There is a lot to celebrate at Carpenter Hill! This year, we have been sharing about our growth on the morning announcements and during our staff PLCs as we continue our focus on math fact fluency and writing. Another factor impacting our growth besides our planning, instructional delivery, talented teachers and hard working students, is our positive attendance data. Because our students are present and excited to come to school each day, our campus earned the highest attendance rating for the first 9 weeks. WooHoo!! We know and believe attendance matters, but we can’t do it without your support, so thank you. We have also shown an improvement in our attendance rating since last school year, which is equally exciting. Not only are our students present, but we have 12 staff members with perfect attendance.
Each week our students in grades 1-5 take Formative Loop assessments. Our students are practicing their math facts to increase their automaticity. Automaticity shows up in our second grade TEKS under number and operations and has shown to be an area we need to grow in at CHES. The second grade standard 2.4 states, “The student applies mathematical process standards to develop and use strategies and methods for whole number computations in order to solve addition and subtraction problems with efficiency and accuracy.” In a nutshell, automaticity can be defined as executing a basic fact with speed and accuracy with little or no conscious effort. Assessing students on math facts in isolation will not necessarily help students achieve automaticity; however, it does provide valuable information that allows our teachers to create additional strategies and targeted support to help our students based on individual needs. Targeted support comes in many forms such as games, flashcards, partner work, and time with the teacher. Overall, our desire is to grow independent learners.
Our students are involved in monitoring their progress of Formative Loop skills mastered. We have some exciting data sets to share. Our students have mastered 13,780 skills so far this year, which averages to about 26 skills per student and it is only November. This is significantly greater than last year at this time. In addition to the growing skills mastered, our students and teachers have verbalized the improvement and ease of acquisition of newly introduced math as a result of truly understanding previously taught concepts.
Dreambox is another resource we are using with our students to track and monitor growth in math. Hays CISD has purchased the program for our K-2 students and our most recent fundraiser, the Colt Stampede, is purchasing the program for our 3rd - 5th grade students. We have seen a 17% growth since we began using this program this school year. Teachers are able to set students on a path based upon student need, previously taught content, or upcoming content. Our students have already completed 14, 437 lessons. Our students love it! The program is engaging and sophisticated.
Both of these resources are supporting the work our classroom teachers are doing for our students in the classroom. Our most recent interim assessment data for our 2nd - 5th grade students supports that statement. Each grade level showed growth from last year to this year from 3% - 44% gains on passing the assessment. We are also monitoring the percentage of students mastering the content, which also had gains. Most grade levels saw an increase in the number of students mastering the content from 4% to 21%. This is exciting news!!!
Our students are writing all around our school. Writing is displayed in our hallways and in classrooms. Our students are writing in math, science, social studies, english and just because. It is exciting to see our students’ taking risks in their writing. When you are on campus I invite you on a tour of our hallways, and check out our students’ writing.
We are committed to challenging ourselves and our students to grow as learners in a community of respect. We want to empower students with the tools to grow through nurturing relationships and innovative educational experiences.
Celebrate...good times...come on!
