Marshall Primary Level Board Report

Marshall Primary Level Board Report December 2010 Heidi Critchley

SMART Boards: We are excited to report West Side Elementary has a SMART Board in every core grade level classroom, the music classroom, and one special education classroom. Seventeen of the twenty-two core grade level classrooms, two ECSE classrooms, and one special education classroom at Park Side house a SMART Board. We are hoping to finish the five classrooms soon. This has been a wonderful addition to our classrooms. We are grateful to all of those partnerships which have assisted us in purchasing the SMART Boards: Marshall PTA, Pride in the Tiger, Lorraine Erickson Trust Fund, and Marshall Public Schools resources.

School Readiness: Last year, an early childhood task force was formed to study the school readiness programming at Marshall Public Schools. The focuses have been on making early childhood education more accessible to all students and to increase the effectiveness of our school readiness programs. Also, a grant was written to provide scholarship opportunities for those families that may not be able to afford tuition costs. The committee has completed three site visits to Willmar, Redwood, and Lynd to continue to gather ideas and information for programming.

Response to Intervention (RtI): The RtI program is implemented at Park Side and West Side Elementary Schools. At each grade level, approximately 20% of the students are receiving “supplemental instruction” in the area of reading. As the students are progress monitored every two weeks, we are able to assess their growth and needs. It has been exciting to observe the reading improvement with the students.

Project Success: The primary level Project Success students are enjoying their time after school by working on reading and math concepts, playing educational games, and talking about social-emotional issues relevant to their grade levels.

We are very proud to report the primary level currently has 116 students enrolled, which makes up 72% of the overall program enrollment. This program has been proven to serve as a very important and positive early intervention for some of our most academically and socially at-risk students.

PAWS (Positive Action With Students): Tiger PAWS is off to a great start and the students are very excited to be members of the program. This year, the students generated some fantastic ideas of how to give back to their community and its families. Our members and their classmates (13 at West Side and 22 at Park Side) are going to decorate bags for Heart to Heart, sing carols to the residents at Boulder Estates, and help out at the Food Shelf.

Our students are great classroom representatives and school leaders, and it has been an incredible experience for us to watch them discuss and understand the importance of extending their roles outside of the schools.