Achievement remains Somerset district's yearly goal

Talk about it

Student achievement will again be the specified goal for the Somerset School District for the 2012-13 school year.

The Somerset Board of Education voted to approve the specific district-wide goal of improving student achievement during a board-administrative retreat held June 11.

The goal was approved, along with objectives and an action plan designed to accomplish the goal.

District Administrator Randy Rosburg presented the goal in the final half of the work session. The first half of the session was spent with district administration reporting on the success of efforts to accomplish the 2011-12 goals.

The goal of student achievement is a recurring theme. This will be the fourth straight year that the board has directed the staff to concentrate its efforts on student achievement.

The objectives to accomplish this are:

1. Build assessments to assure alignment of curriculum to state and national standards;

2. Implement Response to Intervention (RTI) for grades K-12;

3. Implement and develop a professional development model for all certified staff;

4. Enhance and build positive relationships and collaboration among community, parents, board, staff and members.

The action plan involves the steps to be taken to accomplish these actions:

1. Report out on assessments aligned to state and national standards;

2. Report out on RTI implementation and student intervention data for K-12;

3. Report out on the number of Professional Learning Community (PLC) groups in each building and list results from smart goals;

4. Report out on the quality of relationships within our greater community and the communication plan.

Rosburg said the student achievement goal is part of the school district’s strategic plan. He said the concentration this year will be aligning the curriculum to state and national standards, with the goal for the following year to assess how the alignment is working.

There are several levels of developing the assessments, according to Rosburg. He said once the assessments are set, testing dates need to be established that make sure the students have been taught all information that will be covered in the assessments.

Nearly all measures of grading and assessment are in transition as the district aligns its curriculum with state and national standards. The traditional A-B-C letter grading system will one day be a thing of the past. At the elementary school, several steps have already been taken toward a standards-based report card.

“Everyone in the state and nation is transitioning in that direction,” Rosburg said.

Tags: somerset schools, education, somerset