001welcome USD 264 staff parents students patrons community members and anybody joining us and watching us on YouTube uh for this uh video I just wanted to come together and just kind of uh share an update uh for our superintendent update for this um volume 17 for March of 2025 uh what we're going to focus on today is really um just some things that are happening at Elementary West um all of our buildings are having some great success this year but there's been three specific things that have happened uh at Elementary West and happening uh later this spring at Elementary West I just wanted to make sure and get that information out to everybody so know uh kind of what's going on and how we are attacking uh strategic goal uh plan number one which is
002to increase uh student achievement so there's three specific things that uh have happened this year that we're just really really excited about and sometimes when we don't share the news we don't aren't able to get that information out there um but uh internally from an education standpoint and education uh fraternity of different schools and and organizations um there's a lot of work that our teachers at ew uh also our director of teaching and learning and our administration at ew have done to really kind of uh shed some great shed light on the great things that are happening uh over there in the building so the first thing is that there's a group called the collaborative classroom organization um so it's a group of network of different schools across uh different states uh that really work
003together on how you can be more productive in the classroom and also how you can provide high quality interventions uh for students and so the first thing that happened is that the collaborative classroom organization requested that we host at Elementary West a day where area schools could come and visit and learn about our Intervention Program that we are using um so a lot of the work that Miss Erica rup and Miss Kirby Woods are doing with their uh intervention times uh with the students as well as the individual teachers were being recognized and so we had schools uh from the witto metro area from northeast Kansas and South Central Kansas that came and visited um the building that day and that was back in October uh and they really just kind of went and visited
004what we were doing in the classrooms for reading and math and also what were we doing for our interventions and how we are um notifying students and providing them the best opportunities um to get better and then later um during that same time that collaborative classroom organization because of the people they had here um they did write a blog post about our sips program that we're using and that's more specifically on the reading side of things and so as you can see there um there's a snippet from that so if you just uh search that collaborative classroom sips blog post uh you'll be able to pull it up and just see the great things that uh Kirby um Eric her Jamie Brady and uh Casey Piney have been doing in in getting that uh program
005really going at a high level and just getting some real good National recognition uh for that and then the last exciting thing that we have that's actually coming uh here towards the end of uh March is that we will have about a dozen principles from the state of Texas um that are going to come visit Kansas and they're specifically coming to Clearwater and specifically to Clearwater Elementary West um to visit uh what we're doing and how we are approaching School Improvement how we are using our plc's how we are using our intervention time and how we're using data uh to make decisions that help students be the most successful that they can be um these are schools that are being uh collected in organization similar to like Orion Education Service Center that we have here
006in Clearwater so that service center is organizing these principles that are looking for this type of work and has connected with us uh and being able to be here and visit so they'll spend the full day visiting with us and looking at different things that we are going to be doing so that's just exciting um to be recognized for all the hard work that the teachers have been uh put in so how did we get to this point is we're really again focusing in on that strategic plan gold number one which is increased student achievement and there's different bullet points under there but part of that is also making sure that we have high quality professional development so we've had um staff members from the new teacher project organization that also is partnering with KSD
007come in and do some work we've had Dr Kelly guspy doing some work with our professional development uh but we've also centered that professional development around their building goals and making sure that it's helping the teachers with the work that they are doing at that time and the professional development is also targeted uh to be able to give them strategies that they can use the very next day after the professional development and then they also follow up with that during their PLC process where they meet each week and look at how is that working so there's a coherence and that's kind of a word that is being kicked around a little bit but it's also a word that I'm using quite a bit with our Administration and our staff right now is that if we
008are going to do something it needs to have some meaning and we need to be able to understand the why behind it so when we have professional development why are we having it how is it going to impact us and what are we going to do with and I think the uh all of our buildings are doing a great job ew's just had the opportunity to be spotlighted in some different showcases with different visits this year to just show how that's all working second part of it is we've got great interventionist uh without our interventionist being able to work with students a lot of this would not be possible so having highquality interventionists that are in the right positions to be able to support those kids uh We've also got a really strong uh building
009leadership that has a good vision for what excellent instruction is and how that uh process is going to work each day and making sure that we're moving One Step uh in front of another to achieve that also with the work with our instructional coach and also in work with uh um School psychologists School social workers and the counselors to help make sure that the students have everything they need and then the last thing is is there's Collective efficacy amongst all the staff so in all the U staff members that are working at the elementary when they are having the professional development or having their plc's they're really digging in and working into what is best for our kids and how can we uh impact that and so when you have all of those components together
010is where you'll get that recognition and again all of our buildings have a lot of these pieces together ew just has the opportunity to be able to get some of that uh recognition this year so the last thing I really want to close with is man really Tak an opportunity to reach out via email see them in a grocery store come to the uh building and really just thank uh all the staff within the district because we've had a a rough winter with the amount of days that we've been out and still juggling all of this uh but the staff has done a great job so really encourage you not only just reach out and tell uh any staff member you appreciate them and thank them for all the hard work but if you see
011a staff member teacher uh instructional coach leadership uh psychologists social workers uh Paras anyone uh secretaries that also work at ew make sure you take some time to just congratulate and tell them thank you for all their hard work um they're getting some recognition this year doesn't mean they're any more deserving than any other building but they've uh put in the work and they've got the opportunity to really showcase some things that they've done and I want to make sure uh our community here at Clearwater knows uh how we are being um spotlighted Across the Nation in different areas whether it's principes from Texas whether it's a National Organization and then also just local teachers coming and visiting we've had that opportunity so make sure you reach out and give them a shout out as
012always we're reaching to be one degree more so while we're excited and we feel very successful with the work that we've done so far with ew this year we're still wanting to achieve more so we're going to keep working on getting one degree better each day and uh being one degree more for someone else again as always if you have questions or concerns please reach out here's my information you can set up a time to come visit always looking forward to reaching out and communicating with uh patrons and stakeholders um and having that opportunity so again thank you and hope this uh finds you well and we'll see you next month