Easy Central Fundraiser

Browns Sales and Leasing invites everybody to step in from the freezing cold and enjoy some HOT chili! Saturday, February 1st, from 10-2, Browns employees will be teamed up in an effort to create their most creative and flavorful chili recipe to raise money for Central Community School. And YOU get to be the judge.  The team with the most votes, well you get the picture, bragging rights at the water cooler.  There will be no charge to the public for this exciting events, just a little donation basket if you like what you taste...

So stop on in and help us crown crown a chili cooking champion at Browns Sales and Leasing in Elkader on February 1st. For more information, call me, Kalie Means at 888-875-2409. See you there!

The Importance of a Name

During last night's board meeting the discussion came up on the use of Central's name.  The biggest question, what is our name?  This changes depending on where you look or where you are at.  The Iowa Department of Education lists us as "Central Community School District".  I have also seen us listed as "Elkader-Central", "Elkader", "Central-Elkader", "Central-Clayton", just to name a few.  So why is this important?

The importance of a name is all about identity.  A name should say 1) who we are and 2) what we stand for.  In the five names listed above, an outsider could take away many different meanings.  Example,  "Elkader-Central" could imply that Elkader is a large city and Central is the district in the middle of the city.  As an outsider, how would you know any better?

It is important for our district to unite around our name.  Central Community School District is larger than Elkader, as we also represent Garber, Elkport, Littleport, St. Olaf, and Volga.  I would also say that Central is larger than Clayton county.  We are the only true "Central" in the State of Iowa, and we need to wear that distinction with pride!  Through our actions and what we stand for is how we want to separate our Central Community School District from other districts in Iowa with a similar name.

Today I contacted all of our news stations and asked that "Elkader" and "Clayton" be taken off our name.  The Central Community School Board will also be working on revising our branding policy as well as sending a letter to all of our local businesses informing them of our current policy.  The current policy prohibits the selling of Central gear for profit and without board approval.  While I do not want to limit the availability of Central gear, I feel it is important that we have a common voice going forward.

When Central is talked about both in and outside of our community, I want people to know exactly who we are through academic excellence, innovation, and school pride!

Multi-Age Classrooms

Multi-Age Classrooms at Central

The 2014/15 school year will see some changes in how classrooms look at Central Elementary.  Traditionally students have been put in a grade level based on their age.  Central Elementary will be moving away from this practice and will be placing students in groups based on ability.  I would argue that nowhere else are people moved ahead or held back strictly because of their age.  As we prepare our students for our future work force, wouldn't moving them along based on ability make more sense?  One room school houses used to do this.  In those schools, students of all ages attended and worked at their appropriate learning levels.  Starting next year Central Elementary looks to do the same!  

How Multi-Age Will Look at Central

In the 2014/15 school year Central Elementary will have three classrooms each of K/1, 2/3, and 4/5.  This will give all of our students the chance to both be a mentor (upper level student) and men-tee (1st year student to the classroom).  Research states the highest level of learning occurs when students can actually teach the material.  With this concept of "looping", all students will get the chance to be taught by other students as well as teach other students.  These groups will be based on interests and abilities, not age.
Classrooms will also be evenly matched, meaning all classrooms will have a high, medium, and low students.  All students will also have the opportunity to work with students in the other two classes as we mix and match based on ability and interests.

Looping

Looping is another idea that will be implemented next school year.  Example, if your student will be in Kindergarten next year and is assigned to Mrs. Steffen, that same student would repeat with Mrs. Steffen in 1st grade.  This gives our teachers and students the advantage of knowing each other better, which allows more time to complete our learning targets together.  Each year in our grade-level public school system students are assigned to new teachers.  The new teacher has very little idea about the background of the student (what they have learned, their interests, their home-life, how they learn best, etc).  Re-learning these things about each student in a teacher's class takes away from the valuable learning time we have in a school year.  At Central, our teachers will walk into school the first day and know exactly where they left off with half their class.  Also, half the class will know the expectations of the teacher on the first day of school.  Imagine the power of that!

Grading

Central Elementary will move to competency based grading in the 2014/15 school year.  Students at Central Elementary will no longer receive a traditional letter grade.  Instead we will focus on whether or not they have mastered the learning target being graded.  Once they master they move on.  If they do not master the target, we re-teach and give the student the supports they need until they do master the target.  Imagine Michael Jordan in high school basketball when he got cut from the team.  On a traditional grading scale he would have received a failing grade, and the teacher and class (including Jordan) would have moved on.  How do you think that teacher would feel today?  What did that grade tell us about Michael Jordan's ability to play basketball?  Absolutely nothing.  What Jordan needed was more time and training.  Central students are no different.  Just because they do not "get it" today doesn't mean we give up and move on.  If we believe in something strongly enough to teach it, then we believe equally strong that every student needs to know it!

Financial

Declining enrollment has led to smaller class sizes.  Financially it just doesn't make sense anymore to have class sizes around 15 students.  Ask any teacher, and it also doesn't make sense to have class sizes of 30 plus.  By moving to multi-age, class sizes will be around 24 students.  Financially this number makes perfect sense for a district our size and will allow Central to be around for a long time.

I welcome any input as we work through the planning stages of multi-age groupings.

Thoughts on the District Calendar

Thank You

With the revised calendar looking much different than the calendar that was proposed in public forums, I have ceased allowing comments on this blog.  Most of the comments are in regards to what was originally proposed and not relevant to the revised calendar.  I will allow comments after the revised calendar has been shared on Thursday (27th).
I have also deleted all comments as they were made in regards to a calendar that no longer exists. Thank you for sharing your comments, specially those of you willing to put your name behind them.  While we will not always agree, I hope through this process we can develop a stronger sense of trust as well as stronger community support and parental involvement.  Only by working together can we make Central a strong and innovative district.

Traditional Calendar vs. Alternative Calendar

In Central’s last newsletter I shared about exciting changes in education, specifically those being looked into here at Central.  One of those changes was revising our district calendar.  Our calendar committee has been meeting and we are looking into making some serious changes to the calendar.  One thing we are interested in changing is the length of our summer break (currently 83 days).  Below I attached our student data that strongly shows the negative affects of a long summer break.  The curious thing I found in researching our data is that the long break affects our highly proficient students the most.  We believe by lessening the summer break and building in breaks throughout the school year, student regression will improve.  Another reason we are looking into making some changes is that our current calendar limits the students and their families that are involved in extra-curricular activities.  With breaks throughout the school year we hope that families can spend more time together without their children having to go to a practice or event.  This will not always be the case as many of our seasons overlap each other.  During "seasons" the school will remain open for practices, similar to our breaks in the current calendar.  The committee is also looking at ways to add interventions for students who are struggling.  One idea would be to add intervention times into our breaks.  If a student is failing a class, they will continue to go to school during these times (receiving the extra support they need), while students who did well in their classes would get extra days of break.  As the committee continues to work through proposed changes I will be hosting public forums to share our ideas and receive your feedback.  Change can be hard, and tackling the school calendar will not be easy.  Our traditional school calendar was designed for a time period when tractors didn’t have lights and most students were needed on the family farm.  As education has evolved, the calendar has remained unchanged.  Now is the time to tackle the calendar structure and ensure that Central’s district calendar promotes high academic achievement for all students.