Whole Faculty Study Group Accomplishments 1st Quarter
November 21, 2008
Whole Faculty Study Groups at Holdrege Public Schools meet weekly on Friday from 1:45 -2:30 p.m. Groups focus on student achievement and use data to measure student progress. Each group has written a summary of first quarter progress. If you have questions or would like to comment, please email the first person listed for each group.
Preschool/Kindergarten- Heather Florell, Becky Williams, Nancy Nelson, Liz Mattson, Cheryl Cox, Betty Amen
The Preschool/Kindergarten WFSG group has been working to complete and implement its current action plan. Our main focus is Letter Naming Fluency. We have determined which students meet the criteria for assistance in this area. Students who need interventions are being helped by the classroom teacher who is providing individualized activities. Teachers continue to monitor each student to determine if goals are met and if progress is being made. As a group, we use each WFSG meeting to give updates on progress and share new ideas for interventions.
1st Grade- Shirley Messersmith, Wendy Breinig, Julie Bergman, Hulda Peterson, Karen Kreutzer, Lindsey Robison
First grade WFSG teachers have been working on improving decoding skills. To help us with this, we have been using the manual “I’ve Dibbled Now What”, along with many LiPS activities. We have Dibel results and LAC testing results to help us monitor improvements our students have made along with our reading tests.
2nd Grade- Beth Larson, Lynn Sundquist, Kristi Brand, Joyce Zachery, Michelle Williams
We have spent the first quarter revising our action plan. The group members decided to continue working on the target skill we had as a goal last year because we feel that it is such an important reading tool for second graders. The skill we are focusing on is context clues.
We have developed a pretest using a language-based Compass program. This consists of a story which is read to the students containing words we have chosen as vocabulary words. The students use context clues to write a definition of the words. We will then develop and teach strategies for using context clues and administer a similar post test.
3rd Grade- Val Dicke, Mary Oman, Lori Engler, Steph Dannehl, Stacia Milius, Marianne Pierce, Kylie Fox – SPED
Improving listening (standard 4.4.1) has been the skill that the 3rd grade WFSG has been working on during the first quarter of the 2008-2009 school year. First we diagnosed student’s current levels of performance in this area by randomly selecting students and tracking their listening skills for one day. We also administered a listening skills pretest to the entire class. These activities validated our concerns and justified our need to pursue our action plan. We decided that we should give two listening skills activities each week. The activities are taken from a developing listening skills book. Our goal is to complete these listening activities and the posttest by Thanksgiving. We will discuss our results on December 5, 2008.
Each member is asked to
report on one article concerning improving listening
skills.
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4th Grade- Kerry Waller, Calena Ohlson, Kara Taylor, Carrie Veal, Marilyn Ide – SPED
Our focus during the first quarter was to identify a student need. Our discussion at first was to focus on main idea and details as our student goal. As the beginning of the year progressed, we found a greater need was in student listening skills. We identified listening as our goal. After administering several different listening activities, we have redirected our focus. We feel that when the students know it is a listening activity, they tend to complete the activity with great care. Our focus now is to use a random checklist with select students to identify our focus group.
The day we met with the Kindergarten WFSG was very helpful in gaining new ideas to add to our action plan. They had many positive comments, but also shared ideas on how to improve our plan. We are now ready to implement listening strategies with our target group to improve their listening skills.
Elementary SPED- Marilyn Ide, Deb Komenda, Kylie Fox
Our first meeting of the year was at Washington Elementary. As a WFSG group we rated our Rubric and/or innovation configuration. At the next meeting, we discussed and established our norms for our WFSG group. We established that our first meeting of each month we would meet with other specialized area of education and finalized our schedule (Deb Komenda counseling group, Kylie Fox 3rd grade group, Marilyn Ide 4th grade group). At our last meeting, rule 51 was discussed.
ELL/Title I- Kathy Gustafson, Julie Harms, Robin Shield, Candy Wells
The Title 1 and ELL programs are taught by Robin Shield, Kathy Gustafson, Julie Harms, and Candy Wells. The Title 1 program is being implemented in the Holdrege elementary schools, and the ELL program is implemented in grades K-12. Washington and Franklin qualify for the School wide Title 1 program and R-7 qualifies for the Title 1 Target Assist program.
This year we organized the Title 1 and ELL Annual Parent Meeting which was held on September 30, at the Tassel. Parents were encouraged to attend this informational meeting discussing both the Title 1 program and the ELL program. Our agenda included qualification of students, parent involvement opportunities, history of the ELL and Title 1 programs and a guest speaker, Betty Evans. Door prizes were given out and refreshments were served.
The strategy that we are focusing on this year is to increase reading fluency by using the Reading Center program. Each teacher gives a placement assessment, followed by the appropriate lessons and then a monitoring process is used to determine growth. The ELL and Title 1 teachers are using this process with specific third and fourth grade students.
District Speech/Language - Kylee Dutcher, Nicole Mattson, Rita Kreutzer
We started the year by sharing information from a workshop dealing with the changes on our SRS IEP computer program. Next we reviewed our action plan, which focuses on organization for written language. We established the baseline and rubric we would use, as well as a timeline. We discussed the ability level of our students this year and how that would impact our timeline. We also discussed how the new Rule 51 guidelines will affect speech/language verification.
MS Math- Sandra Grimm, Steph Fuehrer, Anna Anderson, Mary Schneider
The Holdrege Middle School math team worked on creating a comprehensive math vocabulary pretest and posttest for grades 5-8 to assess understanding of math vocabulary. The vocabulary is divided into the areas of: computation, algebra, properties, geometry, measurement, numbers, statistics, fractions, and graphing. Words were selected from each grade level to be included on the tests.
We also worked collaboratively on the Phelps County Foundation Grant of $2,500 in order to purchase more ELMO projectors and possibly calculators.
MS English- Mike Hudson, Kathy Uribe, Linda Lum, Renelle Hartzog
We assessed the needs of middle school students. We decided that our group would emphasize the skill of drawing conclusions based on our observations that students have difficulty in that area especially in Reading. We plan to assess students’ level of performance during second quarter with pre-testing materials. We met with the high school English Department to discuss any deficiencies that exist as middle school students move to the higher levels of learning. The teachers noted no specific problem areas that needed to be addressed. We also met with the fourth grade teachers to discuss penmanship and how important cursive writing should be at the fifth and sixth grade levels. We discovered that students have not attained mastery of cursive writing by the end of fourth grade. Therefore, we decided that cursive will not be an emphasis at middle level as high school does not require cursive writing nor does seventh and eighth grade.
MS Social Studies- Brian Komenda, Sandra Brewer, Heidi Wells, Brook Bult
In our middle school social studies WFSG this first quarter we have concentrated on reviewing states, capitals, continents, and oceans. We have discovered and utilized several new websites for this review and practice. One session was spent using a protocol to help Sandi with a difficult combination of 7th graders is one of her sections. After trying some of the suggestions, there have been small improvements.
Since the installation of Smartboards, we have been sharing knowledge and ideas using them in our presentation of lessons. We are trying to look at different ways to utilize the boards by investigating what’s already available.
MS Science- Ron Evans, Tim Mattson, Jerry Ott, Jack Hild
The Science team has agreed to work on vocabulary terms in our science curriculum being taught. We have collected data from several chapters that we have taught; in each of our test classes. We are analyzing the data to see if the test results will improve in these classes. We share classroom data, that we have collected in each of our grade levels of Science. We plan to collect data as the year goes on comparing the results of the data collection. We will use this to verify that we are observing improvement in the vocabulary the students are learning in our Science classes.
MS SPED- Caron Sunblade, Tasha Kruse, Amber Kellen, Lorraine Ebke
This quarter, our WFSG focused on the need for our students to be proficient on the STAR standards. We spent several weeks gathering different types of pre-assessment data. Each member contacted individuals and asked about what pre-assessments have been given in the classroom. Some of our findings were that the Compass was used, some teachers were giving a pre-course test, which was teacher generated or from the basal. As of today, the results from the pre-assessments have not been generated. Therefore, we have not yet been able to establish our baseline percentages.
We’ve discussed our target predictions, and concluded that we would like to see the following after interventions have been implemented:
5th Grade 80%
6th Grade 85%
7th Grade 85%
8th
Grade 85%
We predicted that before the interventions were implemented,
approximately 70% of students would be proficient. Therefore,
we believed that the target predictions made would be reasonable.
HS Science- Tom Brestel, Jeff VanEperen, Dawn Clayton
The High School Science WFSG spent the first two WFSG times developing a new Action Plan. Our new action plan is to increase our STARS test scores for science. We decided we will attack these standards one or two at a time. In the third meeting we identified life science standards to begin working on. In the fourth meeting we identified physical science standards to begin with.
In the fifth meeting we clarified which standards we will begin working on. In the sixth meeting we put our action plan on the proper form. The seventh meeting we invited Sue Christensen to visit our High School Science. She wanted to gain insight from the High School Science WFSG on the progression of STARS tests.
The eighth WFSG we filled in the Instructional Council Data form.
HS Social Studies- Rick Jeffery, Chad Bailey, Todd Veal
The first quarter of the 2008-09 school year was spent instituting and reviewing the process of using map skills as it relates to Geography of Anglo and Latin America. This has encompassed the political, social and economical make up of these regions. This process included not only the countries but key cities, rivers, lakes, mountain chains, oceans and industrial regions.
In the process of testing our students we have discovered some inadequacies in the student’s ability to comprehend the skills needed to achieve a better understanding of this process. Our goal is to continue to make improvements over the course of 2008-09 school year.
HS Math- Diane Titus, Sheri Karr, Polly Pearson
One area of concern that was identified this year in our WFSG group, and also in the Science WFSG group, was students’ inability to isolate variables in math and science formulas. Therefore, as a math WFSG, we have written a pre-test. The pre-test has not been given at this point. After the pre-test, we will work on these for a few minutes several days in class over a specified time period. At that time, we will administer the post-test, which will include both math and science formulas.
HS English- Jerry Buck, Kris Olson, Pat Peterson, Tammie Runions, Sue Christensen
The high school English WFSG used the first quarter of the 2008-2009 school year to review the current vocabulary curriculum to see if we can help students to learn more vocabulary through context clues. We have decided to develop a pre-test of vocabulary words to be studied in the second semester. The pre-test will be given at the beginning of the second semester. Then teachers will work with students to learn new vocabulary through context clues. Finally, a post-test will be given at the end of the semester.
HS SPED- Kelly Buck, Teresa Moore, Todd Veal
During the first 9 weeks of our WFSG meetings, many different topics were covered. There were many student based topics covered such as the specific skills and state standards that are covered in 9/10 grade study skills classes as well as 11/12 grade transition ed. classes, a list of items needed for student portfolios, formulated student modification forms for use by all high school teachers, requested Vocational Rehabilitation packet to distribute to students. We feel this time has been very beneficial in planning how to best serve the student needs.
K-12 PE- Pat Hellriegel, Diane Balcom, Bruce Bricker, Judy Borden, Brian Borden
The Physical Education department study group’s summary of what we would like to help students achieve is as follows:
1) Encourage each student to have an exercise plan that would incorporate at least thirty minutes per day, either during school or outside of school.
2) Each student will supply a list of activities to the teacher that will show their exercising regimen prior to 3).
3) The Physical Education department will have a list of activities that each student can choose from to enhance their list or begin their own exercise program.
4) The Physical Education department will also direct the students to the food guide pyramid web site to help them choose a wide variety of healthy food choices.
K-12 Art- Pat Studnicka, Christy Kosmicki, Mona Peterson , Brandy Edgren
The first quarter our WFSG group has focused on art elements and the level of understanding within our classroom. By bringing examples of student work at each grade level, we were able as a group to assess students’ current levels of performance. We then discussed strategies that members have used to increase the level of understanding. We brainstormed better practices to use in classroom to insure retention and purposeful use of the elements and principles. Primarily, this quarter we have been dealing with basic elements at the primary and elementary level and ventured in to principles at the middle school level. By targeting these areas we were insuring the coverage of National Standard 2. We still need to focus on this standard one more time at the high school level and plan to do that next week with Christy Kosmicki leading.
District Guidance- Dan Atchison, Jean Berreckman, Julie Freburg, Jamie Christensen, Deb Komenda – SPED , Rachel Wells
The Guidance WFSG is composed of Dan Atchison, Jean Berreckman, Jamie Christensen, Julie Freburg and Rachel Wells. A great amount of time during the first quarter was spent on planning district-wide activities for Red Ribbon Week. Our next focus will be working on 504 plans, creating checklist, procedures, paperwork, referral guidelines, etc. for the 504s. This is at the direction of Mrs. Wendell that we are pursuing this issue. After we have addressed the needs surrounding the implementation of 504 plans, the team will address the paperwork for the Student Assistance Team—revamping, simplifying, eliminating redundancy, etc. We would also like to pursue having all of the forms on the server so that they can be accessed by the counselors and all record keeping can be done electronically.
HS/MS World Languages- Kim Johnson, Suzanne Stratton, Pat Peterson
Our World Languages group has discussed technology and the use of video in class. We have worked together to collaborate on our review units, called “Repaso de Todo” (Review of Everything) and our Veinte Preguntas Y Respuestas (“Twenty Questions and Answers”, a Spanish I exit review unit). We have discussed the use of oral interviews to assess comprehension and pronunciation. We are working on individual interviews and assessments.
We plan to revisit the assessments and interviews later to assess improvement and comprehension. Our group shares student work, progress, ideas to improve motivation, and student scores to measure mastery. We will continue to incorporate technology and video into the review units, to meet students’ needs for these in curriculum.
Our group discusses progress and concerns for and of students in our classes, and the need to continue to make the curriculum personal and interesting for each student. We share many ideas each week which can be used immediately in curriculum, as we focus on student success in fluency and comprehension.
District Music- Alissa Bislow, Judy Butler, Mark Butler, Dan Wiese
Our first quarter WFSG had focused on two areas. First, we discussed the topic of sight-reading. Each teacher used examples of how sight reading is incorporated into our programs. We shared methods and techniques and how successful they have been. We discussed methods of assessing student’s progress.
Second, we discussed the selection of new music curriculum. We looked at a few examples and recently received additional samples for review. We discussed what we would like to see in textbooks with an emphasis on technology and folk songs. We made plans to meet at convention and look at high school band, jazz band, and middle school general music curriculum books.
Future meetings will focus on our district music curriculum plans with the goal of final approval from central office.
HS/MS Vocational- Terry Shield, Mike Williams, Deb Erickson, Jeff Moore, Jason Hale, Don Kosmicki
The first quarter of the 2008-09 school year was spent instituting and reviewing the process of teaching measurement across the vocational curriculum. We also discussed the implementation of rubrics for assessing the student change/growth as a result of the teaching process. We have included linear and volume using both imperical and metric systems. Instructors in our group have shared lessons, handouts and activities that targeted the teaching and understanding of measurement as it applies to the various vocational areas.
Our goal is to continue to make improvements in this area over the course of the next school year. We have begun this process by making sure all middle school students are exposed to measurement in the technology classes each and every school year.
District Media - Trent Benjamin, Betty Bricker, Steph Dannehl
We are currently working on building a test and activities to teach our third graders about encyclopedias. Some of the main concepts we are trying to educate the students about will be the following: guide words, title of article, and keywords. Through our additional activities the students will also learn how to look up information correctly that pertains to their research.
Last year, we built a test on dictionaries for the second graders. Through our action plan, it is our intention to build a test and activities on atlases and almanacs for the fourth grade. We feel these are key reference materials the students must understand how to use.
