Irish Elementary identified for priority improvement; principal outlines three‑part action plan

The Poudre School District Board on Oct. 7 heard Irish Elementary School’s principal present the school’s unified improvement plan after the state designated Irish as a priority‑improvement school under the Colorado School Performance Framework.

Nut graf: Principal Lindsay Mosier told the board the school earned a priority‑improvement designation after a drop in measured growth on CMAS; teachers, parents and district partners collaborated on a plan that centers on three major strategies intended to increase student output and academic growth in both English and Spanish.

Mosier said Irish earned 41.6% of the state‑calculated points used to assign improvement status and that the decline largely stemmed from recent drops in growth percentiles on the state assessments for fourth and fifth graders. She noted the school’s post‑pandemic gains and said staff used multiple local and state assessments to search for causes and solutions.

Irish is a dual‑language school, Mosier told the board: “Irish is a dual language school.” The school serves a high percentage of multilingual learners; more than 60% of students receive Spanish dual‑language instruction. Mosier said the school’s team performed a root‑cause analysis and identified two central issues: varied expectations for student verbal and written output across language‑proficiency levels, and inconsistent, infrequent monitoring and feedback that limited teachers’ ability to adjust instruction quickly.

Three improvement strategies - Align expectations: Teachers will adopt standards‑based expectations for student output differentiated by WIDA language levels so students show grade‑level thinking in the language appropriate to their development. - Increase monitoring and coherence: Staff will shorten data cycles and use a two‑week collaborative cycle in which teams design a task, teach it, collect evidence and adjust instruction. The school is piloting “active monitoring” classroom protocols and using video and peer feedback. - Strengthen academic belonging and family partnerships: Irish will refine student portfolios and coaching to help students describe what they know and what they need; the school will give parents straightforward talking points for conferences and use brief surveys after family events to improve outreach.

Mosier said the plan leverages district partners already working with Irish and cited instructional‑coaching support from the district office. Several board members and staff asked about time for additional teacher collaboration; Mosier said the school will fund additional planning time with substitute coverage, use built‑in collaboration days and adjust after‑school meetings to make time for the two‑week cycles.

Superintendent Kingsley and board members praised the school’s cohesion and emphasized the district will continue to monitor progress and support the plan. The board did not vote on the plan; Mosier said the school will solicit community feedback and return to the board with progress updates and any adjustments.

Ending: The school’s work is part of the district’s larger efforts to address disparities in outcomes and to deploy targeted supports at schools identified under the state accountability system.