St. Albans City School

August 31, 2005

Dear Families,

The beginning of this year is truly a celebration. We are happy to welcome families to our FIRST DAY and we encourage you to be an active part of your child's learning throughout the year. Your child's classroom is his/her home away from home. It is our job to work together to make school a safe and welcoming place for each and every child, regardless of the challenges we face in doing so. Our task is to support children so that they can approach their learning in a focused way, with energy and a sense of joy. We will start the year with a rousing performance of the Taiko Drummers. The drummers model the power of vision and careful planning, and they illustrate the fun and energy that comes from working together. We want that image to stay with our students.

St. Albans City School has high expectations, and we appreciate the support of a strong community. The energy of a few naturally gathers momentum and translates into power that children feel. It is the synergy that marks a great school and translates into high performance. Thank you to so many of you who give so much to children. City School truly makes a difference in this community!

You may recall that we were identified last year as a school needing technical assistance because not all students made Adequate Yearly Progress on statewide assessments. Although our combined student body showed performance gains, a portion of our students are not performing to their full potential. Although we have worked to do so, we have not found successful instructional strategies to meet the needs of students with disabilities and they have not made the required gains. Over the past two years, we have focused on improving reading instruction to address the needs of all students. We have changed our staffing patterns, increased materials available to students, and developed a comprehensive assessment system to allow us to monitor individual progress more carefully. We have applied for several grants to support our work, and our teachers have invested many hours this summer on reading instruction.

We are pleased to have received a major Reading First Grant that will span the next three years. With these funds, we have purchased a core program for reading instruction. Every elementary classroom will be provided with the latest edition of Scott Foresman Reading Street when school starts. They are current reading materials that include a variety of rich literature in addition to selections from today's science and social studies topics. Our students will receive instruction in the five elements of reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. These materials will help provide equal opportunities for all students, exposing students in every classroom and at every performance level to high quality literature.

The Reading First Grant requires students to receive 90 minutes of uninterrupted reading instruction and practice. Additionally, reading coaches will support teachers by planning with teachers, assessing individual students, and modeling in classrooms. Student progress will be monitored on a regular basis from kindergarten through eighth grade.

At the middle level, the schedule has changed to allow for increased instruction that can be more flexible to meet the needs of all students. Teachers will consciously include more reading instruction based on content area literature, and those students with significant reading disabilities will have specialized programs tailored to their individual needs. They will also have 90-minutes of focused literacy instruction.

We are in our second year of implementation of our standards-based mathematics program. We will fully implement the program this year, adding four or more new units at each grade level. Investigations and Connected Mathematics provide students with hands-on experiences helping them to gain deep knowledge of math concepts and skills. Our students continue to have strong computation skills, and they are developing the skills of mathematical thinkers and communicators through these programs. Watch for communication from your child's teacher about ways that you can be involved in their projects.

We are at the beginning of a year-long process to review and renew our school-wide discipline system in light of the Responsive Classroom model. Some of you identified this as a priority in the climate survey and dialogue nights last spring. Teachers as well as parents identified the need to revisit our school wide system of teaching and supporting students to be responsible citizens. This effort will start with teachers building caring communities in their classrooms. Responsive Classroom confirms and establishes a school wide expectation that the caring and respectful community that excellent teachers have been establishing all along must become the norm for every classroom and every group of students that works together at City School . Over the next year we will engage in a process to confirm a set of beliefs, guidelines and school wide practices that can provide the consistency we need to maintain a healthy and supportive PreK-8 system for all members of the school community.

Responsive Classroom is the vehicle for adults and students to model respect, responsibility and positive relationships. It embodies the teaching of the components of a caring community: cooperation, assertion, responsibility, empathy and self-control. It confirms our core belief that St. Albans City School CARES. Parents will be invited to a fall Dialogue Night to gain a clear understanding of the Responsive Classroom approach and to review the timeline for developing and launching an improved school-wide discipline approach.

Parents can support our collective vision for strong community and improved student performance by requiring their students to attend school regularly. We have made significant gains in attendance, in some cases reducing our excessive absentee rate from 13% to 2%. Still we have concerns about the attendance rate of our older students. Our goal is to cut in half their tardy and absentee rate by engaging them and seeking parent support.

Together we can make a difference for the children in our community. It will take continued commitment and hard work for us to build the school community that we all envision where all children succeed and are proud of their achievements. Keep in touch.