Tue Nov 12 2013, 5:00pm
District Meeting Room Portable
Regular Meeting

REPORTS TO THE BOARD

WPS Report

WOODLAND PRIMARY SCHOOL

Mark Houk, Principal

November 4, 2013

TO:                 Michael Green, Superintendent

FROM:           Mark Houk     

RE:                 WPS MONTHLY UPDATE

Positive Behavior Intervention Supports (PBIS)

Per our School Improvement Planning, Woodland Primary has begun the process of learning about and outlining a buildingwide process that will benefit all students, staff and families.  PBIS enables schools to outline very common language of expectations which are explicitly taught, practiced, and positively reinforced by all in and around the school. 

The intended result is more clearly defined targets of behavior for students throughout the school, increased opportunity for staff to positively recognize students good choices/efforts, and more time to teach within the classroom (ultimately fewer student distraction issues).  All of this is intended to improve learning effectiveness for students, teaching opportunities for staff, and overall school culture/environment.

This past week, our PBIS “Team” represented our school at a training in Portland. 

We will be rolling out activities in November in which staff will participate to help us define the “next look” at Woodland Primary!

FULL-DAY KINDERGARTEN – WaKIDS Update

As our Kindergarten students have settled into the everyday routine, they have partnered with their teacher’s this past month or so to complete an assessment inventory as part of the full-day statewide program requirement.

Assessing 6 developmental areas of children – fine motor/gross motor, physical development, cognitive, math, reading, and language/communication, teacher and student have come to know each other much more completely than ever before in our program.  The data is compiled and entered in a statewide data base – our school uses the data for instructional guidance.  For example, we currently are examining how to best approach the learning and development of Math skills for our first group of full-time Kindergarteners. 

The Full-Day Kindergarten Program has truly been comprehensive – we have met twice with each family, and spent a bit more than 1 hour with each individual student gathering data – and its only November!   

Fun “Stuff” at WPS

Our annual Halloween Parade through school this past week was again met with high praise.  The fun around school was followed by hundreds of kids/parents heading straight to our Woodland Downtown for Trick or Treating sponsored by all of our local businesses – a very positive partnership for all!