Lake Geneva Site Visit

Last Friday Lake Geneva sent a team of administrators over to visit our school. They had heard about the exciting paint colors in the classrooms, the new carpet in some of the halls, and the updating that had taken place in the 4k and Special education rooms. They were excited to gather ideas that they can take bake to their district. It is always a pleasure to host other district's when they want to come and visit. It is a great opportunity to collaborate and share ideas, as well celebrate the reason why they are visiting us in the first place.Link to Facebook Building Photo Album

Welcome Back Letter

Dear Parents and Guardians,

I wanted to write you a short message and let you know how excited we were to have your student(s) with us today. It is always great to see their smiling faces, energy, and excitement for the school year to begin. It is my hope that we can work together to sustain this excitement and enthusiasm throughout the school year. If you have any needs or concerns related to busing or procedures in general, please contact the school office. If you have any questions related to a specific class or teacher, don’t hesitate to contact them directly. The staff is more than happy to speak with you and answer any questions that you may have.

This will be an exciting year with many changes at the district and state level. Mrs. Clements and the staff organized an excellent beginning of the year orientation for all students to learn about new school procedures and our Positive Behavior Intervention Strategies (PBIS) program. We have exciting new curriculum materials in reading and writing, and several new additions to our after school programming will be forthcoming. 7^th and 8^th graders have received new laptops as part of our laptop for each student in grades 4-8 program. The new laptops are capable of running every program we utilize at school including Autocad Inventor.  Our teachers have spent numerous hours in training and preparation for the upcoming year and we are excited to see what it brings.

At the state level you will notice significant changes to the state testing cut scores (what is considered passing) and there will be a new school report card issued for every school in the state of Wisconsin. We are anxious to learn more about the school report card system and see where we are currently at. What we know is that the new state test cut scores are significantly more challenging. For example in the past in reading if there were 100 students taking the test and your son or daughter placed 78^th out of the 100 then it was likely they were still considered proficient in reading. The new bar has been raised to the point where a student would need to place 35^th or higher in order to be considered proficient. In short, every school in the state will have a significant number of students below proficiency. I expect us to fall from around 90 percent of our students proficient or advanced in reading, to about 30-35 percent proficient or advanced in reading. The same will occur in mathematics and the other subjects. We are committed to meet this new rigor level and we began taking steps to meet it two years ago as we learned of the upcoming change.

In order to meet this new state proficiency level we know that we must work with students in the most effective way possible, give teachers the most effective tools possible, and structure our programs to reflect proven models. Thus, we have provided our teachers with the latest technologies in the classrooms. We have adopted proven curriculum in all of the core subject areas and we have structured reading/language arts and math so that every student will have both subjects for a minimum of 90 minutes a day. In addition, students who are not meeting proficiency levels in math and reading will have access to additional skill instruction on a regular basis during the school day through our response to intervention program. If your son or daughter is selected for one of the intervention programs, please do not be alarmed as it is likely that up to 65 to 70 percent of our students will receive additional support in order to help them reach the new proficiency levels. The extra support should be viewed as a positive help and resource for your student.

As always, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to give us a call.

Sincerely,

Jason Tadlock

District Administrator

P.S.Please be sure to check our school website and facebook page for regular updates, pictures and videos.