At the beginning of each school year, a LEA that receives Title I, Part A funds must notify the parents of each student attending any school receiving these funds that the parents may request, and the LEA will provide the parents on request (and in a timely manner), information regarding any State or LEA policy regarding student participation in any required assessments, which shall include a policy, procedure, or parental right to opt the child out of such assessment, where applicable.
The Alamosa School District is ready to kick off the 2016-2017 school year and we are focused on our commitment to excellence. We are always looking to maximize our efforts and ensure that our vision of supporting students to reach their greatest potentials is achieved. This year our Academic District Action Plan will focus on four improvement strategies. The first is continued work on our standards based curriculum. This year the district focus will be on identifying critical content. Instructional staff and administration will continue curriculum and assessment work, analyzing curriculum to identify critical concepts in each content area. The second instructional strategy will focus on effective research based instruction. We will continue our expectation of posting daily objectives and ensuring that formative assessments are in place to assess instruction and learning. We will provide time for intentional planning to ensure that quality instruction is delivered in the classroom on a daily basis. Evidence of the gradual release of responsibility model should be evident in lesson plans and instruction. Our third improvement strategy will focus on post-secondary options. Our goal is for students to develop the necessary skills so that they are capable of pursuing post-secondary options when they graduate and so that they are able to become productive members of society. We will be providing ongoing learning opportunities for our students to support these efforts. Our fourth improvement strategy will be related to family partnerships. We will continue to work to develop a structure that engages parents, family and the community. This partnership is integral in supporting our students and the educational process of the district.
The detailed District Focused Action Plan can be referenced under the Academics, Assistant Superintendent tab of the district web page.
The Alamosa School District focuses on continuous improvement through the Unified Improvement Process. The primary purpose of improvement planning is to align efforts to ensure all students exit our K-12 education system ready to be successful in either post secondary education or in the work force. This focused academic action plan condenses the UIP into a more strategic plan that will help the leadership team prioritize efforts and stay focused on improvement goals.
Coaching sessions give administrators and peers the opportunity to get into classrooms on a regular basis and see the great instruction and learning that is taking place across the district. We have a plethora of talent and knowledge in the Alamosa School District, and it is important for us to support and learn from each other and share our knowledge with one another. To further the effort of developing a culture of collaboration district wide we structured two PLCs in December for some in house professional development. We took a conference style approach and structured these two PLCs so that teachers could have the opportunity to learn from each other and share ideas with their colleagues. Our focus for the PLCs was on the different elements from the C4S coaching protocol, including objectives, relevance, engagement, instructional scaffolding, academic discourse, and formative assessment.
We had teams of teachers from each of the four buildings AES K-2, 3-5, OMS, and AHS. Each team focused on one of the elements on the coaching protocol. These teams presented to staff, providing examples of the different elements on the protocol and/or modeling what that might look like in a classroom setting. The breakout sessions utilized different approaches during their sessions, including, but not limited to, the use of video clips, modeling actual classroom instruction, interactive lessons, discussions, and demonstrations.
The first session took place at AES 3-5 on December 9th. The audience for this session was K-5 staff only. The breakout teams presenting were K-12 staff from the different buildings. The second session took place at OMS on December 16th. Due to the success and positive feedback we received from the first session, we had all district staff attend this session. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive and we were all impressed with the overall collegiality of our teachers and the positive level of professionalism. ASD staff is committed to our mission of education excellence through professional learning communities.