Superintendent's Message

LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR SUPERINTENDENT: DR. ANTHONY L. SMITH

Dear Students, Staff, Parents, and Community Members:

At this time of year, I feel especially thankful to live and work in our community. At a recent Puget Sound Superintendents Meeting, of the 35 school districts in Pierce and King County, we were asked to share what we were thankful for. My response was sharing thanks for our wonderful community and the literally thousands of partnerships that our school district enjoys and embraces. This includes everything from our over 1,600 volunteers that grace our schools on a consistent basis, to the businesses, non-profits, for-profits, foundations, service clubs, governmental entities and every homeowner that contributes to the district through taxes. A great school district and great community go together. I haven't seen one without the other. Thank you for all you do to support our students!

As most of you know, our district focus is "personalizing student learning with an equity lens." In this country, we now live and work in a multicultural, multilingual society. We are on year three of a five-year equity and access plan, which inspires us to understand and apply cultural competency at a higher level, preparing our students for the world they are in, and will enter, post-graduation. What does this mean? It means heightening awareness and personalizing our approach with each student and program. With each action we take, does it open a door or close a door? We want to intentionally open doors for students, staff, parents and the community at-large.

Recently, three school district superintendents were chosen to speak on a panel at the Washington Association of Community and Technical College Presidents. They were chosen based on their district's progress on leading with racial equity and overall equity and access. This included the Auburn, Highline, and Riverview School Districts. I was proud that through our professional learning and actions, the greater Puget Sound Community is seeing Riverview as leaders in this area. After two years of administrative training, we have been training staff this year as they work on integrating best practices into the classroom.

We just received the final data needed to update our Critical Indicators of District Performance yearly report. The indicators include the following:

Academic Performance
Post-Secondary Readiness
Graduation Rates
Post-Secondary Enrollment
Fiscal Stability

A highlight this year was on-time Graduation Rates. Over the past five years, we have improved district-wide, from an 87% on-time Graduation Rate to a 97% on-time graduation rate, putting Riverview among the nation's best. We continue to expand certification programs and college credit in the classroom opportunities, while keeping K-12 class sizes low to continue personalizing each student's experience as much as possible. Our Graduation Rates are demonstrating that what we are all doing together is working! This has all occurred in an environment where we have implemented a responsible and balanced budget. Fiscal stability is critical to our stakeholders and the success of our system. Of course, there are areas we have identified for improvement, such as curriculum alignment, instructional strategies and intervention practices. The entire report is available on the front page of the district website at http://www.rsd407.org/ under District News.

Sincerely,

Dr. Anthony L. Smith
Superintendent
Riverview School District