The following are school reports from principals in Churchill County School District presented in Jan. 13’s school board meeting.
Churchill County Middle School
CCMS is quickly developing a second semester schedule that is modeled after the first semester with students participating in three 27-day terms, with two courses per term. In preparation for the second semester, CCMS has adjusted our first semester schedule of five teams, and restructured with four teams.
Three teachers are now supporting full remote learners, one is filling an open special education position, and the others have been integrated into existing teams. The results of this action are larger in-person classes for sixth and seventh grades, (still remaining within the capacity limits) and full remote learners have a dedicated teacher available throughout the day to support remote learning, by grade level.
Over the winter break, an audit of the electronic files was performed for the Course Summary Documents and Learning Guides of the Learner Centered Framework. The goal was to ensure there is a complete Course Summary Document, and corresponding Learning Guides that a student could easily match and use to assist in learning. Reports of the progress and suggestions were provided to all departments.
All the action steps of meetings, progress updates, and monitoring have taken place for LCF implementation. The focus area now is looking at student data. The growth from fall to winter MAP did not meet the growth goal we had. Some variables to consider are: some testers did not have instruction yet in the tested content, students received 6 weeks of instruction in tested areas, and student absences are high due to exclusions.
The CCMS PBIS committee provided data and a summary of the implementation at the last board meeting. CCMS is in Tier Two of implementation and about to participate in an inventory, or monitoring of progress. CCMS reported 2,019 Gurka Greens of positive recognition have now been given to students. That is an increase of 483 from the last report. Also, CCMS now has 100 percent of staff participating in the positive recognition process.
A Term 3 newsletter was posted and emailed via Peachjar to families. Increased communication with FAQ documents and newsletters for each term have been pushed to families. CCMS’s goal is to push more communication out to engage families, while CCMS is not able to bring families in for special events. CCMS also would like to increase virtual or in-person (depending on restrictions) attendance at spring conferences.
Numa Elementary
Numa’s midyear review of the School Performance Plan indicates good progress toward meeting the two goals set for the 2020-2021 school year.
Priority 1 of the Numa SPP is to provide a high-quality learning experience for all students. The goal is to increase the School-Wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (SWPBIS) Tiered Fidelity Inventory (TFI) from 50 percent (2019-20 score) to a minimum 70 percent. A score of 70 percent in two of the three TFI data collections during the year will advance Numa from Tier 1 to Tier 2.
As reported in a previous board update, Numa Elementary scored an 83.33 percent on the first TFI data collection. Numa is on track to meet the goal by continuing to score above the 70 percent required. To support this continued growth through the second semester, Numa will continue to focus on three areas (Professional Development, Family Engagement, Instruction).
Staff will be provided professional development opportunities embedded within PBIS as well as Tribes. Numa Elementary staff will continue to implement Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) in the classroom and schoolwide. These supports include Positive Behavior Intervention Supports (PBIS), Social Emotional Learning (SEL), and Instructional Consultation Team (ICAT). Additionally, Numa will continue to provide information and parent involvement opportunities to help support the goal.
Priority 2 of the Numa SPP is to increase student proficiency in both math and reading. Specifically, 50 percent of the students will reach the 60th percentile in reading and 40 percent of the student students will reach the 60th percentile in math as measured by the NWEA MAP from Fall to Spring. Results from the Winter MAP assessment shows growth towards the goal. Observed growth exceeded the projected growth for both math and reading in each grade levels (fourth and fifth).
To support this continued growth through the second semester, Numa will continue to focus on three areas (Professional Development, Family Engagement, Curriculum/ Instruction/ Assessment). Staff will continue to be provided professional development to ensure Learner Centered Framework implementation and development. Parents will continue to be provided information through various means to help strengthen their student’s academic progress.
Numa teachers will continue to implement and refine the curriculum, instruction, and assessment through the Learner Centered Framework. Units of study, learning targets, course summary documents, rubrics/assessments, and other curriculum related tools and materials are discussed and analyzed in PLC meetings. The Numa Data Team has been established to analyze results to assist in planning.
The remaining semester will continue with current strategies and refining where needed.
EC Best Elementary
The EC Best team continues to meet monthly for planning with incorporating PBIS into our school culture. Our goal for professional development within our grade levels is to improve our scores in the following areas of the Tiered Fidelity Inventory: Behavioral Expectations, Teaching Expectations, and Classroom Procedures. This semester staff will also be expected to begin logging behavior concerns and solutions within Infinite Campus.
The ICAT team continues to support teachers to identify instructional strategies with students that are struggling academically.
The team meets weekly to discuss case updates and strategy/ intervention recommendations. In total for the first semester, 11 teachers received support from our ICAT team, our team managed 18 cases, and 26 students received academic interventions.
Each grade level continues to grow stronger as a team with curriculum alignment and assessment in ELA and Math.
The teams are working together to refine work from last year along with analyzing instructional strategies. The data team met this month to adapt instruction based on data. The team will identify a percentage of students that have met a 3 or 4 for learning targets within first semester units in ELA and Math. Then it will use this data to plan with grade levels for areas of improvement for the remainder of the year.
Leveled Literacy welcomes one more support staff to monitor the 43 Leveled Literacy students.
Students are working at their instructional level based on reading running records. It is our goal that students will work together with parents on the skills that are targeted in need. Students keep a reading log and books go to and from school. The goal is by the end of 16 weeks, the school will be able to exit 12 of the students who are approaching proficiency levels.
The school has two instructional assistants that monitor second and third graders who are at the bottom 40% on MAP skills. This has proven to be a lifesaver, as the school cannot have parental help during the Covid Crisis.
Staff will participate in a Google Meets to discuss Winter MAP data and be given the opportunity to discuss literacy skills if wanted with the literacy specialist.
Lahontan Elementary
Lahontan Elementary School will continue to work toward the goals in the School Performance Plan as it begins the second semester.
The first goal is to provide a high-quality learning experience for all students in a safe, equitable, inclusive, respectful, positive, and culturally responsive environment.
From Feb. 2020 to Spring 2021 Lahontan Elementary will increase the school-wide PBIS (SWPBIS) Tiered Fidelity Inventory score from 40 percent to 70 percent to reach the Tier 2 level.
From the data in November TFI sweep, staff with strengthen the following PBIS standards: 1.4 Teaching Expectations: Expected academic and social behaviors are taught directly to all students in classrooms and across other campus setting/locations.
Lahontan staff will be working toward this standard by teaching the “School Expectation Wolf Pup Motto.” A written process is used for orienting all faculty/staff on 4 core Tier 1 SWPBIS practices teaching school-wide expectations, acknowledging appropriate behavior, correcting errors, and requesting assistance.
Professional Learning through online meetings to support staff in the implementation of PBIS 1.10 Faculty Involvement: Faculty are shown school-wide data regularly and provide input on universal foundations (e.g. expectations, acknowledgements, definitions, consequences) at least every 12 months.
Each staff member completed a staff survey for input regarding PBIS in our school. This data
will be analyzed to determine the areas where professional learning is needed.
Stakeholders (students, families, and community members) provide input on universal foundations (e.g., expectations, consequences, acknowledgements) at least every 12 months.
Each teacher will send a survey to parents to complete in January.
In February, a second sweep will be completed, and the new data will be used to determine the next areas that Lahontan staff will focus on to continue implementation of PBIS to ensure we move to a Tier 2 for the 2021-2022 school year.
The PBIS teams meets twice a month to support teacher needs and plan professional learning. Too Good for Drugs program will be completed by Kindergarten students.
The second goal is to improve student achievement in the areas of literacy and math as related to the Nevada State Literacy Plan, Read by Grade Three, and the rigor of the Nevada Academic Content Standards.
LES will increase the number of Kindergarten students that are proficient on the NWEA MAP assessment for Math from 61 percent in Fall 2020 to 71 percent in Spring 2021.LES will increase the number of Kindergarten students that are proficient on the NWEA MAP assessment for ELA from 38 percent in Fall 2020 to 50 percent in Spring 2021.
LES will increase the number of first grade students that are proficient on the NWEA MAP assessment for math from 39 percent in Fall 2020 to 50 percent in Spring 2021.
LES will increase the number of first grade students that are proficient on the NWEA MAP assessment for ELA from 32 percent in Fall 2020 to 50 percent in Spring 2021. Fifty percent of students in each grade level will score a 3 or higher on all measured learning targets.
Next steps include that the Lahontan staff continues to work in PLCs to review and revise the Learner-Centered Framework and analyze data from common unit assessments, MAP, Star Early Literacy, and formative data to guide instruction for students.
Lahontan’s Literacy Committee met on Jan. 14 to plan for the second Virtual Literacy Event. The event will provide parents with activities to support literacy at home.
The Literacy Specialist, Special Education and EL teachers will continue to provide instruction to students need extra support in reading. MAP reading scores determine what students will participate in the Leveled Literacy Instruction (LLI).
During the Jan. 25 Lahontan’s Advisory Team meeting, the team looked at the data from the different assessments to see the areas of strength and areas of concern. The information will be presented to all staff and discussions will take place during a staff meeting.
Northside Early Learning Center
Northside Early Learning Center continues to operate on the same schedule as first semester. The school continues to implement cleaning protocols and do everything to limit exposure and spread of COVID-19. Staff are prepared, if conditions warrant, to switch in and out of remote learning in a classroom or classrooms.
The school is working with the ECERS coach on developing an improvement plan for our school that will focus on the components in the Nevada State Stars Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS). For information, visit http://www.nvsilverstatestars.org/.
Due to the restrictions of the pandemic, NELC will not be rated this year, but the expectation is that the school will be rated next year.
NELC was notified in December that funding for the 2021-022 school year, if approved by the legislature, will be on a competitive basis with an expected application release date in March. It should be noted that at this time the school does not know what will be proposed in the governor’s budget or what funds the legislature will approve. The board will be updated on this process as it moves along.
The school wants to take the time to thank the wonderful staff, students and parents at NELC. Through everyone’s commitment and working together, great things are happening. LauraLee Christensen was welcomed to the staff and the school is excited to have her.
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