We're Going to Have a 5K/1-mile Color Run/Walk!

This past Monday, shortly after 11am (central time), Meb Keflezighi won the 118th annual Boston Marathon. Several hours later, almost 1200 miles to the west of the Boylston Street finish line in Boston, a group of individuals met in Riverside, Iowa to work on organizing and planning a run associated with our elementary school.

Along with the Washington County YMCA (a special thanks to Marcus Hall and Becky Harkema for helping us plan and host this event) we will be putting-on a 5K and a one-mile color walk/run in Riverside on Sunday, June 22nd. A note with more specific sign-up information should be coming home via Friday folders this Friday, April 25th. If you are from outside the Highland CSD and are interested in learning more about this race, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Hosting a run through the school is very exciting for me because running is a personal passion of mine. That wasn't always the case, however. I ran in high school (track and field) for two reasons - 1) to stay in shape for the other sports that I was more invested in, and 2) to spend time with my friends who at the time were more serious about running than me. After high school I would run occasionally, but it was not my preferred method of exercise. Once I became fully employed and time started to stretch thin, I started to choose running as a form of exercise that could be accomplished relatively quickly. One thing led to another and several years later I now thoroughly enjoying the training for and the running of half-marathons. It's funny how things change.

Anyways, this run that we are producing will be a great opportunity for our school to promote fitness and good health through an activity that can be done throughout one's life. Furthermore, it is a nice extension of the walk-a-thon that or Elementary Support Organization (ESO) has put-on for our students each of the past two falls. It also connects very nicely to the laps that Mr. Jaspering has his PE students run as a warm-up at the beginning of each class period. The students keep track of their laps, turn the laps into miles, and monitor their progress as the year progresses. As of April 23rd, the leading student at Riverside Elementary is just shy of having tallied 25 miles this school year!

All 3rd - 5th grade students received a shoe to decorate after they ran/walked one-mile. They also sign a poster documenting that they've ran/walked one, five, ten, fifteen, and twenty miles. This is posted in the gym. All 3rd - 5th grade students have recorded at least 10 miles this school year during PE.

Proceeds raised from this event will be split between the Washington Co. YMCA and our ESO. Our ESO uses their funds on things that will benefit our school. This year, we were fortunate to receive iPads and accessories for all of our teachers from our ESO. We are extremely thankful for the influx in technology that you have provided us with, as well as all of the things that you provide for our teachers, our students, and our school. Nonetheless, this event is not about raising funds; we are planning this event because it will be a fun, nice thing to do this summer with your family and the school community. We hope to see you there!

This Email Made Me Smile

This seems like a fitting time to post this as we just sent home our students' Iowa Assessment scores, last week.

The italicized text below was sent to me via email a few weeks ago. In following-up on the email that I received, I was pointed to the blog of the the principal at Amana Elementary of the Clear Creek Amana Community School District's blog (http://benmacumber.blogspot.com). Amana Elementary's principal, Mr. Ben Macumber, does not appear to have authored these thoughts, but he does share the same note in his entry titled, 'I didn't think of this, but I sure wish I had...'

My daughter's new elementary school principal sent this to all the students as they received their state standardized testing scores this week:

"We are concerned that these tests do not always assess all of what it is that make each of you special and unique. The people who create these tests and score them do not know each of you-- the way your teachers do, the way I hope to, and certainly not the way your families do...They do not know that you can play a musical instrument or that you can dance or paint a picture. They do not know that your friends count on you to be there for them or that your laughter can brighten the dreariest day. They do not know that you write poetry or songs, play or participate in sports, wonder about the future, or that sometimes you take care of your little brother or sister after school. They do not know that you have traveled to a really neat place or that you know how to tell a great story or that you really love spending time with special family members and friends. They do not know that you can be trustworthy, kind or thoughtful, and that you try, every day, to be your very best... the scores you get will tell you something, but they will not tell you everything. There are many ways of being smart."

Shifting Lunch and Recess Schedules

We are excited to make some changes (starting Monday, 3/31) to our lunch/recess schedule!

The kindergarten and first grade lunch/recess times were able to remain, for the most part, unaltered. Second through fifth grades had to rearrange some of the things that they teach so that everything still fit into their day. We believe that these changes will have a positive impact on our students. As a result, some of the highlights are:

• Providing increased adult supervision during transitions (to and from lunch and recess)
• Providing increased consistency and supervision at recess
• Four adults instead of three adults on the playground
• No longer taking away staff to bring-in classes while other students remain at recess
• Benefit of recess before lunch for the upper grades
• A longer gap between lunch recess and afternoon recess for the upper grades
• No longer a need for lunch helpers from the upper grades to be pulled away from the classroom during instructional time
• It will reduce the amount of student traffic flow in and out of our locked front entry way over the lunch hour

We are going to try this for the last two months of the school year. We are open to making adjustments as we go.

Our School is Worth a Pot of Gold

One of the things that I love about Riverside Elementary School is how so many different people possess different leadership traits that allow us to thrive. On any given day, any given person will take the initiative to get something accomplished. Each staff member is a leader.

Maybe you have noticed the visually appealing rainbow, the four leaf clover border, or the pot of gold that contains staff and students reasoning as to why our school is worth a pot of gold written on the posted gold coins. That is the product that a group of teachers took charge to organize and create. They have displayed a platform that shares the positive things and success stories of our school for everyone entering our building to see. What resulted is described and pictured below.

Our school is worth a pot of gold because...
...of our pride in what we do and the respect, responsibility, and caring of our people
...we all work hard
...our teachers are understanding
...we all show the Huskie way
...we are Huskies that like to learn
...we are respectful, responsible, and caring
...we have really good teachers and students
...everybody is caring to each other
...the teachers are making school fun for the students
...we are all kind and proud to be a Huskie
...data is showing growth
...we have teachers and students who are always learning
...there is a lot of good people
...we have teachers who help everyone
...everybody is so nice to each other
...everyday the teachers are teaching us a lot and we learn everyday
...it is safe for children
...everyone is friendly
...we do fun things
...we have good friends and good teachers

Take a look at the bulletin board the next time that you are in our school. It should make you smile.
In fact, I encourage you to take a gold coin (look for blank coins to be clipped (and labeled) on the bulletin board later this week) or comment at the end of this blog to share your thoughts as to why you think our school is worth a pot of gold.

Grateful for Gifts and Grants

The new technologies that we have acquired this year at Riverside Elementary School is like waking up to a room full of presents on Christmas morning!

This year we have been fortunate to add 20 iPads and 25 MacBooks to our technology arsenal. Our ESO was kind enough to buy all of our teachers an iPad this past fall. The Riverside Casino and Golf Resort's Washington County Riverboat Foundation, through a grant this winter, allowed us to purchase the MacBooks and the resulting mobile lab for our students. I (we) want to thank everyone who played a part in allowing us to receive these gifts and this grant.  

I am a firm believer that putting new technology in the hands of students leads to increased student engagement, and increased student engagement leads to increased student achievement. It is evident that the students really look forward to using the devices and they enjoy having them in their hands as a learning tool. As a result, seeing our students use these devices is fun. Watching the students exhibit a high level of respect for these devices while using them is neat to see, too. 

However, using the iPads and MacBooks are a new experience so there is a learning curve that goes along with that. After we received the iPads, we were able to send two teachers to a three-day course at the Grant Wood Area Education Agency (AEA). Throughout this course, our two teachers learned about iPad basics, as well as incorporating QR codes, screen casting and story telling applications, and student blogging. These two teachers, along with our Grant Wood AEA technology consultant and myself, have been responsible for passing along this learning to the rest of our teaching staff throughout three professional development sessions. Additionally, we have created a forum for sharing educational apps amongst staff on a regular basis. The MacBooks are still pretty brand new, and the learning for these devices has been fairly informal up to this point.

It is common knowledge that a picture is worth a thousand words. Because of this shared understanding, I have included, below, some of my favorite pictures that I have been able to capture, this year, that shows our students and teachers with some of our new technology.

Part Two...Great Growth

The following four slides are visual representations of our students' growth from the Math and Writing benchmark assessments that students have taken in the fall (end-of-August) and winter (mid-January). They compare how many of our students have met their year-end benchmark goals for proficiency in the fall, versus how many of our students have met those same year-end benchmark goals in the winter. This is worth sharing and celebrating, and it is a testament to everyone's hard work. We are very excited with these results, and very proud of the efforts that contributed to this growth.

The math computation probe consists of 25 problems representing year-long, grade-level math computation curriculum. Depending on the grade-level, students get between three and four minutes to answer as many of the problems as they are able.

The math application probe consists of 18-25 problems representing the year-long, grade-level math concepts and applications curriculum. Each test is three-pages long. Depending on the grade-level, students get between six and eight minutes to answer as many of the problems as they are able.

Students are given a writing probe; they have one-minute to think of a response, and then three-minutes to write a response. Total words written is a count of how many words students were able to write within the three-minutes

The same writing probe that was used to score total words written is used to score correct word sequence. To receive credit for correct word sequence, writing must be correctly spelled and grammatically correct.

This information helps us in determining how students are responding to instruction so that we can make necessary changes. The following pictures represent some of the ways that we are monitoring progress in-between benchmark assessments. Students are setting goals, and students are keeping track of their own progress compared to those goals. These are things that are having a positive impact with our students.

All of our up-to-date benchmark assessment data (Reading, Math, and Writing) is on display inside the glass case across the hall from the office at Riverside Elementary School. I encourage you to check it out the next time that you come into our school. Also, for individual child/student fall and winter data, as well as grade-level expectations for throughout the year, please be on the lookout for a note coming home on Friday, February 14th that will provide those specific results.

Measuring Success by How Far We Travel

It is hard to believe that we have surpassed the half-way mark of the 2013/14 school year. In fact, sometime this week (weather pending) we will celebrate the 100th day of school at Riverside Elementary!

At Riverside Elementary School, our students complete benchmark assessments in the fall, winter, and spring to see how they are progressing throughout the year. This helps us in determining how students are responding to instruction so that we can make necessary changes to instruction. We recently completed the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) assessment, which is our Reading benchmark.

The DIBELS results show that there is substantial growth and improvement taking place amongst our students throughout our building. This speaks volumes for the hard work put forth from our students, teachers, staff, and parents. Thank you. Your work is appreciated.

The following data, which is a testimonial to everyone's hard work, is worth sharing and celebrating!

Correct words refers to how many correct words students can read in one minute
DORF is an acronym for DIBELS Oral Reading Fluency

Accuracy refers to the amount of errors that students make when reading for one minute

Retell refers to how many words students can retell, in one minute, about the passage they just read

Last week, University of Iowa Football Strength and Conditioning Coach, Chris Doyle, Tweeted, "Weight room success is not measured by how much you lift, it's measured by how far you travel." I think that the same rings true when it comes to our DIBELS testing. We want improvement, and, overall, our results are very positive in this aspect.

Please be sure to check-out more of the building-wide and grade specific data that has been updated and is on display inside the glass case across the hall from the office at Riverside Elementary School. For child/student specific fall data, winter data, as well as grade-level expectations for throughout the year, please be on the lookout for a note that should be coming home on Friday, January 31st.