Akin Road Elementary
The staff development goal for Akin Road Elementary during the 23-24 school year was: We will dedicate time to strengthening our understanding of best practice reading instructional strategies. Through utilizing our literacy coach and PLC time discussed Communities of Practice among grade levels. We continue to focus on Equity and how to connect all learners to conversations about celebrating differences and how to recognize and react to prejudice and stereotypes as a staff. We will re-commit time to using Responsive Classroom language and strategies utilizing our staff meeting time to focus on what school expectations are.
We saw growth in how our PLC’s were utilizing our literacy data and meeting/planning for individual student needs. Through our monthly sessions meeting with the literacy coach, teachers were able to work on more small group planning and teaching points. As a building, we noticed a much improved culture using more consistent Responsive Classroom language across all levels and areas in the building.
Farmington Elementary
Our Farmington Elementary staff development goal was to continue the 7 Mindsets with the students and families of our community. We continued school projects, morning meetings and school and home connections through involving parents in volunteer opportunities in the school. 7 Mindsets is a social emotional curriculum that introduces 7 different Mindsets throughout the year. We spoke a lot about how the social emotional needs of our students need to be met before we can expect them to sit down and do the academic’s piece. Getting to know how our students learn is important in meeting their needs both academically and socially. We had had several Parent Nights to help engage and support parents in subjects like Mental Health, Anxiety and Social Media awareness. These were intended to meet the needs of our parents to help support the home and school relationships to wrap around our students. We saw positive interactions with students and teachers and relationships becoming stronger with families.
Meadowview Elementary
The percentage of students in grades 3-5 at Meadowview Elementary who meet or exceed their individual Spring to Spring RIT growth goal, and 2nd grade students who meet or exceed their Fall-Spring growth goal as measured by their performance on the NWEA Reading assessment in the Spring of 2023, will increase from 59.5% to 61.5% in the Spring of 2024.
We are proud to report that we surpassed our building literacy goal with 64.3% of our students in grades 2-5 met or exceeded their growth targets as Measured by the Spring 2024 NWEA. We believe this growth is due to a variety of factors including (but not limited to) the continuation of our literacy professional development around the Science of Reading and the use of diagnostic testing. Through facilitated discussions led by our Literacy Team, teachers engaged in rich collegial discussions to start shifting their thinking about how students learn to read, and how their instructional practices can better align with the new information they are learning. Primary teachers worked through the book Shifting the Balance for K-2 and intermediate teachers used Shifting the Balance for 3-5. Literacy coaches provided strong staff development with important open ended question prompts to support high level and forward moving discussions. We also started the using a more comprehensive universal assessment tool (Fastbridge) to understand our students’ strengths and needs in reading. We started using common diagnostic assessments across the district and strengthening our understanding of how to use that data to guide our instruction based on the Science of Reading.
North Trail Elementary
In 2023-2024 North Trail focused on developing our Building Operational Plan, strengthening our literacy practices, providing personalized professional development to staff, and continuing our growth in equity.
Back to School Workshop Week started with the ABC’s of 2023 – focusing on academics, behavior, and community. We began the discussion around a new Social Emotional Learning resource called Be Good People being used in classrooms to support our work with Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports. We spent time orienting staff with the resource and discussing how to use this in our school community. We also reviewed our school emergency procedures and worked to build community and culture in our building.
Throughout the year we strengthened our practices in equity by presenting various scenarios we may face as educators. The collaboration and conversation provided opportunities for staff to connect on important and relevant topics that often occur in the elementary program. This included ways to respond to harm, support students and staff if harm has occurred, as well as ways to be proactive to provide an inclusive environment for all.
Literacy practices were strengthened as we prepare for our CAREIALL training. We spent this year laying the groundwork by establishing time and space for specific interventions in reading. Staff development time was devoted to diving into data and working with coaches to analyze data and collaborate on resources and practices used to best meet student need. This is laying the groundwork for what is to come in the next year.
One of our staff’s favorite professional development experiences this year occurred in December with a personalized view of PD. Staff were able to participate in sessions of choice that included mental health and suicide prevention, literacy development, outdoor learning, Seesaw strategies, behavior management strategies and much more! Staff were excited to choose sessions that met their professional goals and allowed for agency in choosing their professional learning adventure.
Riverview Elementary
The RVES building goal for 2023-2024 was: “The percentage of all students in grades 2-5 at Riverview Elementary who meet or exceed their individual fall to spring reading RIT growth goal, as indicated by their performance on NWEA MAP assessment, will increase from 45.5% during the 2022-2023 school year to 55.5% to spring 2024.” While our final data showed that we fell short of meeting this ambitious goal, we did show positive growth overall with 48.1% of students in grades 2-5 meeting or exceeding their NWEA MAP fall-to-spring reading growth goal in 2023-2024. We also saw an increase in proficiency on MCA reading assessments which is another signal that the work we are doing as a school to improve in this area is working.
As a school we did a significant amount of learning and application to improve our literacy outcomes for our students. Teachers from all grade levels and departments participated in professional learning committees. Site led professional development centered around evidence based instructional practices which included phonological awareness instruction, phonics instruction, and small group instruction. We introduced a new foundational curricular resource and carved out dedicated time to helping teachers maximize it’s impact with their students. Many teachers participated in a Community of Practices focusing on research on six shifts to make in their approach to early reading instruction on phonemic awareness, phonics, high frequency words, comprehension, and texts for beginning readers. As a whole staff, we learned to become much better at utilizing data from universal screeners, diagnostic assessments, daily formative assessments, and regular progress monitoring data to improve instructional decision making. We drew on solid scientific research and began to change our practices to make informed approaches to reading instruction. We feel strong positive momentum and like we are on our way to increasing the effectiveness of our tier 1 and tier 2 instruction.
Boeckman Middle School
The Boeckman Middle School staff of about 65 focused their professional development on the core components of the Personalized Learning Honeycomb, and implementation of competency based rubrics in place of letter grades. This year we utilized a teacher in a half time facilitator of instruction support position in our three learning models. She was able to meet individually with teachers to set goals around reporting and personalizing learning opportunities. She also works with leadership around development and implementation of professional development for staff.
We also dedicated much of our professional development during the 23-24 school year to supporting a PBIS coach and a team of teachers that made up our PBIS committee. The coach and committee provided professional development opportunities for all staff. As a result of this professional development, we have implemented behavior matrix in all learning and common spaces at school, provided a learning matrix for distance learning, created tools to reinforce positive behaviors and structure learning experiences around undesired minor behaviors. We bridged the work with the Personalized Learning Honeycomb and PBIS through the implementation of Personal Skills for Success. The Personal Skills for Success provide a framework for teachers to facilitate student learning of executive functioning skills. The work done last year has led us to focus on the integration of competency, personalized learning, and equitable practices for the 24-25 school year with the goal being that we are identifying student needs and meeting those with appropriately designed personalized instruction.
Dodge Middle School
At Levi P. Dodge Middle School, our goal was to offer more personalized professional development opportunities for all staff. Our staff of teachers, paraprofessionals, and licensed non-instructional staff engaged in self-directed high quality staff development opportunities by meeting in purposeful department specific teams, grade level teams, and full school trainings. Additionally, individuals were given 8 hours to personalize their own professional development. Examples include webinars, podcasts, book studies, courses, and content specific conferences. We found teachers felt comfortable taking risks to customize their own learning. This naturally modeled, for students, the power of taking calculated risks and not allowing perceived “failure” to limit how they learn or their potential. This goal is a work in progress, and staff at Dodge Middle School are moving forward on personalizing learning for students and personalizing professional development for themselves. Additionally, we have aligned our resources so that we will again have a Facilitator of Instructional Support to enhance the professional growth of staff at a personal level.
Farmington High School
At Farmington High School our staff development goal is to increase our Tier 1 (building wide) learner supports by implementing our core values and putting an emphasis on character development. Our staff were involved in activities centered around innovation and joy, as well as reflecting on three areas: managing the present, letting go of the past, and co-creating our future. We were also fortunate to hear a keynote from Joe Beckman and till360 centered around the importance of human connection and stories. I have seen a direct impact on student learning as our Tiger Pride time has been much more of a focus for our teams and I am seeing our Human Connection Hub activities in action every Tuesday. I am also seeing teachers taking time to build community within their Tiger Pride class and sharing ideas with colleagues.