School Views: Awareness and reflection shape our efforts
School Views
As the evening air begins to cool and the mornings have a distinct chill to them, hinting to autumn, I find myself settling into the school year. Our staff and students are back in midseason form, with academics and extracurriculars in full swing. We’re reflecting on what we’ve accomplished, building on our successes, and preparing for what lies ahead.
Eagle County School District recently received its Colorado Measures of Academic Success scores. These are annual assessments administered to students in third through eighth grade, but due to the pandemic, it has been a couple of years since there was enough participation for the state to report these scores.
The hiatus allows us to compare pre-pandemic learning to where we currently are. There is always room for improvement, but our overall district improvement score is nearly exactly where it was in 2019, meaning our efforts during the pandemic of smaller class sizes and remote learning supports were successful in mitigating learning loss and putting us in an advantageous position moving forward.
This data is open to the public and can be found on the Colorado Department of Education’s website. Our schools use this information to target specific areas of focus for improvement, and I have challenged each school principal to increase their School’s Performance Framework by 5% each year.
Another guidepost we are using to better understand our student’s content knowledge and make decisions regarding where to focus our efforts is Standards-Based Grading. While some schools will be piloting the program in full this year, others will be taking initial steps toward our common end goal of grades that are accurate, consistent and support learning by clearly communicating a student’s proficiency of academic content. In working with students and families along the way and implementing a culture of revision, we hope that students will have better tools to strive for academic success.
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We’re excited about this work, and our equity and grading teams have developed a number of resources and strategies to help us be successful. We will continue to report on these efforts and make ourselves available for those with questions.
While CMAS scores and Standards-Based Grading provide insight into the academic needs of our students, we use the Behavioral and Emotional Screening System (also known as the BESS survey) to monitor social and emotional development. BESS is a universal social and emotional screening tool for students that provides a fair and impartial way of looking at student progress.
When students are struggling in areas such as internalizing concerns, anxiousness, nervousness, attention difficulties, hyperactivity, or challenges getting along with others, parents/guardians are notified so they can address these concerns with their child. All information from this screener is kept private and in accordance with student safeguards defined by the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act, unless there is a disclosure of a health and safety emergency.
The BESS survey is optional and parents are welcome to opt their students out of participating. Opt-out information has been sent to parents from schools last week, but if you missed the email be sure to ask your school’s front office staff for assistance.
So as we continue to move toward the autumn season, I am glad that Eagle County School District continues to do the work that I believe to be the most important to the well-being of our students in hopes of creating well-rounded, global-ready graduates.
While the seasons are on the cusp of change and our schools work to address students’ academic and social-emotional needs, our goal remains the same: the well-being of our students. We strive to support them as they become well-rounded, global-ready members of our community.