Forest Hall principal outlines curriculum gains, MTSS cycles and community partnerships

Forest Hall’s principal presented the school’s academic, social‑emotional and community work to the Beacon City School District board, saying the building has expanded foundational curriculum into third grade and served this year as a coaching support site for a Wilson Foundation specialist.

“I am really excited to share all that we've been up to so far this year at Forest Hall,” the principal said, describing three coaching visits and regular feedback for teachers. She said the district‑aligned slides emphasized bolded items and that the specialist had also worked with the E and L teacher to support students receiving related services.

The principal framed support structure changes around the district’s MTSS/IST process. She described six‑week IST cycles set the week of Sept. 8 to set stretch goals for students who qualified for AIS, then review progress every six weeks. She gave a case example of a student who qualified for AIS, met a December benchmark and was dismissed from pull‑out services, then returned to AIS when gains did not sustain.

The presentation included projected proficiency scenarios derived from I‑Ready stretch‑growth targets. The principal said that if students meet stretch growth the projected ELA proficiency for grades 3–5 would be about 67%; under a typical‑growth scenario she said projected ELA proficiency would be roughly 55%. For math she said projections were about 76% with stretch growth and about 56% with typical growth. Those figures were presented by the principal as illustrations of two possible outcomes rather than final results.

She highlighted student voice with two classroom examples: a fourth‑grade student, Amina, who connected an HMH ELA module text about New Orleans to social studies learning, and a first grader, Maggie, who wrote and read a short book in class—examples used to show how curriculum and engagement overlap.

On equity and social‑emotional work, the principal described Responsive Classroom practices and the Positivity Project in use schoolwide, the creation of a shared management resource for new teachers, and weekly vocabulary/trait work for students. She also described caregiver engagement pilots, including student‑led caregiver conferences at two grade levels and a learning engagement partnership formed with the PTSO to bolster inclusive family–staff dialogue.

The principal listed community partnerships and grants: a Community Foundation Hudson Valley grant for music instruments and a Dutchess County garden grant for the environmental club; she said the school’s students delivered cards to local businesses, partnered with Beacon High School for mentoring, and participated in an AAC awareness effort and autism‑acceptance videos with parents.

School events highlighted included field trips, the Black History Month gallery walk scheduled for Feb. 23 (announced as a 6:00 p.m. event), and extracurricular offerings. The principal said the school offers more than 20 clubs this year—including a new cursive club, skateboarding, a junior Black Student Union and a student podcast called The Falcon’s Nest—and described arts partnerships such as a creative strings program with local violinist Gwen Loster and a Beacon Printmaking Project rollout with Lauren Edelman.

The presentation closed with an emphasis on combining assessment data, MTSS cycles and community supports to make targeted instructional decisions. The board thanked the presenter and moved on to the athletics report.