Converse County School District #1 ensures all students are #LifeReady by “Working together to achieve excellence.” These vision and mission statements are evident in the district’s broad literacy efforts. The district is committed to bridging the gap from early childhood through post-secondary. Through tight alignment of effective instructional strategies and resources, comprehensive outreach to early childhood parents, and strong partnerships with community and state agencies, Converse #1 will address the needs of its learners.
Converse #1 believes literacy is the foundation of all other learning. Considerable research has been done by experts to identify those factors that positively and negatively impact a child’s ability to read. In fact, as noted by John Hattie, “…almost any intervention can stake a claim to making a difference to student learning” (Hattie, J., 2012). In light of this finding, how then does a district determine those initiatives that will improve literacy goals? We do so by investing in teachers that understand the strategies and routines that develop learning at a deep level (Fisher, D., Frey, N., Hattie, J., 2016). “Compared to any other aspect of school, teachers have the greatest impact on student achievement. A well-trained teacher is likely to send more students to college, and can boost a class’s lifetime income by $250,000” (Terada, Y., 2019).
Current Work
Converse #1 is invested in professional learning and implementation of the PK-12 and MTSS framework instruction strategies—those Tier 1-3 practices that accelerate student learning. The PreK-12 literacy team, comprised of teachers, parents, and early childhood providers, is developing a PreK-12 literacy framework that incorporates Title 1 and WDE K-3 Literacy requirements, meets all rules, regulations, and statutes, and ensures children enter kindergarten ready to read and exit life-ready.
In addition, a district MTSS team is developing a systemic framework. This team will create a framework that ensures all students learn at grade level or higher in three different ways: by defining the responsibilities of schoolwide teams to utilize universal screening and diagnostic assessments and provide access to priority and performance grade-level standards for all students (Tier 1); create additional time and evidence-based support to learn essential behavior and academic standards (Tier 2); and provide intensive, evidence-based remediation in universal skills (Tier 3) (Buffum, A., Mattos, M., Malone, J.. 2018).
As teachers implement the Tier 1-3 strategies, they will be utilizing evidence gathered through their choice of a professional learning cycle. Teachers will collaborate with their content or grade level teams to develop or implement evidence-based Tier 1-3 resources. The individual teacher data on practice improvement will be collected, which will impact the larger system dataset, which will be utilized to assess project effectiveness. WY-TOPP and Wyoming Accountability in Education Measures will be the primary quantitative evidence to determine project success while Impact Walk data will be utilized as a quantitative measure of instructional strategy evidence.
Current Plans