Pioneer Elementary Enrollment

2022-2023 ENROLLMENT INTEREST PROCESS

 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 will expand in the fall of 2022 to include up to 564 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 2022-2023 school year:

• Incoming kindergarten siblings of currently enrolled students
• Interested families who have completed the annual interest survey, beginning February 14, 2022
  • If we have more interest than spots available, we will conduct a lottery 

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. Buchanan, 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. 

Once a student has been accepted, they will not need to apply for subsequent years. Definitions of waitlist and waitlist process for subsequent years will continue to evolve as we learn and reflect on our initial process. We will continue to keep our community informed of this process annually.

February 14, 2022-March 15, 2022: Open Enrollment Interest Period

Peninsula School District area students and students of PSD employees may complete the Enrollment Interest Form between February 14, 2022, and March 15, 2022, at 4:00 PM. Surveys received after March 15, 2022, at 4:00, will NOT be considered for the 2022-2023 lottery process, if held. 

April 5, 2022: Lottery 

If the number of submitted Enrollment Interest Forms exceeds the available space at a grade level, an Enrollment Lottery will take place on April 5, 2022. We will Live Stream the event and have a live, in the moment document, of the called lottery numbers posted to our website. The lottery will occur at 1:30 on Tuesday, April 5th at Pioneer Elementary. No in-person attendance at this time. 

April 5, 2022: Notification

Families will be notified via email of students’ 2022-2023 enrollment status to Pioneer Elementary on April 5th. Families will then have 2 business days to confirm acceptance into Pioneer Elementary. After the 2 business days, we will infer a decline and move to our waitlisted students. Should a family not have an email address, we will contact them via phone of their acceptance. Families will still be expected to adhere to the 2 business day policy to confirm acceptance.

1. Families may submit an online Enrollment Interest Form at pie.psd401.net. This Enrollment Interest Form is intended to establish how many students are seeking to attend Pioneer Elementary, so that we can conduct a fair and impartial lottery, in the event that there are more students interested than available space at a grade level. For students that are selected to enroll at Pioneer and are not already PSD registered students, families will be asked to complete a full Peninsula School District registration upon selection.

2. Once we have ensured that the Enrollment Interest Form information is correct, we will send each family an email confirmation that includes your family number, which will be used in the lottery process. The email will also outline the lottery process in more detail. 

3. For families without internet access, paper applications will be available at all local elementary schools and the Peninsula School District Office. Paper applications may be submitted to local elementary school Office Managers, or the Peninsula School District Office. All paper applications must be received by 4:00pm on March 15, 2022.

4. If you need assistance completing your Interest Form, please contact us at 253-530-3500 for support. We are happy to help. 

5. We have also 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. Zoom information HERE.

   1. Tuesday, March 1st- 9:30am-10:30am via Zoom- Informational Session with Q&A

   2. Tuesday, March 1st- 4:30pm-5:30pm-Facility Tour Open to the Public

   3. Thursday, March 10th- 6:00pm-7:00pm via Zoom-Informational Session with Q&A

6. Applications received after the conclusion of the Enrollment Interest Period (March 15, 2022 at 4:00pm) will not be considered for enrollment at Pioneer Elementary. 

1. 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. Once we have received all interested responses from the Enrollment Interest Form, we will email families to articulate how the lottery process will work. This will help us determine the needs in lottery communication moving forward. 

2. Through the lottery process, we will attempt to pull equitable distribution from each of our elementary schools. 

3. After the lottery, families will be notified by email (families without email will be notified by phone).  Families will then have 2 business days after notification to confirm that their student(s) will attend Pioneer. If a family does not confirm their acceptance within 2 business days, the administration will contact the first student on the waitlist. There will be no exceptions to this timeline.

4. We will follow our current practice in PSD and do our best to include the children of Pioneer staff in our enrollment counts, even as those staffing numbers are yet to be determined.

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. We will communicate to waitlisted families the process for enrollment from the waitlist after we have a better understanding of how the initial lottery stage is developed.

Peninsula School District provides transportation opportunities for all students. Due to our magnet school status and enrollment pull from all our residential boundaries, Pioneer families may be expected to get their child(ren) to a hub stop. From the hub stop, district buses will transport students to school. Route times and lengths will vary based on geographic region. Information on bus routes can be found at https://www.psd401.net/departments/transportation .

Families wishing to transport their child to and from school are welcome to do so as well. 

​​​​​We have scheduled three community events to allow interested families an opportunity to ask questions and receive additional information before making your decision. We will meet on the following dates and times. Click HERE for the zoom information. 

1. Tuesday, March 1st- 9:30am-10:30am via Zoom- Informational Session with Q&A

2. Tuesday, March 1st- 4:30pm-5:30pm-Facility Tour Open to the Public (In Person)

3. Thursday, March 10th- 6:00pm-7:00pm via Zoom-Informational Session with Q&A