Sean C. Morgan
Residents of Sweet Home are invited to a forum hosted by School District 55 on April 10.
The forum is open, but its primary purpose will be to discuss the the district’s Continuous Improvement Plan.
The district is required by the state to host a forum on the CIP, said Supt. Don Schrader. He wants to be able to share with whomever is interested what the district is planning in different areas, ranging from budget priorities to instructional programs, informing the public about what school officials are doing and looking at the CIP and how they educate children.
“Our bottom line is to have the best education we can offer,” Schrader said. “The way we do that is to have the best people in front of kids.”
Professional development is how the district puts the best people in front of children, he said, and he will discuss good instructional practices and how the district develops its teachers.
People can bring up issues, he said, and nothing is off the table.
The CIP is “a plan for providing education to students,” Schrader said. “It’s a plan that all of our schools have. We set targets. We set goals for student success.”
The schools have action plans set to meet those targets, he said. The CIP works similarly at a district level, with the district developing goals and action plans to ensure indicators of highly effective education are in place. Those are filed with the state Department of Education, which holds districts accountable to those plans.
Goals may call for 100 percent of third graders to exceed the state standards in testing, he suggested. While “100 percent” is always the goal, the district sets “reasonable” goals that are achievable.
The district is already doing the work outlined in the CIP it is developing through the individual school plans and the district’s and board’s goals and action plans, Schrader said. The CIP is a formal document formatted specifically for use by the state.
In developing the CIP, district officials use a long list of “indicators” of highly effective education, such as providing a safe, drug-free education environment, or that staff members recognize unique differences among learners and develop strategies to empower the students.
Among steps the district uses to achieve some of these goals is to watch indicators to develop professional development programming for teachers. Mentors and peer coaches provide instruction to teachers.
Data gathered by Professional Learning Communities, data-gathering groups and Sweet Home Leadership Academy are used to assess how the district is doing and target areas for improvement during professional development.
In the Leadership Academy program, teachers and administrators directly observe and collect data in the classrooms, Schrader said. If they observe that 60 percent of teachers are not showing one of the indicators of highly effective learning, they’ll target the indicator in professional development, which is scheduled for Fridays every other week in the district.
Those teachers and administrators go back to their schools talking about highly effective lessons, and they often bring practices they’ve observed back to their own classrooms, Schrader said.
While Schrader’s goal is to meet a state requirement for a forum regarding the CIP, it’s also an opportunity for the community to provide input on a variety of topics, he said.
He will discuss plans for all-day kindergarten, district goals and much more, he said. The forum will serve as a sort of “state of the district.”
The forum will begin at 5:30 p.m. on April 10 in the boardroom at the Central Office, 1900 Long St. Call (541) 367-7126 for more information.