Thank you for your coverage of the great work being done at Foster High School [“Lawmakers and other schools should emulate Foster High School’s success,” Opinion, Jan. 8].
Though we celebrate the improvement to a 70 percent graduation rate, we know it needs to be higher. Many of our refugee students, homeless students, and students in poverty need basic social-emotional supports to reach their full academic potential. The state pays school districts only a tiny fraction of the salary of a single social worker.
In Tukwila, we use local levy money to fund one social worker per 1,000 students, but that is nowhere near enough to adequately serve our student population.
As part of the effort to close the achievement gaps in graduation rates and test scores, the state needs to adequately fund social-emotional supports for students who need it.
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Dave Larson, Tukwila school board member