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Principals outline school-level plans to boost reading, math and attendance
Summary
Principals from district schools told the board they have aligned building goals with the superintendent’s strategic plan and will focus on classroom engagement, frequent walkthroughs, targeted interventions and family engagement to raise reading and math outcomes and attendance.
At the Oct. 8 Summers County Board of Education meeting, building principals and curriculum specialists presented school-level strategies to lift student achievement, reduce disengagement and raise attendance.
Miss Brown, principal at Henrya Elementary, said the school’s first goal is to keep disengagement to 10% or less each quarter while raising high-engagement observations by about 3 percentage points. "Our goal is to increase levels fives and sixes and decrease ones and twos which is disengagement," Brown said, describing use of ten-minute walkthrough conversations, weekly planning meetings with the curriculum specialist and monthly PD tied to walkthrough findings.
On academics, principals said they will align classroom tasks to grade-level standards, use more formative assessment and break benchmark data into intervention groups. "We are looking at assessments and asking: does the task meet the standard? If they got it, what’s next? If they didn’t, how do we support them?" a curriculum specialist said, describing twice-monthly PLC meetings and recurring ten-minute data discussions.
Staff described a three-part approach: ensure instruction aligns to standards; create interim measures and PD to short-term accelerate progress; and run targeted interventions using programs such as IXL and the Wilson Reading System for tiered supports. One principal said the district is piloting hands-on math materials purchased with a foundation grant and expects a year-long implementation support from the vendor.
Attendance and culture were also a central focus. Principals outlined daily or weekly incentives, home visits for students with unexplained absences, and schoolwide campaigns ("strive for 95") aimed at improving attendance. Brown described classroom- and school-level recognition, including a leader-of-the-month trophy and monthly awards tied to attendance and citizenship.
Presenters said they will track progress through a logic model with midterm review in January and final measures by April, and that many of the actions are internally resourced with some grant support. The board asked for continued progress reports and for central office to compile the walkthrough and benchmark evidence the principals are using.
The presentation set the districtwide academic growth target at 5% (aligned with the superintendent’s stated target) and emphasized combining short-term, data-driven steps with longer-term instructional improvements.
Next steps: principals will continue monthly monitoring, staff will provide the board with the logic model on request, and the district will re-evaluate benchmark progress at the midterm review in January.
