Our school district has embraced a “feeder school” concept, which has students riding buses from Chinook to Ocean Park and Oysterville to Long Beach, rather than attending elementary schools closer to home. This readjustment of our neighborhood schools is not popular; are concerns justified?

With that thought in mind, I have tabulated a Ocean Beach Elementary Attendance review, based upon the attendance records reported to OSPI (Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction) by the Ocean Beach School District.

Attendance in both elementary schools, Long Beach and Ocean Park, has shown a definite downward spiral since the introduction of the feeder school concept. This should not come as a surprise: the further away the school (the younger the child), the more difficult it is to get your kids to school.

I tabulated the results for both elementary schools and found the following (results rounded to the nearest whole number):

The year prior to the feeder school introduction, 2018-2019, 83% of students missed fewer than two days per month of school. The first feeder school year, 2019-2020, 91% of students met that goal. That looked pretty good. Scores go down, from there: 2020-2021: 59% have good attendance. 2021-2022: 52% and 2022-2023: 58%. What was the best year? 2017-2018: (pre-feeder school) when 93% met the goal.

It is certain that covid had some impact on these numbers, but attendance was actually better during 2020-2021 — the worst period for covid-19 — than in the following two years.

In an interview with King 5 News, SPI head Chris Reykdal reported 69.7% of public school students (K-12) reach the goal (missing less than two days per month) — an increase of 2.5% from the 2021-2022 school year. Our elementary feeder school kids fall short of the statewide K-12 average (and elementary students generally beat that statewide average). And that begs the question: why is it so hard to get our kids to school?

Assuming that the time spent in school actually has an impact on student achievement, I am not convinced that the feeder school model offers us the best return on our investment.

DALE HILL

Ocean Park