CKA looks to build on gains as new school year begins

Chief Kitsap Academy students are now returning to school with the friendly faces of a familiar teaching staff, new take-home laptops, and a faculty and staff looking to build on a year of greater stability and significant academic gains.

For CKA Principal Lucy Dafoe, the progression is important. Last year was about healing and stabilizing the school while beginning to raise academic performance.

This year, she wants CKA to build on that foundation with higher expectations, stronger student engagement, and more opportunities beyond the classroom.

“We have all of our instructional staff coming back,” Dafoe said. “That’s a huge win.”

Looking back on last year, Dafoe gives CKA high marks for rebuilding stability among both students and staff.

“It was truly a year of healing,” she said. “That is all of us together.”

Academically, she said, great progress was made as well. And more work needs to be done. The percentage of CKA students meeting the standard in English Language Arts testing, for example, increased threefold to 56 percent last year.

“We probably did about three years’ worth of work in that one year to get there,” Dafoe said. “And that improvement will continue.”

Eight CKA students also qualified for Running Start and began earning college credits while still in high school, an accomplishment that fits into a larger strategy Dafoe wants to continue developing.

Building more pathways

Her long-term vision is for CKA to provide students with a strong academic and cultural home base, particularly in grades six through 10, while creating more pathways for older students to pursue college courses, career and technical education, internships, and other opportunities.

That includes Running Start and West Sound Technical Skills Center, along with efforts to develop more dual-credit opportunities that allow students to earn high school and college credit simultaneously.

CKA is continuing to work with the tribe’s 477 Workforce Program to help eligible students obtain driver’s licenses, making it easier for them to reach college classes, technical programs, jobs, and internships.

“We know transportation is a barrier for going to Running Start or West Sound or a job or an internship,” Dafoe said. “And we’re going to do more to help fix that.”

Another significant change this year will happen much closer to home.

Take-home laptops

Starting this year, every CKA student will receive their own Chromebook to use at school and take home. Previously, computers were assigned to classrooms and remained on campus, limiting students’ ability to use them for homework.

The new one-to-one devices come with some responsibility. Students will be expected to bring their Chromebook to school each day – charged and ready for the day.

That expectation reflects a broader theme for the coming year.

Dafoe wants students to become more active participants in their own education rather than waiting until the end of a grading period to catch up. CKA will continue emphasizing grades of C or better, providing after-school academic help and study opportunities, and asking parents to become involved early when students begin falling behind.

The goal, she said, isn’t simply better grades. It is helping students develop the habits and confidence that come from discovering what they can accomplish through consistent effort.

“When they’re putting forth the effort, they find out, ‘Wow, I’m really smart,’” Dafoe said.

CKA will also continue expanding place-based education, getting students outside traditional classrooms and connecting their studies with Suquamish lands, waters, culture, and community. College and career site visits will remain another

emphasis.

Belonging and responsibility

Alongside academics, Dafoe wants to continue strengthening the culture students experience on campus. CKA plans to emphasize anti-bullying efforts, healthy risk-taking, gratitude, and helping students become stronger self-starters and self-managers.

For Dafoe, those goals come together in two ideas: belonging and responsibility.

“I want them to come back and feel like they have a sense of belonging and a responsibility to our campus,” she said. “They need to know that they can achieve what they want to achieve.”

Last year showed what can happen when staff and students begin moving in the same direction. This year, she said, CKA staff are ready to ask more of their students — while making sure the opportunities and support are there for them to succeed.

“Our staff are going to lean in more,” Dafoe said. “And our students are going to see even more how much they are capable of.”