November 25, 2008 Update

The following provides an update on curriculum issues and assessment/screening issues in the district.

Curriculum and Instruction
Writing
The Writing Committee met on Tuesday, November 18th. The following projects will be created as they continue to work on the writing curriculum:

Committee members will be creating a video on teaching writing. This will serve as a way to help show others how Writer’s Workshop and 6 traits can be used in the classroom. Additionally, committee members will be working on developing lessons for the traits and generating a list of books for the traits. They will need develop how this will be organized to share with staff.

The next meeting will be on Tuesday, January 20, 2008.

Mathematics
The Math Committee meeting was held on Tuesday, November 11th. The following topics were discussed:
Committee members continued the process of creating the Mastery Skills chart and tied the skills to the State Standards. We will continue to review the skills and address gaps which may be identified as we continue the review process. They were encouraged to share the information in their buildings and bring feedback back to the next meeting. Upcoming topics will focus on feedback on current curriculum, filling in the skills gap, and assessment options.

The next meeting will be on Tuesday, January 13, 2008.

Response to Intervention (RtI)
Building staffs continue to work on their developed plans. The District RtI plan will summarize the goals for the district for the 2009-10 school year. This plan will be presented to the Board of Education on December 9th for approval. Once approved the plan will be electronically submitted to the State Board of Education. We anticipate, once received, that the State will provide feedback and further guidance on additional information they would need from the plan.

This month I am including a short update from the Principals on RtI.

Mark DeLay School
Analysis of individual student scores led to the formation of literacy groups at all grade levels, the assignment of ELL students to either two hour or one hour pull out instruction, based on need, and the placement of certain non-IEP students into Resource led interventions, such as Reading Mastery (Tier 3), as we progress monitor their academic growth. A small group of 2nd grade students have also been identified as low in phonemic awareness are now meeting before school several times a week with Jane Moss. Another group of 2nd grade students have been selected to work weekly with senior volunteers in a program entitled Poetry Academy in order to increase reading fluency.

Lace School
The Lace Staff decided to focus on the area of reading during the 2008/2009 school year. Teachers have been looking at the core curriculum and the District # 61 Reading Plan as the guidelines to meet the needs of our students. We have also examined the need to provide additional instructional time for those students who struggle with reading comprehension and fluency. This has resulted in some fruitful discussions about how to provide this additional time without short changing the students in other areas of learning.
One of the programs that we have been developed, and will be implemented beginning the week of November 17, 2008, is a reading assistance program. This program will meet on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays after school or for two hours on Saturday morning. Teachers recommended specific students who would benefit from this program based on assessment scores and classroom performance. The assessment scores used were 2008 ISAT (4th/5th) and Iowa Basic Skills results (3rd).

Eisenhower Junior High School
We adjusted our skills classes to align with RTI to increase the effectiveness of these classes which have already proven to be a great tool for improvement in student achievement. The teacher of the 7th and 8th grade reading and math plus classes, does all of the lesson planning with the student's regular reading and math teachers. The schedules of the students that were placed in these classes at the beginning of the year were also assigned a specific teacher so that the skills teacher would only have to plan with one teacher per department and grade level.

The beliefs that RTI is not a special ed. initiative, that all students have the right to interventions and strategies that differentiate for their ability level, and that data collection and recording was essential to diagnose and help all students was emphasized to the staff as a whole and once again in grade level teams.

Assessment

The November 4th MAP training sessions went very well. Teachers and staff were very positive about the training and the potential of the assessment. The Fall assessments were given to the students in grades 1, 3, and 6 during the weeks of November 10th and 17th.