Administrator's Corner

 Message From The Principal

Students are home today enjoying time away from school; MCS teachers are hard at work planning for when students return.  This in-service day is focused on looking at student assessment results and designing groups for the WIN time.  Over the past few weeks, students have taken assessments to help us understand where they are at, specifically in math and ELA.  You might have heard your student mention Track My Progress, which is a computer-based assessment of math and ELA.  Younger children have done components of the Primary Observation Assessment (POA) to measure proficiency with foundational literacy skills.  These assessments, plus observations we make about children during instruction, give us an idea of each child as a learner.

Better than having students do assessments, is using the data generated to plan next steps.  That brings us to WIN (Whatever I Need) and data day.  Today, teams are looking at data to design groups that allow children to get what is needed to be successful.  For some children that might mean working in a group with a learning specialist to get specially designed instruction.  Others may work with a service provider to receive instruction in occupational therapy, speech and language, etc.  Students who have test scores that indicate that they need an extension in order to go deeper in an area will get that opportunity.  Children will get an opportunity to work with our math and literacy interventionists to receive a boost in those areas.  Classroom teachers will also provide smaller group instruction at this time that is designed to give others what they need.  

You may ask, why use the WIN block model?  Great question!  This model assumes that everyone can always benefit from looking at what the next steps are to academic and social success.  What is often tricky is finding the time to give students that extra piece of instruction to help them succeed.  In the past, for students to get extra instruction designed for what they need, it meant missing instruction in another area.  This then produces a cycle of always catching up.  With WIN in place, all students get what they need without excluding some from classroom instruction.  

WIN (What I Need) time begins on Monday.  Be sure to ask your child what they most enjoy about WIN and their focus area. 

FYI, I hope you enjoyed the couple of photos of the 5th grade carrot harvest.  They are a bit off topic, but certainly enjoyable!        

Have a lovely weekend,

Shawn