When the kids go home, the teachers get down to work on early dismissal days! Wednesday’s SIP (School Improvement Plan) Day included several topics that were discussed across all 3 schools as well as topics that apply to them individually.
Data was identified through student assessments such as IXL, MAP testing, and classroom-based assessments (to name a few), broken down to understand how to use it, and determine reporting methods to parents, students and internally.
Lesson Planning for Diverse Learners, Social Emotional Learning (exSELerator) and other topics that arose over the month were also discussed.
What is Lesson Planning for Diverse Learners?
The staff members that make up our District’s Student Services Department recently came together for a professional development opportunity provided by our partners from SASED on September 20th and October 11th. Participants included our Special Education Teachers, Social Workers, Speech/Language Pathologists, and Paraprofessionals. This professional development series serves as our foundation and is designed around effective strategies and lesson planning for diverse learners that lead to individualized, inclusive, and supportive educational experiences that promote communication, independence, and overall development.
What is the exSELerator?
The exSELerator assessment serves as the District's SEL universal screener given three times a year. Teachers had time to complete the exSELerator using a frequency rating scale to document how often they observe a student exhibiting specific behaviors in our 5 SEL Core Competencies: Self Awareness, SelfManagement, Social Awareness, Relationship Skills, and Responsible Decision Making. Once the data is collected, our Social Workers meet with grade-level teams to analyze the data, and identify areas of strengths and improvement at the grade, classroom, and individual student level, which will be used towards developing goals.
