School improvement topic at Warden School Board meeting

WARDEN — Setting out goals for the school year, and how to reach them, was the topic of discussion at the regular meeting of the Warden School Board meeting Thursday.

Setting goals and planning strategies is a part of school improvement initiatives, mandated for some schools – including Warden – by the state. Warden’s schools have improved enough to get out of most required school improvement plans, said district superintendent Dave LaBounty. The exception is the district’s bilingual students (called English language learners) and special education students.

Each of the district’s three schools wrote a school improvement plan, with a separate plan for the district’s special education department. Special education director Jolinda Davis said she wanted to increase parent involvement in the program, sponsoring a parent night before the end of the school year. She also plans to start a newsletter for parents.

The special education staff wants to make sure each student is getting the education that’s right for them, and if they’re not, figure out why not and adjust the plan. That should be completed by January, Davis said.

Angela West, part of Warden High School’s improvement team, said one of the focuses at the high school will be students who are chronically absent. The goal is to determine what’s keeping kids from coming to school and try to address it, West said.

“Would attendance be the primary reason students won’t graduate?” asked board chair Rick Martin.

“That’s the issue,” West said.

In addition, high school teachers will focus on helping kids who are behind, especially in the target groups, to reach some intermediate goals. Setting those goals helps kids get to the ultimate goal, which is meeting the benchmarks in the state assessment tests and graduation.

“A lot of our goals are tied in pretty closely with the high school goals,” said Darrell Lembcke, teacher at Warden Middle School. The middle school too is focusing on attendance, among other things, and on helping kids set and meet intermediate goals if they’re behind. The elementary school goals focus on keeping kids moving forward academically.

“Anything that’s tangible that we can look at?” asked board member Doug Skone. He said he wanted to see periodic reports to determine whether or not there’s progress.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.