It’s summer and time for some more good news from Dodgeville
School District! In March, I wrote about our work to apply for statewide awards for our reading Response to Intervention (RtI) and Positive Behavior
(PBIS) programs. I’m excited to report that as our growth trends continue to
improve, we have earned recognition for 3 schools in PBIS and 2 schools in RtI
Reading! WI RtI Center Director Kathy Ryder emailed that “The Center has
established the formal Recognized School application as the first line of
verification and acknowledgement of schools. Schools that are recognized
through their successful applications act as examples of different models of
implementation that are beginning to show signs of positive student outcomes.”
She clarified that while Dodgeville Schools are working with the RtI and PBIS Centers, this first line
verification will now allow the Center to more formally recognize our practices
through the awards, conference presentations, and Center training materials.
Three Awards for PBIS
PBIS is a proactive approach to student behavior that establishes safer and more
effective schools and is currently being used in more than half of all schools
in the state. Awards are earned by schools that can show evidence for using
PBIS in ways that are consistent with research-based models and which document
improved student outcomes, like fewer office discipline referrals. School teams
get trained on these models through a statewide network, and then
start using the new practices through the work of teacher teams supported by a
PBIS Coach, who helps coordinate and organize the system.
Schools were recognized as Schools of Merit for PBIS based on an application process that
included team and meeting information, implementation and outcome data, and a
narrative that described the data, systems, and practices in that school. I am thrilled to report that Ridgeway
Elementary was one of about 150 elementary schools statewide to be recognized
as a School of Merit for the 2013-14 school year. Dodgeville Middle School was
one of only about 17 middle schools to receive this award!
Schools of
Distinction for PBIS are awarded based on a similar application process.
These schools have evidence of at least two years of sustained progress,
have worked to improve classroom engagement, include parents, and use student
data even more specifically and consistently. Dodgeville Elementary School (DES)
was one of about 40 elementary schools in Wisconsin to receive this coveted award. DES also successfully began providing intensive
supports for student behaviors (Tier 2 PBIS) at the same time that they maintained overall system
effectiveness—a feat not commonly seen among schools according to WI PBIS
Center staff.
Let’s put these three awards in perspective. According to
the WI Department of PublicInstruction, there are 1238 elementary schools and 352 middle schools in
our state. Only about 13% of elementary schools were awarded Schools of Merit
and less than 5% were Schools of Distinction. Less than 5% of middle schools
earned a School of Merit. Tell your friends--Dodgeville schools are among the
top in Wisconsin for use of Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports!
Two Awards for
Reading Response to Intervention as part of our Multi-Tiered System of Supports
Response to Intervention (RtI) uses short tests to identify
skills that students have not learned and quickly re-teaching those skills. It's part of our overall system to ensure that all students are making progress. It
doesn’t sound complicated, and teachers do this sort of work all the time when they use classroom data and when they meet each week to review student progress. Our RtI system uses newer tests that are validated for this purpose, and we now
have more specific interventions for academic problems when they are identified. We coordinate the tests
and the interventions to make sure students don’t fall behind, and we help them
catch up as quickly as possible when they need additional help. Students who are ready for more advanced work can also be identified and given
the challenges they need to keep engaged and moving forward.
Dodgeville Elementary School and Ridgeway Elementary School BOTH earned
School of Merit awards for their work in RtI for reading. They were 2 of just
17 schools statewide to be recognized at this level (only 3 schools in WI
earned the School of Distinction awards). The application included information
about team membership, meeting information, implementation and outcome data,
and a narrative that described their RtI systems. Congratulations to all of our award-winning schools--the staff and students have a lot to be proud of! Putting all these pieces together is called a Multi-Tiered System of Supports or MTSS, and when it is coordinated well, you start to see amazing results, like those described below.
Multi-Tiered Systems Lead
to Improvements
These combined academic and behavior systems have contributed
to some remarkable gains for our students. Our teams recently analyzed student
reading and math growth data for the year. I wrote in spring about our growth
from fall to winter, and now we can compare the entire 2013-14 school year to the
previous 4 years. We have data for grades K-8 using a computer-based test
called MAP. For these comparisons, we looked at the percent of students who met
their growth targets each year. In other words, what percent of Dodgeville
students grew at least as much as their
peers from around the nation? Anything more than 50% is good, more than 60%
is excellent, and when you get above 70%, there’s something really special
going on…
As you can see, reading growth for grades K-8 was on
a downward trend. If that had continued, we would have had about 57% of our
students meeting targets this year. That’s still a great number, but instead,
through hard work, planning, and our new systems, we’ve grown this year:
63% of our K-8 students met their growth targets in 2013-14. The news in math
is also fantastic! Math growth was slowly trending upwards at about 1% growth
per year on average over the past 4 years, starting at 60% and ending at 64% in
2012-13. Last year, a remarkable 70% of students met their growth
targets! Again, a substantially higher number of students met their growth
targets than we would have expected based on the 4-year trend.
For more information, contact me:
John Humphries
Director of Pupil Services
Dodgeville School District
jhumphries@dsd.k12.wi.us
