Normally, students are asked to set goals for themselves to improve during the school year. However, schools also have to improve themselves by setting specific goals that are measured in a five-year cycle as part of the school improvement process. One main goal the Yutan school district recently set is to improve reading.
“Our first goal is by the spring of 2029, all students will have increased their reading comprehension and application of informational text as measured by K-8 students meeting or exceeding grade level expectations as measured by NWEA (MAP testing) and the second part of that is Pre-ACT and ACT students meeting benchmarks,” high school principal Stefanie Novotny said. “Our second goal is by the spring of 2029 students in grades third through twelfth will increase their sense of belonging by 5 percent as measured by a spring and fall climate survey annually.”
Improving reading has been a long-time goal of the district, but administrators wanted to make this cycle’s goal more distinct.
“We tried to make it a little bit more specific rather than just reading, so there’s still a reading focus with the informational text, but we wanted our goals to be more specific and measurable,” Novotny said.
To decide how to narrow the goal, a team of elementary teachers, high school teachers, counselors and administrators talked with Yutan’s Education Service Unit (ESU) to look at data.
“We worked with our ESU2 and their data steward, and he put together a data dashboard for us. So it had all of our demographics, our teacher information, all of our district assessments, Fastbridge, Pre-ACT and ACT. So this allowed us to look at just the different areas that we were excelling in and areas where growth was needed,” Novotny said.
One teacher that helped define this goal was English teacher Alyssa Hansen, who is part of the Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) team.
“So schools have to create a goal that they work towards every five years just to make sure that we’re working towards something,” Hansen said. “So MTSS looked at that data and then came up with an idea for a specific reading goal using informative texts and then a behavior goal focused on a sense of belonging for kids.”
While it was a smaller group that determined the district goal, all staff is involved in making that goal happen.
“So in this district, we have six school improvement teams that are made up of all of our certified staff members. This model is very teacher driven so that everyone has a voice and can contribute. So it’s not just the administration telling the teachers what to do, we want everyone to be a part of it,” Novotny said.
One step the English department has already taken toward this goal is adopting a new curriculum, Into Literature.
“So the new curriculum has purposeful informational texts placed in it. And so having that informational text in there gives kids an opportunity to read it, and I don’t have to go find it because it is in our textbook,” Hansen said.
While it was an adjustment for the English department, they have seen some benefits of the new curriculum.
“I love every novel that I teach and so when we got the new curriculum and I had to replace some novels, that made me a little nervous about it,” Hansen said. “In general, it’s been really good, and it’s been good to have an area of focus and to try some new things and see that there’s some better ways to do things than I’ve been doing them.”
Because the district’s goal is informational reading, however, it’s something every content area can take part in.
“It’s been a learning opportunity for me as a secondary teacher who does not have a lot of background in reading skills for students. My training was in education in general and then very science specific. So I’ve definitely leaned on my colleagues to help with strategies and implementing just common language between the English department and science department when we are analyzing text for evidence or information,” science teacher Leslie Heise said.
There are still many steps the district will take toward the goal, but they want the message to students to be the importance of improvement.
“Whether you are a high or a low student, you should still improve and grow from the beginning of the year all the way through the end of the year. That’s why our students take assessments,” Novotny said. “We want them to give their best effort and then we use this data to help inform our teaching and learning.”
