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Riley Intermediate principal outlines reading goal, SEL and attendance strategies
Summary
Riley Intermediate Principal Maria Hendres presented the school'level improvement plan to the Board of Education, highlighting a 40% reading-proficiency goal, monthly walk-throughs, teacher collaboration, SEL "circle" activities, attendance interventions and incentives to sustain early-year gains.
Maria Hendres, principal of Riley Intermediate, told the Berkeley SD 87 Board that Riley's school improvement plan focuses on raising reading proficiency, strengthening instructional clarity and expanding social-emotional learning.
Hendrdes (intro in transcript as "Maria Hendres") said the school set a reading goal of 40% of scholars scoring proficient or above on the reading assessment, compared with a district goal of 57%. She described that the school uses PowerSchool and other data systems, monthly instructional walk-throughs, collaborative planning (PLCs) and specific action steps aligned across grades to monitor and accelerate learning.
Hendrdes outlined a number of student-facing and staff-facing strategies: scholar-to-scholar discourse; houses that mix third, fourth and fifth graders to foster belonging; monthly walk-through trends to identify where to celebrate or intervene; and an attendance-accountability team that performs outreach to families. She credited early-year data showing movement from lower performance bands into proficiency for some cohorts.
The presentation included SEL practice: Hendres led a brief "circle" activity for board and staff to demonstrate how classroom check-ins work. The school also highlighted incentives tied to reading steps; examples included a therapy-dog reading reward and a "principal for a day" prize for students who reached high reading-step milestones.
What happens next: the principal and assistant principal offered to return for follow-up presentations and to provide more detailed findings from special-education reviews and attendance interventions as requested by the board.
