Great Things Going On
I would like to compliment our entire K-12 teaching staff this week for the great work they did at the first All Valley Teacher PLC of the school year that was held last Thursday in Del Norte. While in attendance our instructors at every grade level, in every subject area, had the opportunity to refine and validate their first quarter assessments of the Colorado Sample Curriculum. This work is extremely important to our students because it allows our teachers to become more familiar with what they should be teaching them, and how best to measure whether or not they have actually learned it.
Also related to this event last Thursday is the great work our classified employees did right here in Center while all our teachers were attending the All Valley PLC. On this day we had instructional paraprofessionals and support staff members guiding the instruction of our grade 6-12 Jump Start students. Last spring members of our calendar committee committed to keeping August 14th as an instruction day to ensure all Jump Start participants are able to get in enough class time to be successful on their post program assessments. This was a bit of an experiment for us and, but not surprising to me, all the feedback I have received so far indicates that our classified instructional staff did a wonderful job guiding these classes. Thanks to all of you for saving a valuable instructional day for all of these kids!
Also related to this event last Thursday is the great work our classified employees did right here in Center while all our teachers were attending the All Valley PLC. On this day we had instructional paraprofessionals and support staff members guiding the instruction of our grade 6-12 Jump Start students. Last spring members of our calendar committee committed to keeping August 14th as an instruction day to ensure all Jump Start participants are able to get in enough class time to be successful on their post program assessments. This was a bit of an experiment for us and, but not surprising to me, all the feedback I have received so far indicates that our classified instructional staff did a wonderful job guiding these classes. Thanks to all of you for saving a valuable instructional day for all of these kids!
Last week the Colorado Department of Education officially released statewide TCAP results and, as always, they were a bit of a mixed bag. As a district we are quite pleased with our continued growth in reading and writing as represented in our strong growth percentiles in these areas across the district, as well as our above state level performance at several of our elementary grade levels. Here are some snapshots that show the wonderful growth in achievement we have had in these areas during the past 6 years.
Middle and high school math growth was once again very positive, but we are quite concerned with the backward step we appear to have taken in elementary math growth and performance. As always, we will do all we can to analyze what the cause of this dip may have been and will make future improvement in this area our top priority. As this is our weekly “Great Things Going On” section I have posted these data slides that represent some of the more positive results we achieved during this testing cycle.
I would also like to take a moment this week to commend Center High School principal Kevin Jones for the great work he is doing mentoring new Skoglund Middle School principal Luis Murillo. Since they arrived at work during the last week of July I have observed Mr. Jones taking Mr. Murillo through a process to revise staff and student handbooks to help him become more familiar with our operational policies, showing him how to review and offer feedback to teachers regarding their lesson plans, guiding him through processes related to managing student discipline, and taking him on classroom walkthrough observations to support teachers with effective feedback. I have no doubt Mr. Murillo must feel like he is drinking from a fire hose right now, but if he turns out to be as effective a principal as Mr. Jones is, he’ll turn out to be one of the best in the state of Colorado!
On a final note, last Tuesday I met in a two and a half hour work session with our board of education in an attempt to develop a list of superintendent priorities for the coming school year. Though we did not accomplish our stated goal the work we conducted was extremely important, with everyone having an opportunity to air concerns about how we currently operate as a team. I believe the result of the meeting was the beginning of a positive set of operational norms we can all agree to work on, and an agreement to ask Mark DeVoti from the Colorado Association of School Boards to return in the next month or so to help us complete our priority setting task.
Big Things We Are Working On
Sorting through our statewide assessment results for the purpose of meeting the needs of individual students will be our immediate top priority. However, I think it is also important that we use this data to gain some measure of how the Center School District is currently doing in regard to overall student achievement trends. I believe there are two ways we can do this. One is to see how our work from the past year translates into school and district performance framework ratings. The other is to look at our growth trends over the past several years. Preliminary school and performance ratings have been released by CDE and I believe the Center community will be generally pleased with those results. However, we will not be able to release this information to the public until after the district accountability committee and board of education meet and review them in early September. In the mean time I have also attached a graph that shows the trajectory of our composite student growth percentiles over the past several years as reported on the Colorado Department of Education SchoolView website. I believe the board of education agrees it is our primary goal in Center Schools to raise our student performance on statewide assessments to where it is above state average in every subject area at every grade level. However, as a staff we realize that to get to this goal we must first consistently grow our students at a rate greater than that of the average district in the state. I believe this chart shows we are doing exactly that, with all Center growth percentiles remaining above state average (50th) since 2010, and both reading and writing percentiles currently above the 60th percentile!
Two other big areas of focus we have right now are clearly defining and possibly revising our district Alternative to Expulsion program. Thanks to a determined push by board director Phil Varoz, the district is taking a close look at how it operates this program. Through this process we will be codifying in policy the way in which we place students in the program, how long their placement can last, the conditions of learning each student will experience while in the program, and the access they have to counseling services, meals, and opportunities for physical movement throughout the day. Our hope is to have a straw design for a revised policy in front of the board at our September meeting that clearly defines all of these items and to get agreement on it for the future.
Another issue the board of education is addressing at this time is the safety and legality of allowing food that is prepared off campus, in homes within the community, to be served and consumed at school related events. Board director James Sanchez has spearheaded our look into this issue. In doing so the board has asked me to seek information and advice from our district law firm and insurance agent to help us to possibly revise our policy related to this in a way in which the district and its parents are legally protected when it comes to such situations.
Another issue the board of education is addressing at this time is the safety and legality of allowing food that is prepared off campus, in homes within the community, to be served and consumed at school related events. Board director James Sanchez has spearheaded our look into this issue. In doing so the board has asked me to seek information and advice from our district law firm and insurance agent to help us to possibly revise our policy related to this in a way in which the district and its parents are legally protected when it comes to such situations.
The Past Week
During the past week I worked on finalizing the process by which SLV teachers will validate their quarterly assessments of the Colorado Sample Curriculum and helped to train regional PLC leaders in how to guide their teacher cohorts in this work. On Tuesday I attended the SLV Superintendents Advisory Council meeting in Alamosa, then participated in our board-superintendent priorities setting session and regular August board meeting.
On Wednesday I met with alternative school director Joy Werner and adult education instructor Richard Blakeslee about processes for providing child care for adult learners. I attended the All Valley PLC sessions on Thursday in Del Norte. On Friday I met with director of finance Betty Casanova about business office personnel annual evaluations.
On Wednesday I met with alternative school director Joy Werner and adult education instructor Richard Blakeslee about processes for providing child care for adult learners. I attended the All Valley PLC sessions on Thursday in Del Norte. On Friday I met with director of finance Betty Casanova about business office personnel annual evaluations.
The Week Ahead
Early this week I will continue working with director of finance Betty Casanova on administrative office evaluation processes, while also reviewing a lot of email and getting weekly communications items completed ahead of time. On Tuesday I have my monthly Early Steps to School Success update with program coordinator Alondra Chaparro. I will then be taking time off from Wednesday through next Tuesday morning to travel to Tucson, Arizona for family memorial services related to my father’s passing away last week.
Thanks for listening once again and have a another great week!
George
Thanks for listening once again and have a another great week!
George