Gov. Jay Inslee visits Meadowdale High School in Lynnwood

LYNNWOOD, Wash. — Governor Jay Inslee visited Meadowdale High School in Lynnwood Monday morning.

He sat down and talked with students about a number of things, but there was a big focus on analyzing information and putting a stop to misinformation.

Eryn Duffee, president of the Washington State School Librarian Association, touched on the SIFT method schools have adopted, which does just that.

SIFT stands for Stop, Investigate, Find better coverage and Trace context.

School librarians have helped implement this method, Duffee said students who attend schools with certified teacher-librarians perform better on standardized tests.

On Monday, the National Assessment of Educational Progress released test scores.

Across the country, math scores saw their largest decreases ever. Reading scores dropped to 1992 levels. Nearly four in 10 eighth graders failed to grasp basic math concepts. Not a single state saw a notable improvement in their average test scores, with some simply treading water at best.

KIRO7 asked Gov. Inslee what his thoughts were on the NAEP results. He choose to focus on the positive, since state scores were better than average.

“It’s good that our state’s students have had less learning loss than most other states, so that’s some good news, but there has been, we understand COVID was a hugely impactful thing for students,” said Inslee.

Inslee says he’s budgeted for resources to go toward schools so they can address learning loss.

The governor also toured the new health center on campus. It’s the first school-based health center in Snohomish County and in the Edmonds School District.

The idea behind these centers is to provide medical care to students who do not have a primary care provider.

There are currently more than 50 school-based health centers across the state, with most located in King County.

The governor also made time to meet with the Educators of Color Foundation.

They offer programs such as the state’s Beginning Educator Support Team, which helps train and retain new educators.

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