Tim Garchow:
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Rainier Elementary School has started
offering full day kindergarten to all families.
·
All of the funds lost during the economic
melt-down have been pretty much recovered.
The Rainier School District has added an instructional coach and some new
staff. Rita Meldrum is there to help
support teachers in the work they have to do.
·
They’ve been able to expand positions.
·
Expanded programs: Expanded offerings to kids. Tim credits the staff with their help in
working with the budget and costs.
Teacher evaluation system: Passed through house and senate. Rainier is one of a handful of school
districts in the State that are piloting this new evaluation system. It is a joint venture with the teachers
union. We are partnering on this. Evaluations are no longer a satisfactory, or
unsatisfactory. It is objective, rather than
subjective. It is a 4 tier program with
clearly laid out rubrics. Rainier has
adopted the Five Dimensions of Teaching and Learning as our instructional
framework.
Research based instructional strategies: teachers are always training. Children deserve the best trained teachers possible. Teach the teachers the new system. (Professional development side of things.)
Textbook cycles:
Switching to the common core – doesn’t make sense to buy new books that
may not be acceptable to the new standards, so they are waiting to buy new
textbooks as they are aligned with the new standards. The basics are still there, but it’s a matter
of what is being taught at what year.
Treats and gifts come out of the teachers pockets. The teachers get about $350 per year for
these expenses.
Teachers wanted iPads, so they could do a better job with
their students. Teachers wanted to give
back their $350 and forego submitting receipts, so they could get iPads. Now students need iPads. The cutting edge textbooks are automatically
updated when electronic books are used. The
kids can take their own notes, using an iPad.
They weigh much less than conventional textbooks and don’t wear out, or
become outdated.
When children become excited about learning, it changes
their life.
Formative assessments:
We do not test our kids to death.
They have charts when they give tests to their kids. Less than 10 days out of 180 for the HS
students struggling to finish their senior year of HS.
·
Sticky notes:
Green – 0.K. Red – need help
·
Khan academy – shows several different ways
to solve a math problem.
·
State & Federal required testing. (7%
school revenue is Federal funding.)
·
USA is one only a handful of countries who
try to educate 100% of their citizens.
(under 18)
·
Our focus is on the question … Did our kids
make greater than one year’s educational growth?
·
Part of the new teacher evaluation is based
on whether or not students are making academic growth. The solution is to come up with multiple
measures of student growth. Pre-test and
post-test for a subject. What do we have
that can demonstrate student growth?
Collaboration Successes:
Strong. The Rainier Schools are ahead
of schedule on the 5 year program.
- ·
83% of third graders made predicted growth in
math.
- ·
84% of fourth graders.
- ·
80% of fifth graders.
- ·
69% of sixth graders were increasing reading
scores.
- ·
# of students who improved in writing was 35%
in seventh graders. (The last time they
took a writing test was in fourth grade.)
·
Eight grade science (last test 5th
grade) Made 44% jump in their knowledge base.
·
There has been a phenomenal jump in growth
for all of these students.
ESD out of 44 school
districts – there are 6 that are using variations of our district’s school
house program. The Rainier School
teachers are sharing the “Read Write” program with other teachers. It is a difficult job.
Paulette is teaching others
how to evaluate teachers in the new state program. (She does this in her spare time.)
Rainier has a new online
high school called RVL. It was started
to assist students who have fallen behind in credits required for
graduation. (This online school was started
by our high school counselor and administrators.) One example of courses available to students
is that there are 40 different languages online that the students can learn. They can take all kinds of classes that they
can’t get in regular classes – by going to school online. (Classes are taken during school time. There are adults in the classroom to help the
students with questions.)
Online teaching is one of 3
programs that they’ve started.
1. Full
day kindergarten.
2. More
elective choices in Middle School.
3. Effective
means of addressing missing credits for HS students.
This has helped increase the
enrollment in the schools. Now there are
more kids enrolling in kindergarten then graduating from HS.
There is a lot of hard work
left. There are definitely results for
their efforts.
Our “School House” model is
based on The Four Questions: Richard
DuFore –
- 1. What
do we want students to learn?
- 2. How
do we know they learned it?
- 3. What
do we do if they did?
- 4. What
do we do if they didn't?
One additional program that
is being looked at is called “After the
Bell”. When it starts, the computer lab will
be open in the evenings so that Rainier citizens can come in and work toward
earning an associate’s degree online.
The cost is projected to be about 60 cents on the dollar for the
classes, as opposed to the cost of attending one of the local community
colleges in our area.
WE
ARE WORKING TOGETHER TO DO GOOD THINGS FOR OUR KIDS.
