Irish Elementary placed on priority improvement; principal lays out three-part plan to boost bilingual student output

Irish Elementary was identified this year as a priority improvement school under Colorado’s School Performance Framework after the school earned 41.6% of the points used to designate improvement levels, Principal Lindsay Mosier told the Poudre School District Board of Education on Oct. 7.

Mosier explained to the board that the state’s rating combines growth and achievement measures — with growth weighted heavily — and that Irish’s most recent drop was concentrated in fourth‑ and fifth‑grade CMAS growth percentiles. She told directors the school had examined a range of data (CMAS, MAP, early literacy measures such as DIBELS, and discipline and attendance trends) to diagnose causes.

"When we looked at those data points, the team agreed the top priority was achievement and growth in math, and increasing growth for English language arts," Mosier said. "We noticed trends in student output — especially writing and oral/written output — and we need to align our expectations for that output based on students’ language levels."

Mosier described three major improvement strategies the school will use: first, creating aligned, standards‑based expectations for student output differentiated by WIDA levels so teachers can calibrate grade‑level work for multilingual learners; second, increasing the frequency of data‑analysis cycles and classroom 'active monitoring' protocols so teachers provide in‑the‑moment feedback and adjust instruction (Mosier said teams will analyze exemplar tasks every two weeks rather than every 6–8 weeks); and third, leveraging student portfolios and family‑school partnerships so students and parents can track growth and participate in learning conversations.

Mosier said Irish is a dual‑language school with over 60% of its population identified as multilingual learners and that the school will use a dual‑language planning template, focused professional development and parent education to support the work. She acknowledged the drop in performance represented a "perfect storm" of staffing changes, a challenging cohort and enrollment shifts among newcomer families.

Directors asked how the extra collaboration time would be scheduled and Mosier said she had already planned additional planning time by providing substitute coverage for half‑day collaboration sessions and using built‑in building collaboration days; she said some time would come from providing teachers an extra planning block beyond the employee agreement. The board requested follow‑up details about time commitments and monitoring metrics.

Mosier closed by asking directors to visit Irish and see the work in classrooms; the board thanked her for the presentation and scheduled further discussion on improvements and district supports in forthcoming meetings.