Echoes from Cañon
Examples of Excellence
Shaun Kohl was selected to serve on the CASE CALET board of directors.
An excellent school district begins with great leadership at the top, and CCSD is blessed with school board directors who are truly focused on meeting the needs of the district’s children. To do this better our board of education has chosen to conduct a series of listening sessions beginning with a first effort on Monday June 27th at 5:30 PM in the board room at 101 North 14th Street. We invite students, parents, community members, and staff members to join us that evening to learn more about the key issues the district is facing, and to offer up ideas and suggestions for improvement.
Canon City Schools director of technology Shaun Kohl was recently selected by his peers to represent our region on the Colorado Association of School Executives CALET board. This is a group of leaders from all over the state who have similar job responsibilities. I know Shaun will do great in this role, and have no doubt the connections he makes along the way will be very valuable to us here in Cañon City.
Late last week I received an end of year academic report from director of student services Dominic Carochi showing where our students landed at the end of the school year on benchmark testing in reading and math. Based on this information I would like to offer commendations to the folks in McKinley and Washington Elementary Schools for showing the greatest growth in DIBELS reading (15% and 18% respectively.) Cañon Exploratory and Mountain View Core Knowledge schools led the district this year in DIBELS overall achievement with 83% and 85% of their students acheiving benchmark status. My hat goes off to Lincoln School of Science and Technology for leading the way in district performance on the 5th grade STAR reading assessment, and to Mckinley Elementary once again for showing the greatest growth and ending up with the 2nd highest achievement results in that category. CES had the highest overall achievement in STAR reading in grades 1 through 4. Harrison K-8 led the way in grade 3 STAR math, and McKinley Elementary showed the greatest overall math achievement in 3 of our 5 elementary grades, that being 1st, 2nd, and 4th. I have no doubt this result is due to their expert use of daily math focus time!
Canon City Schools director of technology Shaun Kohl was recently selected by his peers to represent our region on the Colorado Association of School Executives CALET board. This is a group of leaders from all over the state who have similar job responsibilities. I know Shaun will do great in this role, and have no doubt the connections he makes along the way will be very valuable to us here in Cañon City.
Late last week I received an end of year academic report from director of student services Dominic Carochi showing where our students landed at the end of the school year on benchmark testing in reading and math. Based on this information I would like to offer commendations to the folks in McKinley and Washington Elementary Schools for showing the greatest growth in DIBELS reading (15% and 18% respectively.) Cañon Exploratory and Mountain View Core Knowledge schools led the district this year in DIBELS overall achievement with 83% and 85% of their students acheiving benchmark status. My hat goes off to Lincoln School of Science and Technology for leading the way in district performance on the 5th grade STAR reading assessment, and to Mckinley Elementary once again for showing the greatest growth and ending up with the 2nd highest achievement results in that category. CES had the highest overall achievement in STAR reading in grades 1 through 4. Harrison K-8 led the way in grade 3 STAR math, and McKinley Elementary showed the greatest overall math achievement in 3 of our 5 elementary grades, that being 1st, 2nd, and 4th. I have no doubt this result is due to their expert use of daily math focus time!
Colleen Carroll is doing outstanding work updating our policy manual!
I want to offer a gigantic thank you to our many school office staff members who have shown a willingness to open our doors for school sign ups from 11 AM to 7 PM during this year’s registration window. We are hoping such a schedule will be helpful to families, allowing them to sign up students during lunch, and in the early evening after a typical work day is over. I appreciate that our secretaries have expressed a willingness to flex their daily work schedule during this important time.
Finally, I want to thank our delightful board-superintendent secretary Colleen Carroll for the work she has been doing updating our district policy manual. Earlier in the year we had the Colorado Association of School Boards conduct a policy audit and as a result of this process discovered we have a number of outdated and missing items from our manual. As a result, we made a decision to transition our policy labeling system to mirror theirs. This is a lot of work, and we put it off until summer, but Colleen is already through section A (general administration) and will likely get done with section B (board of education real soon). Director of student support services Paula Buser has also been a big help for us with this work!
Finally, I want to thank our delightful board-superintendent secretary Colleen Carroll for the work she has been doing updating our district policy manual. Earlier in the year we had the Colorado Association of School Boards conduct a policy audit and as a result of this process discovered we have a number of outdated and missing items from our manual. As a result, we made a decision to transition our policy labeling system to mirror theirs. This is a lot of work, and we put it off until summer, but Colleen is already through section A (general administration) and will likely get done with section B (board of education real soon). Director of student support services Paula Buser has also been a big help for us with this work!
The Focus of Our Work
Misty Manchester has been working hard filling key district positions.
With school over I have taken time in the last few weeks to finalize principal evaluations. I also have quite a to-do list that includes promoting our upcoming board listening session, working on plans for principal leadership PLC sessions during next school year, soliciting teacher interest in offering Junior Achievement classes at all levels in the coming year, preparing an update to discipline and attendance policies in time for the August 8th board meeting, contacting guest speakers to present at our all staff gathering on August 15th, follow-up fund raising work for CCEOE, working with director of human resources Misty Manchester to bolster our paraprofessional mentoring program, conducting a district technology visioning process, making our Unified Improvement Plan action plans easily available to community members, and tweaking our annual evaluation process documents to represent what was decided in spring negotiations.
On June 27th we’ll adopt a final budget for the 2016-17 school year. We are also in the process of transitioning to new principals at Cañon Exploratory School and Cañon City High School, as well as welcoming a new director of special services. This Wednesday we’ll be interviewing to hire a director of instruction.
On June 27th we’ll adopt a final budget for the 2016-17 school year. We are also in the process of transitioning to new principals at Cañon Exploratory School and Cañon City High School, as well as welcoming a new director of special services. This Wednesday we’ll be interviewing to hire a director of instruction.
The Last Two Weeks
During the past two weeks I addressed some year end personnel matters, worked on updating and finalizing a number of teacher and principal evaluations. participated in two local radio shows, held weekly SAC meetings, attended an evening Cañon 2020 task force meeting, touched base with Cañon City School District Classified Employees Association leaders, participated in a CCEOE board meeting, began planning this fall’s back to school events, attended the Fremont County Monthly Manager’s Meeting, participated in a monthly meeting with the Cañon City Police Department, attended a board of education work session and meeting, met individually with some board members, met about our Early Literacy Grant implementation process, and met with several community leaders about expanding our use of the Junior Achievement program.
The Coming Weeks
The Reed-Welsh family has moved to a new home. I'm the one in the hat!
This week’s schedule is pretty light on meetings, though quite heavy on the tasks I listed above. However, next week I’ll be fully participating in Lindamood-Bell Seeing Stars and Visualizing and Verbalizing training along with many other staff members. I'll also be filling many hours looking for the items I have lost int he process of moving my family to a new residence here in Cañon.
Thanks for listening once again!
George S. Welsh
Thanks for listening once again!
George S. Welsh