Tue May 29 2018, 5:30pm
WHS Room 2203
Regular Meeting

REPORTS TO THE BOARD

Teaching and Learning Report

To: Michael Green

From: Asha Riley

Date: May 23, 2018

Re: Teaching and Learning

 

Partners in Preparing a 21st Century Workforce:

On May 31, we will be hosting a meeting with local business and industry leaders to establish and develop a local advisory for our CTE programs. It is our goal, in partnership with local employers, to prepare our students to become successful employees. More students are seeking a direct route to employment via internships, apprenticeships, trade and technical programs.

Breakfast Meeting 7:00-8:00

Thursday, May 31

Woodland High School

Over the next few weeks and months, we will be preparing surveys to better understand the business needs in our community, gauge our students’ interest in the various workforce opportunities, work with businesses to establish internship experiences, and prepare for our own Woodland Days Career Fair next October. I grateful to Port Executive Director Jennifer Keene for her support and collaboration as we work together to prepare kids for multiple opportunities upon leaving our school system.

Step Up to Writing Training:

Several years ago, the District adopted a district-wide writing model, Step Up to Writing.  The current English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum embeds a writing program and we did not mandate the use of Step up.   Feedback from teachers is that Step Up is a much more powerful and robust program for teaching writing and dovetails nicely with our ELA curriculum. We will renew our commitment K-12 to Step Up to Writing this fall.   In order to ensure a strong re-implementation, our teacher will need to be retrained.  Three of our staff (Pat Jones from WPS, Malinda Huddleston from WIS & Yale, and Tara Eilts from WMS) traveled to Dallas last week to become trainers in Step Up to Writing. We will host training for all K-8 ELA teachers before the start of school next fall.

Handwriting:

Two years ago, we began a handwriting program, Handwriting Without Tears, with our kindergarten class.   We rolled that program with the students to first grade.  We will roll it into second grade with that same class next year.

We also have found a cursive component in the updated Step Up to Writing materials. We will review the cursive program in the Handwriting Without Tears (third-grade edition) and the Step Up to Writing materials to evaluate which would be most appropriate for our students. Our goal is to reinstate cursive handwriting in third grade next year. While is it not a state standard, it is something we regularly hear families and community members wish we would teach. In either program, the cursive instruction does not require lengthy amounts of time and would be relatively seamless to reinstate.

Math Adoptions:

The pilot of both the SMC and CPM curriculum have confirmed for staff the materials are content aligned and supportive instructional resources for students and staff. Both have submitted formal adoption requests for board approval.

In the process of piloting SMC in grades 6th-8th, we learned SMC is currently in the final stages of producing their 5th grade version of the resource. We piloted the supplemental materials they currently have while waiting for the entire curriculum to be published. Teachers hope we will use all the supplemental materials for one year before (hopefully) adopting the full 5th grade curriculum for the 2019-2020 school year.  Therefore, we’d like to propose a 5th-8th grade adoption of SMC materials.  

Middle School SMC

http://www.corefocusonmath.com/

http://www.ode.state.or.us/teachlearn/instructionalmaterials/submission-3140-score-sheet.pdf

High School CPM

http://cpm.org/textbooks/

http://www.edreports.org/files/series/publisher-response/CPM%20Program%20Information%2006-24-16%20HS%20-%20Trad.pdf

http://www.edreports.org/math/cpm-traditional/high-school.html