climate that facilitates belonging and maximizes engagement. This Student Engagement Inventory, from the University of Minnesota, is an excellent validated tool to use as a screener in the fall and winter. We have also created this google forms version to support easy data collection and utilization.
Leverage your ESDs for powerful PD!
We all have areas of growth to improve our impact on 9th graders, many of these illuminated by our persistent equity gaps. Please look to your local ESDs now to access these professional growth opportunities, including supports for students receiving EL/ML services, IEP supports, as well as ongoing PD around UDL, MTSS, standards-based grading, and culturally responsive teaching. This example Multilingual Symposium from ESD 105 in Yakima is an incredible opportunity.

Tier 1 Advisory Planning Tools
As a foundational element of our Interventions 201 approach, we recommend that schools increase their focus on proactive, preventative and universal instruction to all 9th graders on how to thrive in high school. Many teams are exploring these tier 1 resources over the summer, and here we highlight some excellent resources from Wayfinder, Road Trip Nation, and of course our advisory section of the clickable CHSS Roadmap!
Featured Practice

In our final Snapshot of the year, this month we highlight innovative approaches to launching and sustaining Transition supports across the school year!
NOW: 8th Grade Assessment and Recruitment: Greater Albany SD in southern Oregon had 8th graders complete the Student Engagement Inventory (see Tools, above) to inform planning for fall supports. Kelso HS in WA visited their feeder middle schools and conducted empathy interviews with rising 9th graders to learn about them and build critical relationships. Port Angeles HS in WA (flier below) targets rising 8th graders who have struggled for their two week summer intensive:
Throughout the Year: Tier 1 and Tier 2 9th Grade Success Classes!
- Selah HS in WA launched an awesome seminar course this year, and has generously shared their approved CTE course framework, and here is a slide deck reviewing their course outline, routines, activities, and calendar! Here is another OSPI approved CTE course from Mariner HS in WA!
- All 3 high schools in the Bellingham School District (Bellingham HS, Sehome HS, and Squalicum HS) are launching an exciting new yearlong, tier 1 course for all 9th graders that integrates content from AVID, 9th Grade Success, and CTE, using funding from CTE.
- Waldport HS in OR implements a Tier II course/structure for 8th – 10th focused on both homework completion and this year moving towards competency instruction, in particular Self Regulation and or goal setting.
- Toledo HS in OR has integrated their Tier I homeroom structure with the instruction and assessment of Self Regulation. They are moving to add a Tier II classroom structure next year.
- Taft HS in OR runs advisory 9-12th and this year has used the Relational Trust Inventory to identify students who need increased student to teacher trust and assessed this one indicator again in winter after a fall baseline capturing growth.
- Schools across WA are designing similar courses, and we look forward to learning more from our network next year. These schools include: Evergreen and Mountain View HS in Vancouver, Lindbergh HS in Renton, and Mount Baker HS in Deming!
Previous SNAPTSHOTS
- Northwest CHSS Student Success SNAPSHOT DECEMBERAs we welcome our incoming 9th graders, we are excited to share some inspiring work from across our region, focusing on creating spaces of belonging for all students. To support your work this year, we have two important resources from OSPI to share:
- Northwest CHSS Student Success SNAPSHOT NovemberAs we welcome our incoming 9th graders, we are excited to share some inspiring work from across our region, focusing on creating spaces of belonging for all students. To support your work this year, we have two important resources from OSPI to share:
- Northwest CHSS Student Success SNAPSHOT OctoberAs we welcome our incoming 9th graders, we are excited to share some inspiring work from across our region, focusing on creating spaces of belonging for all students. To support your work this year, we have two important resources from OSPI to share:
- Northwest CHSS Student Success SNAPSHOT SeptemberAs we welcome our incoming 9th graders, we are excited to share some inspiring work from across our region, focusing on creating spaces of belonging for all students. To support your work this year, we have two important resources from OSPI to share:
- Northwest CHSS Student Success SNAPSHOT AugustAs we welcome our incoming 9th graders, we are excited to share some inspiring work from across our region, focusing on creating spaces of belonging for all students. To support your work this year, we have two important resources from OSPI to share: