Our School

Kate Waller Barrett Elementary School operates from 8:15 a.m. to 2:45 p.m.

Our Mission

We help every White Tiger feel included, lead with kindness, learn with purpose, grow with confidence, persevvere through challenges, and succeed in reaching their fullest potential.

Our Vision

At Kate Waller Barrett Elementary, we envision a school community where families are true partners and every White Tiger is known, valued, challenged, and supported as they grow into kind leaders, confident learners, creative problem-solvers, and resilient citizens prepared to succeed in school and beyond.

View the Kate Waller Barrett Elementary School Quality Profile.

Goal 1:  For the 2025-2026 school year, students will meet or exceed expected end of year Reading and Math performance benchmarks specified on the chart below by Standards of Learning (SOL) pass rates (grades 3-5) or Stafford County Public Schools tiering criteria (grades K-2)

• Strategy 1: Our school will build a unified culture of instructional excellence by leveraging professional learning communities, coaching cycles, and professional learning as goal-oriented, student-centered, and data-driven teams that design instruction to maximize engagement, foster meaningful discourse, and ensure teacher clarity.
  • 7 Steps practices inherently  include the following EBI: 1) Provide systematic instruction during intervention to develop student understanding of mathematical ideas 2) Teach clear and concise mathematical language and support students’ use of the language to help students effectively communicate their understanding of mathematical concepts. 
• Strategy 2: Teachers will implement strategies from the 7 Steps to a Language Rich Classroom Environment to ensure that students are provided with opportunities to engage in discourse throughout the lessons in all content areas. 
• Strategy 3: Reading instruction will align with the Virginia Literacy Act and in part, will focus on decoding words, analyzing word parts, and writing and recognizing words. Teachers will routinely use a set of comprehension-building practices to help students make sense of the text.
• Strategy 4: Prioritizing SPED teacher PLCs to discuss appropriate accommodations, differentiation, and/or scaffolding for students to be able to access Tier 1 instruction.

Goal 2:  In the 2025-2026 school year, KWBES will reduce the number of students who are chronically absent by at least 5%.

• Strategy 1: Intentional relationship-building with students and families of students whose absences put them at risk of chronic absenteeism.
• Strategy 2: Promote communal accountability/support for regular attendance.
• Strategy 3: Individual attendance plans will be created and monitored for the students who are at risk of being chronically absent.

Goal 3: Increase the sense of welcome and belonging for all students, staff, and visitors, aiming for an average rating of 4.5 (division-level average) on the survey item “I feel welcomed when I enter the school” by the end of the school year.

• Strategy 1: Enhance visitor and family experience by providing multilingual communication and interpreters at all family engagement events and by developing a system for welcoming new families. 
• Strategy 2: Schedule family engagement events for accessibility