Murphy Elementary outlines number‑sense initiative, sets SMART goal for 2025–26

Murphy Elementary staff told the Lapeer Community Schools Board of Education on Jan. 10 that the school is focusing this year on developing students’ number sense through daily short lessons, professional learning communities (PLCs) and two curriculum pilots.

Principal Stacy Weber introduced the presentation and said the building used PLC time to analyze assessment data and settle on number sense as the priority area. "We dove into that data, we identified those priority areas, and then we created that SMART goal," Weber said.

Why it matters: Board members were told that improving number sense is intended to produce long‑term gains in later elementary grades, where teachers have reported that students "can't count" or struggle with basic numerical reasoning. The Murphy team said the work is grounded in established instructional practices and a targeted implementation plan so classroom time is minimally disrupted.

Murphy staff described their approach as a combination of classroom talk, short daily practice and teacher collaboration. A presenter identified as Tammy, who said she has been trained as a Math Recovery specialist, offered a working definition for the initiative: "Number sense is the understanding and ability to work with numbers in a flexible and efficient way." She explained that the school is teaching strategies such as counting forwards and backwards from different starting points, decomposing numbers (example: 56 + 15 as 56 + 10 + 5) and encouraging students to explain strategies aloud so peers can learn from one another.

The school is piloting two curricula in different grade bands. Staff reported that the Envisions pilot has already shown more number‑sense talk in classrooms; a second pilot, Bridges, includes a separate 15–20 minute "number sense" lesson component that staff expect to evaluate. The team also plans "lab classrooms" and in‑class modeling, with Tammy and other teachers demonstrating lessons for colleagues.

Staff described a SMART goal the building created collectively: by the end of the 2025–26 school year, target improvements on the NWEA MAPs numbers and operations domain, with the stated aims of reaching the district’s midpoint benchmark (described in materials as "the 50%ile on the NWEA MAPs") and showing measurable improvement for at least 90% of students in targeted grades. The team said teachers currently set aside 10 minutes per day, separate from the regular math block, dedicated to number‑sense work.

Board members and staff discussed classroom community and teacher professional learning. Weber described PLCs as the vehicle for analyzing data, testing instructional strategies and refining practice: "We really spent the first months just looking at data... and then we came up with a plan." The presenters said the next steps include continued staff meetings, quick professional development "quick shots," a possible short book study and monitoring pilot results before recommending a districtwide curriculum decision.

The presentation emphasized that the initiative is early in implementation. Staff repeatedly framed current work as pilot testing and building capacity rather than a final curriculum adoption. Principal Weber said the building chose a one‑year extension of the target window because the pilots are still in progress: "We decided not to set the goal for the end of this year; we’re giving it another year because of that math pilot."

Board members present praised the classroom demonstrations and expressed interest in future data. The presentation concluded with the team outlining plans for in‑class modeling, lab classrooms and ongoing PLC work to monitor whether the practices are producing the intended gains.

The board packet included a handout titled "Collaborative inquiry 4‑stage process" (distributed at the meeting) and the Murphy building plan showing the SMART goal language and the implementation timeline.