Pioneer Elementary Enrollment

2024-2025 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 2024 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 2024-2025 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

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; however, it may not be possible in all circumstances as we can only accept as many students as space allows. 

2. 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.

3. 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. 

4. 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

All students will be pulled and placed on the grade level list. Once capacity has been reached, students will be placed on a waitlist. Annually, at the end of the first semester, 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 for the following year. 

District transportation to Pioneer is provided.  Hub stops and routes have been established and can be found on the PSD transportation website.Transportation to Pioneer may look different than your neighboorhood school. 

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

We have scheduled multiple community events to allow interested families opportunities to ask questions and receive additional information before they make their decision. Please consider joining us: 

• Thursday, 1/25/2024: STEAM Night 5:30-7:30

• Tuesday, 2/27/2024: Take a tour during our Open House 5:30-6:30

• Thursday, 2/29/2024: Informational Session via Zoom 10:30-11:30, or

• Monday, 3/4/2024: Informational Session via Zoom 2:00-3:00. 

If you choose to join us for one of our zoom informational sessions, please use the following zoom link:

https://psd401.zoom.us/j/91434015757?pwd=K0Fxajg5NlFHMkNwMGRhMGJaMUpnZz09

Meeting ID: 914 3401 5757
Passcode: 809706