Yeager Elementary leaders highlight small‑school progress, call for more tutoring and attendance support

Amanda Roberts, principal of Yeager Elementary, opened the school's state‑of‑the‑school presentation and introduced her LSIC chair and leadership team. "I'm Amanda Roberts and I'm going to first introduce you to my LSIC chair," she said, noting the school's focus on community, relationships and high expectations.

Presenters reported that Yeager served 183 students with a staff of 37 and that a recent LSIC meeting on Oct. 21 had 17 adults and 20 students in attendance. The team cited family feedback asking for more after‑school math tutoring and described instructional practices including co‑teaching, daily phonics screeners and three annual diagnostics. Staff said reading diagnostic results showed a 6% increase in students at grade level in reading compared with the prior year and a 1% increase for math in the beginning‑of‑year comparison.

Despite those gains, presenters flagged persistent gaps for students with disabilities and chronic absenteeism across subgroups. "We did not meet the target for ELA or mathematics for those students," a presenter said, and staff described using diagnostic data to design IEPs and small‑group interventions. The team described attendance incentives (monthly surprise events, phone calls, porch visits) and reported a roughly 2 percentage‑point year‑to‑date improvement.

Board members thanked the team and asked follow‑up questions about home visits and baseline comparisons. A board member asked how home‑visit efforts are structured; presenters said every family receives at least one porch visit per year and teachers who participate in home visits do so to build relationships and improve attendance.