Catherine Woodard, principal of Eastside Elementary, told the Coffee County Board of Education on Sept. 25 that the school enrolls 556 students and has set targets to raise literacy and math scores while reducing intervention-level placements. "The goal is to turn data into information and information into insight," Woodard said, introducing the school's assessment and attendance data.
Why it matters: Woodard said many students began the year in intervention or urgent-intervention tiers; staff absences and chronic student absenteeism were presented as obstacles that affect classroom continuity and the district's use of substitutes.
Woodard said Eastside's two academic goals for the year are to increase STAAR reading proficiency by 5% in grades 1–5 and to increase STAR early-literacy proficiency by 5% in kindergarten and first grade from fall to spring. She said the school also aims to raise STAR math scores by 5% in grades 1–5 and that the STAR benchmarks are being used to compare the same student cohort from fall to spring.
Woodard presented fall STAR early-literacy and STAR reading results and said a substantial group of students currently falls into the intervention or urgent-intervention bands; those students are receiving MTSS-tier interventions ranging from classroom-based supports to small pull-out groups. "Some of these students are super close to the next level. Some of them also could fall back if we don't push in the right direction," she said.
On attendance, Woodard presented last year's full-year figures and said 23 students had perfect attendance, roughly 140 students missed one to four days, and there were roughly 180 students in both the five-to-nine-day and 10-or-more-day categories. She noted the district lost approximately a month of instructional days for lane and snow events that did not count against attendance totals.
Woodard also reviewed staff attendance from the prior school year, reporting that two teachers had perfect attendance, 17 staff missed fewer than three days, 27 missed four to nine days, nine missed 10 to 15 days and 13 missed 16 or more days. She said the district recorded about 641.5 aggregate staff leave days last school year when combining sick, personal and leave-without-pay days; Woodard noted that figure excludes jury duty and approved professional learning leave.
To encourage attendance, Woodard described monthly and nine-week incentives — small monthly rewards and larger year-end trophies for students with perfect attendance — and staff pass/giveaway incentives. She said the school emphasizes morning community-building meetings, a prerecorded daily "Eagle News" segment hosted by nominated students, multi-hour reading and ELA blocks, differentiated flex groups, Lexia and other individualized technology, handwriting instruction by grade band and a math block with spiral review and number talks.
Woodard highlighted family engagement tools including the parent portal, ParentSquare messaging, a digital marquee, postcards mailed twice per year and in-person events. She said the school's career day in fiscal 2025 featured 82 career representatives, up from 48 the prior year.
Board members asked clarifying questions about intervention delivery and staffing coverage. Woodard said more-complete year-end assessment results will be available after spring testing and that the school will use those results to measure progress toward the 5% goals.
Looking ahead, Woodard said the school will continue targeted interventions, monitor staff and student attendance closely, and report back to the board with year-end academic outcomes.