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. 7th
and 8th 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 78th 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 35th 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.
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