Student proficiency to be monitored child by child

By MEGHAN BRADBURY news@breezenewspapers com

The School District of Lee County is taking a deeper dive into monitoring achievements this year, focusing on individual student data

“What’s different, fidelity in which we are using,” Superintendent Dr Christopher said during Tuesday afternoon’s meeting “We are making that school improvement, strategic plan live It lives in our school improvement plans That has been from my estimation, a missing connection A regular update on how we are performing as a school district, the work being done prior to the school year is starting ”

Bernier said it is easy to say get better, have better performance and we want students to be proficient

“If you don’t help define the path direction and support to do so that is what this is We can do better and our principals are amazing in terms to rising to this They are appreciating this direction because they want to do better and their kids to perform better,” he said

School Board member Jada LangfordFlemings said the school support plans are incredibly cohesive and, more importantly, seems more of a continuum She said the plan really puts an emphasis on every kid matters

“It’s laser-focus on each specific need,” she said.

School Development Executive Director

Dr Marsha Bur said a big difference is they looked at overall data to make sure enough gains were being met Now they look by student in every subject area

“The difference for me is student by student in every area We look at data based on students That is the biggest difference, the shift from overall to each individual kiddo,” Bur said

The district is talking to principals and improvement plans, maybe for the first time, is truly the beginning of that connection

“Plans can be written and placed into a three ring binder and put on the shelf,” Bernier said

He said it’s about a robust monitoring system, which puts executive directors in the schools with individual principals looking at instruction, as well as having discussions as to what they saw and how to align to benchmarks, which is contextual evidence from the classroom

“Our principals have been thirsty for that type of time,” Bernier said of the actionable feedback of what the teams saw when they went from classroom to classroom

The district outlined monitoring systems for elementary, middle and high school students

School Development Executive Director Dr Shanna Johnston said monitoring will look at the foundational reading skills in elementary school through five components with fidelity and full transparency Another big change is the benchmark alignment piece where teacher instruction is matching benchmarks, she said

The reading monitoring for kindergarten through second grade students will monitor areas such as frequency, phonics, comprehension and vocabulary

“At the district level we have not monitored to this degree We are very excited about that,” she said, adding that they are foundation components of reading to make sure each student masters it before addressing the benchmarks for third through fifth graders

The same kind of monitoring will take place for all third graders, as well as fourth graders at a one and two proficiency level

“Our legacy work is to have students ready by grade three,” Johnston said.

For sixth- through eighth-grade students

“The difference for me is student by student in every area. We look at data based on students That is the biggest difference, the shift from overall to each individual kiddo ”

Dr Marsha Bur, School Development executive director

there will be an increase in opportunities to process content through structured academic conversations.

There also will be monitoring for ninthgrade students with the first to take place four weeks into the school year in September The district will identify students who are not achieving in any core subject areas, identify and provide interventions

School Development Executive Director Cheryl Neely said she really believes incorporating reading, writing and talking about content on a daily basis is needed When little small chunks are moved every single day you can move to something more innovative

“My goal this year is to get our children to do the heavy lifting, teachers facilitate the learning Once we do that, it will make it better at all grade levels,” Neely said

School Development Executive Director Clayton Simmons said last year they started the graduation data chats, with all 15 high school principals having a good, solid plan

“Our high schools have a plan for each group of kids and individual name of student,” he said, adding that the district is individualizing the process “that we have in place based on kids they have in front of them ”

Another big component is onboarding ninth grade students with a systematic plan to make sure every student has the information they need to be successful in high school Simmons said they are not waiting to the end of the quarter or semester to provide interventions for students

“We are making sure they have a connection to the school It’s a big push this year,” he said “We are going to track which kids are connected and which aren’t. We will encourage those that are not to ‘lets get connected to the school,’” Simmons said

The monitoring also will take place through the school principals on a quarterly basis After every cycle, the principals will adjust their school improvement plan and systems to ensure they continue to see growth

If the growth is not being seen, they can look at the system and find what needs to be changed

Johnston said they just finished meeting with school principals, which reviewed master schedules in detail, as well as the school improvement plan to ensure systems are in place to meet goals They also talked about teacher placement to ensure they are strategically placed based on the teacher strengths and opportunities.

Bur said the curriculum department began meeting with teachers by content and grade level to go through the process of quarterly benchmark leading and learning meetings

“Schools identify teachers at their buildings to be leaders by grade level and come to meet with content coordinators, curriculum directors and coaches to receive professional development to highlight best practices, benchmark curriculum updates and provide support for improved student learning,” she said

Those teachers then return to the schools to share information with all the teachers on their grade level

There is also a benchmark alignment classroom walkthrough every six weeks for tier one, monthly for tier two, every three weeks for tier three and weekly for BSI