The Pioneer Press

Attendance is a major focus for Steilacoom Historical School District. According to the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), every absence, excused or unexcused, is a learning opportunity lost and can have significant impacts on a student’s success in school and life. A student who misses 10% or more of their school days, which amounts to 18 or more days in a school year—or just two days a month—for any reason is considered chronically absent. Chronically absent students are more likely to fall behind in reading and math and less likely to graduate from high school. Addressing chronic absenteeism and developing good attendance habits is a solvable problem for which we all share responsibility.

6th Grade: Our sixth grade students are working on a variety of skills currently. This includes solving problems with decimals using all four operations, as well as writing and solving algebraic equations.

7th Grade and Pre-Algebra: All students enrolled in Math-7 and Pre-Algebra have been working with writing, solving and graphing linear inequalities. We will soon be working with ratios and proportions. This will include finding unit rates, writing proportions and solving proportions.

8th Grade and Algebra: All students enrolled in Math-8 and Algebra are about to begin working with systems of linear equations. This includes solving systems of linear equations using graphing, substitution and elimination. We will also spend some time with systems of inequalities.

Geometry: Geometry students are working with transformations and applying multiple transformations to an object/shape.

All Pioneer math students will begin working on the Winter iReady Diagnostic in the upcoming weeks. Finally, please remember to check Skyward to find the most up to date information regarding grading.

Please remember that this year at Pioneer, students must keep their phones off and away in their backpacks/lockers from 8:03am (when they enter the main hallways to head to class/lockers), until 2:40 pm (when they leave). Our staff understands that communication between students and home is important. We ask that if students need to use their phones to contact home, that they come to the main office. If students are unable to follow this expectation, they will be asked to turn their phone into the main office, until the end of the day. If this happens a second time, the phone will need to be picked up by a parent/guardian. Our goal is not to punish our students, but to empower and retrain them to be fully present at school and in their classrooms.