Nearly a year ago Mark Koch, principal at Cedar River Middle School, got a call asking him if the staff would be interested in participating in a new program.

Koch, who has been at Cedar River for six years, talked to an assistant superintendent from the state Office of the Superintendent for Public Instruction.

Cedar River had been identified on the state’s accountability index as the top performing middle school in Washington state during the period of 2006-20008.

“The thing we’re most proud of, of all the middle schools in the state, Cedar River Middle School was the No. 1 school in the state at closing the achievement gap,” Koch said. “The legislature funded this year… nine schools that are called ‘lead schools’ based on their index number.”

Because Cedar River is that No. 1 middle school, Koch said, OSPI officials wanted it to be a part of this new program called School to School.

In this program, the Legislature has funded nine lead schools with there being three high schools, three elementary schools and three middle or junior high schools.

They are then matched up with a partner school, Koch said, based on the accountability index.

That index is a system the state developed to measure improvement and determine what the achievement gap is between white students and minorities at schools through Washington state.

Koch said the index compliments the formula used by the No Child Left Behind Act by allowing the state to “compare apples to apples” rather than looking at one of 37 different cells to measure whether a school is meeting standard.

By partnering Cedar River with a school that needs to make gains in closing the achievement gap, it allows both schools Koch explained, to evaluate what they do that works and trade ideas. This helps both schools continue to make improvements.

“The question that’s been posed to us, ‘You’re having success, so we’d like you to have reflective conversations with your staff about why you’re having success. What’s leading to your success,’” Koch said. “The partner schools are doing a self-reflective process, as well, to look at what they’re doing.”

In the fall, Koch said, he met with his staff and they began to brainstorm to answer that question, “Why do we think we’re having success?”

They came up with many ideas, Koch said, but five rose to the top as being the most essential as they combed over 45 pages of data, charts and graphs.

“Four years ago we developed a common mission and vision for our school,” Koch said. “We spent the better part of a year as a staff developing that mission and vision. We all have the same goal. As simple as that might sound, every school might not have that.”

The second reason, he said, is the teaming model. A group of four teachers in math, science, language arts and social studies all work with the same group of 120 students. Cedar River has 550 students in sixth and seventh grades.

Those teachers on the same team have the same planning period. They meet regularly, Koch said, at least once a week.

“If one teacher notices a problem, immediately all four teachers know about it,” he said. “The teaming model allows for support to happen sooner.”

Other models may mean that intervention and additional support for struggling students may not happen for a number of weeks which only makes it harder to help a kid.

Another reason Koch and his staff believe the school has found success is the last class period of the day known as GO Time — GO stands for Great Opportunities.

This is a time where teachers can offer during the last 40 minutes of the school day additional support, allowing them to work individually or with small groups on things that may have been a struggle during class that day.

It allows teachers to develop relationships with students that supports their emotional and social needs, which Koch said is a crucial thing to do at the middle school level.

GO Time also allows for the schedule to be flexible. Assemblies can be held during GO Time, for example, and if the time is used effectively it can have a significant impact on learning.

“The other thing that we see as high impact is that our curriculum is aligned with state standards,” Koch said. “It sounds simple. You’re teaching what you’re supposed to be teaching.”

But the standards are continually changing.

And that is why the fifth reason is also critical.

“The last one we identified is committed, flexible staff,” Koch said. “I am so proud of this staff for how hard they work for kids and how flexible they are with all of the changes in education, with all of the pressures and demands there are on teachers.”

Now that Cedar River has identified what it does well, has told its story so to speak, it will meet with staff and then trade site visits with its partner school, Cedarcrest Middle School in Marysville.

Cedar River has a program called Friday School while Cedarcrest offers Saturday Academy. Both are meant to offer additional support to students who need help so they can catch up before they get too far behind.

“We assign kids to Friday school because they’re falling behind, they’re struggling in their classes, to provide them time and support,” Koch said. “We can do crime and punishment or we can do time and support. So, when kids are struggling we do that two hour Friday school.”

This is an area where Koch believes both schools can exchange ideas on how to further improve those programs.

In March Cedar River staff will drive up to Marysville to check out Cedarcrest’s Saturday Academy.

From there, both schools will reflect on the process of the partnership, to see what they got from the program.

“The other part then is … now that we’ve looked at ourselves and we’ve looked at the school we’re paired with more, it’s more of that reflective ‘what have we learned from this process, what do we want to incorporate as part of the site plan as we’re going forward,’” Koch said.

In June they will also testify before the state Legislature on the School to School program.

In the end, though, Koch said it is meaningful to him that his teachers have been acknowledged.

“Teachers work so hard every day with kids to help them be successful,” he said. “To have that recognized from the state of the good job that we’re doing here is very exciting and very rewarding.”