Opportunity Snap

It’s hard to believe that the holiday season has come and gone. Where does the time gone?
As a district, we are always assessing how our students are doing academically. In addition to the informal assessments done on a daily basis we do formal assessments such as unit tests, quizzes, and we provide our students with research based and nationally normed assessments. During the month of January we will be assessing most students with our DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) reading assessment and students in grades 1-5 will take the NWEA assessment in reading, math and language. The DIBELS assessments take approximately 1 minute and the NWEA tests typically take 50-60 minutes per test. All of these assessments, when used in conjunction with each other, help to give us an accurate picture of where a student is at and how we can meet their needs.
January is the perfect time to check in on students' progress and see what type of gains they have made. Additionally, this will be a good time for teachers to look at their curriculum and instruction to determine if they are meeting the students' needs in their rooms. Teachers will also be able to look at their SMART gaols to see if they are reaching their goals or to see if adjustments need to be made.
Our teachers continue to meet two times per month as a PLC (Professional Learning Community) to look at data and to collaborate on how to best meet the needs of our students. This PLC time will also allow us to look at the various initiatives we have been working on since the beginning of the school year.
Our teachers continue to do some amazing things with our students. We are fortunate to have great students and parents to help support us in this endeavor.