Superintendent Larry Davis said the grades are in for the school district. Most schools have experienced growth. Book Cliff Elementary and Emery High received B grades.
Canyon View middle school, San Rafael middle school, Cleveland Elem; Cottonwood Elem; Huntington Elem. and Castle Dale Elem. received C grades.
Green River High had an F grade. But according to Superintendent Davis, Green River has improved their growth in the subject test areas from the previous year. Tests are scored for proficiency levels from one through four if a score of a three or four is reached the student is considered proficient. If a one or two is scored, the student is below proficiency level.
Green River High students are making progress. Even with the F grade, they are not considered a turnaround school.
Bookcliff Elementary last year was listed as a turnaround school. This year they received a B grade. There was a team effort with the students, parents, teachers and administration all working together to bring their grade up. Principal JR Jones was instrumental in leading the school. He reported at the school board meeting of the great cooperation at Book Cliff to raise their grade.
There are challenges in Green River, but Superintendent Davis said everyone is working to bring up the proficiency of students there. Small schools are difficult because there are limitations to what can be offered there, but more creative ways are being looked at to bring instruction to the students. In the future, there will be classes offered where the instructor will be at Emery High and the students will video conference each day with the instructor traveling to Green River once a week.
Superintendent Davis said there are advantages to being in a small school. You can play any sport you want, be in the plays, activities and there is a family atmosphere at the schools where everyone knows each other by name. The schools are very supportive. The students help each other out and care about each other. They don’t have bullying and harassment. There is a good culture there and efforts are being made to get the students more involved in working hard at academics. Work on after high school life is also being emphasized to get more students into training for the workplace and into college.
Vocational training including auto, welding, medical, computer, robotics and engineering will all be part of the curriculum.
Superintendent Davis said when the Lt. Governor brought his 25k job tour to the area he talked to him about educating the students for the jobs of the future. The energy based economy in Emery County is decreasing and other fields and opportunities must be brought to the rural areas so these areas can survive. Superintendent Davis said, “Schools need to work with local economic development to lead to jobs and careers for our students. I am meeting with Jordan Leonard, the economic development director to bring industry, government and education all together. Jed Jensen is putting together the committee to explore these connections.”
Oct. 27 was a day off for students with teachers working on Professional Learning Communities.
There was much positive feedback from the early out day at midterm where professional development took place. Part of the PLC’s role is to collect data to share with other teachers. PLC’s were developed by educational researchers and leaders who conducted studies to help students succeed. These communities have proven to be effective. “We were doing OK, but our students deserve more than OK. We want to train our teachers to bring out their best work and share it with other teachers. The best scores in SAGE testing are 50 percent proficient, but that means there are 50 percent of the students who aren’t proficient. We are going to keep striving until every child is proficient.
“Book Cliff Elementary is the perfect example of what a PLC can do. They broke down the data for their school. They had tests, quizzes, projects and they set benchmarks and set goals. The kids showed enormous improvement.
“We’re going in the right direction if we see growth, students might not jump from a one to a four, but maybe they were 1.5 and now they are a two. That means they are growing and learning across the board.
The PLC’s were started last year with an introduction and some teachers embraced them more tightly than others. But, it was a start and this year look’s promising. Emery District is closing the gap on the state average. “We’re headed in the right direction,” said Superintendent Davis.
Superintendent Davis addressed the drug problems. He said with the beginning of the drug testing program at Emery High for sports and clubs, student council, cheer and drill; drug use has gone down. At one time before this was introduced there was a problem with pills.
Every year while Superintendent Davis was the principal at Emery High they did a drug awareness program. “This drug awareness program was multi-faceted. We did an orientation with the sophomores. The first week of school they were given information on drug abuse. We partnered with the sheriff’s office for guest speakers. We had addicts speak and police officers. We had a huge school wide contest with the theme related to substance abuse. They could use any type of art work, posters, videos, writing; there were 18 entries the first year. The second year we had 200 entries. We had prizes donated for the winners. It was amazing. There was sculpture and powerful videos and stories. These were experiences our kids had, real tragedies that came from the heart. We created a presentation with all the art work to present to our learning strategies classes. The message was loud and clear that this stuff is killing us. These types of things work, we have had only one student who tested positive out of hundreds of kids. These are very telling statistics. The kids get it. They know there is a possibility of being tested and if they want to be on a team, then it isn’t worth it to them. Being on a team is more important. That’s what we’ve done in the past and I hope the school continues that.
“We’ve asked the principals to compile lists of how they could use the additional funds from the Our Schools Now Initiative should it pass. This extra money would be $1,000 for each student so for instance Emery High could have an additional $600,000 to utilize.
“The group gathering signatures for the Initiative has until April and then it will be placed on the ballot for next November.
“Our principals are getting input from parents and the community councils to discuss possible use. They’ve come up with some very good ideas, including hiring specialists and aides for the class room. Their suggestions are centered on the kids.
Superintendent Davis wasn’t sure how the legislature would handle it if schools received additional funding from Our Schools Now which would raise taxes. The legislature thinks raising taxes would inhibit businesses from locating in our state and would be bad for the economy. The argument from the Our Schools Now Initiative supporters is if Utah can provide the best educated kids that business will come.
Emery District Schools receive letter grades
Superintendent Larry Davis talks about the letter grades the schools received and the work being done to improve district wide.