End of 2013-2014 School Year

Another school year has come to an end and as of today the building is quiet.  Looking back at the year I feel good about how the year went and excited about the direction we are going in the future.  For the most part students worked hard and made good progress this year.  I will say however that students should be prepared to give even more effort in the upcoming year.  I've always been a fan of the 4 C's in education- COMMUNICATION, COLLABORATION, CRITICAL THINKING, CREATIVITY, and these are each skills that are going to be an emphasis within our school next year.  During multiple conversations with teachers at the end of the year, the question was asked, "Who is working harder in your classroom, the students or you?" In some cases the teacher is the one working harder and our plan is to shift this responsibility toward the student in the future.  The main message I spoke about at our opening day assembly last fall was about ACCOUNTABILITY.  We made some progress with this over the course of the year, but we still have plenty of room for improvement.  Many students still need to learn to be accountable for their learning and own their data.  Owning their data means they take responsibility for the learning and accept ownership of the grades and scores that they attain that reflect their level of understanding and ability to apply the skills or knowledge.  This level of accountability will be raised even more next year

During our finals days as a staff we spent some time reviewing school and building data about our students.  It generated some very good discussions about students and how we can get more out of them.  We discussed setting a building goal of having 80% of students be proficient and 20% of students be highly proficient in Reading, Mathematics, Social Studies, and Science on the Iowa Assessment.  This is a goal that has also been discussed with Mrs. Coover for Longfellow Elementary as well.  With this as a guiding principle our future policies, practices, and decisions can be directed towards how it will support achieving this goal.  This past year we had 7 of 20 areas that met the 80% proficient and just 3 of 20 meet the 20% highly proficient goal.

Lastly, I want to thank the students, staff, parents, and community for a great year!!

Enjoy the summer!