Pioneer Elementary Enrollment

PIONEER ENROLLMENT LOTTERY FOR 2023-2024 HAS CONCLUDED.

April 2023

A Message to Potential Pioneer Families-

We appreciate your interest in Pioneer Elementary and your submission for consideration through our lottery process. In an effort to be transparent and keep you updated on current enrollment, we would like to share the number of spaces determined to be open in next week's lottery:

Kindergarten: 43 open spots
2nd Grade: 12 open spots
3rd Grade: 4 open spots

Due to current enrollment and some grades being at capacity, we will not be accepting any 1st, 4th, or 5th grade students at this time. Students in those grades will be automatically placed on the waitlist for possible future consideration.

We do understand this can cause a hardship for families with multiple students and possibly juggling two schools, should one sibling be placed and not another. With this information, if your family chooses to withdraw your enrollment interest, please let us know via email to martina@psd401.net, allowing space and opportunity to those who could take advantage of those open spots.

We appreciate your understanding and partnership as we work to place as many families as possible through this process. Please let us know if you have questions.

HOW TO APPLY FOR ENROLLMENT LOTTERY AT PIONEER:

Go to PSD401.net
Select "ENROLLMENT"
Log in if you are a current or previous PSD student, or create an account if you are new
Select "PIONEER INTEREST ENROLLMENT FORM"
Complete the form with your child's information, legal residential address, and a date of birth that is at least age 5 by August 31, 2023.

If you need any support, please call our front office at 253.530.3500.

If you missed our information session on March 2nd, and want to learn more about our school and learning community check out our video recording HERE.

Enrollment for Pioneer Elementary STEAM School -ENROLLMENT INTEREST WILL ONLY BE OPEN FOR TWO WEEKS THIS YEAR. The enrollment interest process will close on Friday, March 31st at 9PM.

WHY A NEW PLATFORM?

We want to work smarter, not harder! We learned that Powerschool, our district enrollment data system, has a platform that allows school districts to run a lottery. Using this platform would keep all student data centralized and allow us to more easily align and vet the data being presented for the lottery. Due to its automation, it leaves less room for error and supports our front office with the clerical work to ensure we get students properly enrolled in a timely manner.

HOW IS THIS PLATFORM DIFFERENT THAN IN THE PAST?

There are only three changes noticeable to families, but significant improvements to the staff behind the scenes:

The program will run automatically, there will be no “live” viewing of the lottery balls being drawn at Pioneer.
There is no public facing call order until after the process is complete; which is much quicker than drawing lottery balls one by one.
Each STUDENT will receive a lottery number, opposed to one per family; however, the system links students in the same family together. For example, a family has a 2nd grader and a 4th grader. The 2nd grader is assigned #7 and the 4th grader is assigned #89. The lottery process pulls #89. It will automatically attached the sibling, #7. If space allows at those grades, both children will be accepted into enrollment. If there is no space at either grade, both siblings will be waitlisted. If there is space at one grade, but not the other, the family will have to choose if they wish to accept or decline enrollment for one child.

WHAT WILL BE THE SAME AS THE PREVIOUS PROCESS?

Families will express interest in Pioneer using a modified enrollment form, this year through PowerSchool
Interest will be open for two weeks
After closing, families will be notified via email regarding their lottery numbers and details of the upcoming lottery
The lottery will occur (hopefully between mid-march and mid-April)
After the lottery, families will receive communication of acceptance or waitlist status and directions for acceptance
Families will then have 2 business days to accept or decline enrollment into Pioneer via electronic acceptance
Our community events! See below.

HOW WILL THE NEW UPDATES BE COMMUNICATED?

Pioneer and PSD will communicate updates regarding Pioneer Enrollment process through multiple avenues, to include Social Media, Pioneer’s Website, and ParentSquare messages to elementary families. Do you know families interested in attending Pioneer that are not yet connected to PSD? Please encourage them to follow our social media accounts and our website for most update to date information on enrollment.

OTHER CHANGES TO PIONEER ENROLLMENT PROCESS

Moving forward, we will be accepting enrollment based on proportional rates from each of Peninsula School District’s residential schools. For example, a PSD neighborhood elementary school with 220 students would have a cap for Pioneer enrollment that would be half the cap number of a school with 440 students. The purpose of this is to avoid impacting some neighborhood schools disproportionately by students moving to Pioneer.
We will be monitoring student program placement following Board Policy 3130: In-District Student Transfers. For example, we will be monitoring capacity in our special education and related services during the enrollment lottery, ensuring adequate space, staffing, and support for students in those special programs.

About Pioneer Enrollment

2023-2024 ENROLLMENT

Pioneer Elementary School is Peninsula School District’s first STEAM magnet school. Our STEAM theme promotes project-based learning experiences around science, technology, engineering, art, and math concepts, skills, and philosophies. Our designation as a magnet school means that we do not have an official boundary, but instead, are open to all PSD boundary students. This type of school provides a unique opportunity for families to consider the best educational environment for their child. Families who wish to have their student(s) attend Pioneer Elementary School must complete the Enrollment Interest Form to be included in the enrollment lottery. A lottery will only take place if there are more interested students than there are spots available.

Pioneer enrollment in the fall of 2023 to include up to 520 kindergarten through 5th grade students in a multi-age model. Pioneer will also be home to the district TRAC program. TRAC stands for Teaching Responsibility, Academics, and Communication and is designed to support students with emotional regulation and positive behavior strategies.

Enrollment for the 2023-2024 school year:

Incoming kindergarten siblings of currently enrolled students first, then additional kindergarteners and 1st-5th grade students, as space allows.

Special Programs

Pioneer, as a public school in Peninsula School District, has many programs to support individual student needs. Below is an outline of services provided:

Counseling and 504 Plans: Pioneer prioritizes social-emotional learning for students and provides a full-time counselor to support you and your child. These services are in partnership with the classroom teacher. Our counselor also helps to establish 504 Plans to assist accommodations for students that need them.

LAP: The LAP (Learning Assistance Program) at Pioneer primarily focuses on early intervention in reading support. We use standardized data to look at student growth and needs. Our LAP interventionist, Mrs. Penn, works in partnership with classroom teachers and our administrative team to designate supports for academic progress in reading.

Highly Capable: Peninsula School District offers a variety of services to support our students with Highly Capable designations. Pioneer does not house the Pace Program, but we do offer support and extensions for all students, including those who qualify as Highly Capable in reading, writing, and/or math.

English Language Learning Support: Students and families whose first language is not English are supported and provided services through the District’s English Learner (EL) Program. All qualified students are served at their school through a combination model of instruction and consultation. Students participating in the EL program are expected and supported to achieve the Washington State performance standards. The initial screening process for determining EL eligibility includes an evaluation using the World- Class Instructional Design and Assessment (WIDA) screener. The WIDA screener assesses the proficiency of the four domains of language; Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing.

Special Education: Resource, TRAC, OT/PT, and Speech Pioneer provides many programs and personnel to support students with individualized academic, social-emotional, and/or behavioral plans. Due to staffing and program needs, we do have a capacity as to the number of students who can be accepted with this qualification. Pioneer staff will contact families interested in attending if enrollment interest exceeds our capacity.

Pioneer does not house a PACE or Options program and students who are placed in these programs should contact Principal Strader or the Executive Director of Student Services for further information on enrollment.

Additional Lottery Information

Peninsula School District values our families and recognizes that it is important to many families that siblings stay together at the same school. With that, we have designed the lottery to do our best to keep siblings together within the capacity we have established; however, it may not be possible in all circumstances as we can only accept as many students as space allows.
After the lottery, families will be notified by email. Families will then have 48 hours after notification to confirm that their student(s) will attend Pioneer. If a family does not confirm their acceptance within 48 hours, the administration will contact the first student on the waitlist. There will be no exceptions to this timeline.
We will follow our current practice in PSD and do our best to include the children of Pioneer teachers into our enrollment counts, even as those staffing numbers are yet to be determined.
Once a student has been accepted through the lottery process, they will not need to apply for enrollment for subsequent years.

Enrollment from Waitlist Process

Enrollment from Waitlist Process

All students will be pulled and placed on the grade level list. Once capacity has been reached, students will be placed on a waitlist. At the end of the first semester annually, we will enroll students from the waitlist for any available vacancies. After the semester, the waitlist is thrown out and we will restart with the new enrollment lottery.

Transportation

Community Events

We have scheduled three community events to allow interested families opportunities to ask questions and receive additional information before they make their decision. We will meet on the following dates and times:

Thursday, March 2nd: 9:30am-10:30am via Zoom- Informational Session with Q&A
Thursday, March 2nd: 5:00-6:00 pm-Facility Tour Open to the Public
Monday, March 13th- 2:00-3:00 pm via Zoom-Informational Session with Q&A

Join Zoom Meeting (link applicable for both dates)

https://psd401.zoom.us/j/8256164031?pwd=Tk9KQUJScHhvcHF0UzNnQ3BJeUlFZz09

Meeting ID: 825 616 4031

Passcode: 963329

Questions about Pioneer or the enrollment process?

Phone:
253-530-3500

Email:
Pioneer@psd401.net