Last Monday, Feb. 9, Principal Nathan Johnson hosted the “State of the Park Meeting” for parents in the community to go over statistics from the mid-year, areas of improvement and plans for the future of the high school. The event, which was held in the auditorium, began at 6pm and was open to all parents.
“The inspiration for this meeting tonight comes each market period,” Johnson said during the opening of the State of the Park meeting. “I have my department leaders present to me a state of their department, right? Like, what’s going on in social studies? Tell me about math. Tell me about English. And so I thought it’d be a great kind of, not only a model for them, but for a way for me to kind of continue on to that in the bigger scope of the community, and do a State of the Park Meeting.”
After the information was presented at the meeting, the attending parents were able to ask questions, voice their concerns and clarify any points brought up during the meeting. Several parents went to the State of the Park meeting to not only advocate for their students, but to take advantage of the open dialogue.
“I like Principal John in his communication.” parent Katie Blackmon said. “I think he’s done a really good job with that. And my student’s not struggling with anything if it’s time, but it’s always nice to stay engaged as a parent, and just to kind of check in from time to time, and see if there’s some issues that I’m not aware of.”
Another parent noted the previous lack of communication from the high school’s administration as her reason for attending the State of the Park meeting.
“I was motivated to come tonight because in the past, there haven’t been a lot of opportunities for communication,” Alexis Guethler said. “I want to show up because I want to encourage having opportunities for communication. It felt like for a long time that you could never come to or talk to the school. And anytime we’re trying to do more communication with parents in the public, I want to be there to encourage us to keep doing it.”
Principal Johnson’s agenda for the meeting included ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) updates, survey information, discipline, Falcon Block and unity celebrations.
The ESSA rating, as explained by Johnson during the State of the Park meeting, for SPHS has changed. The high school is now at a five-star rating earning a 77.1% overall for the ESSA report card. ESSA measures the performance of this high school on MCAP math and English assessments, progress in EL proficiency, credits for a well-rounded curriculum, graduation rate, chronic absenteeism, and climate survey results among other areas. SPHS grew by 0.6 points in the 2024-2025 school year in the Access to Well Rounded Curriculum category and decreased in chronic absenteeism, resulting in the high school moving up 12 points in the ESSA house, the method used by ESSA to rate high schools.
In addition to the new ESSA updates, Johnson reviewed the student survey results from the google form students filled out before Thanksgiving Break. Students reported that they generally felt a sense of belonging and welcoming from their teachers and peers, the majority of the responses for Agree being over 50%. While the majority agrees, Johnson stated that he wants the numbers to increase and students to feel a greater sense of belonging while at the high school.
“We want students to know that they’re cared about when they come here. We want them to feel welcome,” Johnson said.
The main areas of note found by administration from the survey were problems with Canvas, timely grading and communication from teachers, bullying, vaping, athletics and procedure consistency.
The next section of Johnson’s presentation was the discipline statistics from the mid-year. As of Dec. 31, 2025, there were 21 referrals in Sept., 25 in Oct., 24 in Nov., and 31 in Dec., which aligns with the statistics from other high schools in the county. Johnson also reported that the number of referrals by grade tended to decrease from 9th grade to 12th grade. He also found that the majority of referrals were given out in the classroom, seconded by the school grounds.
“These are pretty typical, if you look across the county. And then if you look at referrals by grade, also typical, right? Our newer students, to the freedoms of high school, the structures of high school, tend to have a little bit of time kind of figuring out where they’re, you know, how they fit, where this is supposed to be, how they, what, what they could push. They can’t push. By the time senior year comes, they kind of got it figured out and they’re on track. So, this is pretty, again, this makes sense to me,” Johnson said during the meeting.
During this, Johnson discussed the positive referral system put in place this year to reward students for good behavior and his desires to increase the number of students that receive them going into the second semester of the 2025-2026 school year.
Finally, Johnson discussed the method SPHS uses for Falcon Block, explaining the blue block and gold block system, as well as highlighted some of the upcoming celebrations put on by students at the school such as the spirit week hosted by the Black Student Union and the Lunar New Year hosted by the Asian Student Union.
