There will be no school for students at Lawton-Bronson on Friday, October 2nd due to a newly scheduled teacher In-Service. This is different from the original Master Calendar for the year and the day will be made up in May. This change was officially approved at the September school board meeting.
The purpose of this In-Service is to provide teacher training in a new assessment system that the district is implementing in grades 2-11 in reading, mathematics, science, and language arts. This assessment system will allow for timely feedback of all students’ progress in these critical academic areas and allow teachers more data to share with parents and more data to utilize in making instructional decisions that meet every student’s learning needs. In the bigger picture, this assessment ties into the district’s on-going plan for implementing the Iowa Core Curriculum and answering these three critical questions on the behalf of every student:
1.)Does every student have access to a guaranteed and viable curriculum (are there equal learning expectations for all students)?
2.) Do we know that all students are progressing adequately through our curriculum? What data will help us determine if students need extra support or extra challenges?
3.) How do we respond to the various learning needs of our students after we analyze our data?
We believe this new assessment system will be an important element in helping us collect information on student learning so that we can best prepare them for success in school and some day success beyond their elementary and secondary education here at Lawton-Bronson.