Lansing Elementary School - Board Docs

Lansing
Elementary School
Board of Education Report

December 2021
During this past month, the Lansing Elementary School staff continued working to achieve building
level goals, related to academic and social-emotional learning. Students are half-way through their
reading and math core curricula and continue receiving BSEL lessons. This year, we have experienced
a few challenges in meeting the behavior/social emotional needs of students in our building. It was
exciting when one of our teachers researched and expressed interest in the Grow Your Own Counselor
Program through KSDE. This program allows teachers enrolled in a Counseling Program to serve as
Student Service Coordinators, as they work toward licensure. After collaborating with Kansas State
Department of Education and district administration, we were eligible to offer this position through the
2021-2022 school year. Andrea Coia will serve as our Student Services Coordinator and be able to
assist with responsive calls, research behavior/ social emotional interventions and strategies, data
collection, and develop plans to meet the needs of staff and students. Our interventionists and
instructional coach continue to collaborate with our Professional Learning Communities in working to
meet the needs of all students.

Our staff was busy with holiday-themed projects related to our standards. We had a successful Third
Grade Music Program and two Tale of the Gingerbread Man performances, which were well attended.
Many families attended our winter parties to assist with games and activities. Our building leadership
team spent time reviewing professional development needs and planning the January professional
development. This month our Building Site Council voted to approve the Family Engagement Policy; a
requirement related to our Title I funding. We also discussed the best format for sharing information
with our families and will continue to provide weekly updates throughout the school year. We had a
great first semester and look forward to a productive second semester!

Respectfully,

Dr. Jennifer Kolb
Interim Principal

Enrollment Information as of December 22, 2021

Kindergarten: 161
1st Grade: 164
2nd Grade: 193
3rd Grade:136

Total: 654

Interventionists Report-Submitted by Holly Kane
Intervention groups continue to meet daily- 30 minutes of reading and 30 minutes of math- in addition
to the core instruction in the classroom. These groups take place in a small group setting and are
based on the group's missing skills. As individual students master one skill, they are then taught and
progress monitored on the next skill in the continuum. For example, many of our kindergarten
intervention students have met their letter naming fluency goals so have now shifted to letter sound
fluency. Some first graders have met their nonsense word fluency goals and are now being progress
monitoring on oral reading fluency which are actual stories instead of word lists.
The interventionists look at each group's data on a weekly basis and make decisions about the
intervention strategies and materials as well as the tools used for monitoring their growth to maximize
progress.

The following graphs belong to a second grader who was previously being assessed on nonsense
word fluency (graph 1) and, as you can see, he met his end of the year benchmark very quickly so is
now using the CBMR (graph 2) to test his oral reading fluency.

Counseling Department Report- Submitted by Christine
Bachtel
The counseling department added Derek Thompson to the team. This month, the counselors started a
boys social skills group for 2nd & 3rd grade boys to work on pro-social behaviors and increase self
esteem. We continued working on friendship skills with 3rd grade as well. The counseling team worked
to assist connecting families with resources during the holidays. The counseling team continued their
work with individual students across the building to increase positive classroom behavior.

Kindergarten-Submitted by Caress Counts
Kindergarten is preparing for our upcoming winter break. The students have been working so hard
and deserve a break. Teachers recently reviewed and discussed CFA scores for Reading and Math. All
classes saw improvement in both areas. Every Kindergarten class had 90% of their students at 80% or
higher mastery in Math. Of the classes who have retested on the ELA CFA, at least 85% of the class is
at 80% or higher mastery.
Interventions have been successful. Several students have been working in smaller groups and
learning the basic skills they need. Once we return from winter break, we will begin Fastbridge
screening again. This is how we check which students need interventions next quarter according to
what skill we are screening on. New intervention groups will begin once all screeners have been
completed.
The Kindergarten trip for December is to the AMC Legends Theater for a movie. The students enjoyed
the reading of the book “The Polar Express” and then will attend the showing of the movie. This is a
great way for students to work on comprehension skills while comparing books and movies.
Winter parties have been planned and parents will be attending the parties if they choose. Students
will leave for winter break after celebrating with their classmates.

1st Grade Report-Submitted by Phylicia Knapp
Happy New Year! First grade is grateful to our new board members and the continued dedication to
our existing board members. Thank you all for your service.
December was an exciting month in 1st grade full of the anticipation of our break and the holidays.
Our students were busy learning about different holidays around the world while reviewing our
reading and math skills learned in the first semester. We made crafts related to different symbols for
other countries’ holidays. The students made presents for their families and learned about giving
rather than receiving. Our character trait in December was Resiliency. Resilience is being able to
bounce back after challenging situations. Below is a picture of our students who were awarded for
their resiliency.

First grade has also been preparing all first semester for our Fastbridge screener that they will take in
January. In reading, First graders will work towards a fluency benchmark in January, which is the first
time we will use that piece of data for our benchmarks of our students. They will also continue to be
assessed on non-sense words, sight words, and word segmenting. In Math, they will be assessed on
place value for the math screener for the first time. Decomposing numbers and number sequence will
be assessments they are familiar with from the fall screener. Our students have been working hard to
prepare for these assessments as we wrapped up our first semester.
We look forward to the upcoming year! We thank you for your service to our students!

2nd Grade Report-Submitted by Shalee Eilderts & Carla
Gutshall
Second grade has been learning so much this month! We are working on our PRIDE character trait of
the month showing resilience. In math, we have moved on to double digit subtraction with and without
regrouping. In reading, we have been reviewing long vowel spellings, and are starting a new unit about
helping the community.

As a fun way to include some social studies, second graders have been learning about Holidays
Around the World. Second Grade is incorporating Geography, Reading, and Art learning about the
Holidays around the world. We have toured Mexico, Italy, France, Sweden, Australia, Greenland,
Germany, England, India, and Israel in addition to learning about other holidays. We are using the
comprehension skills of making connections with partners. Second grade is looking forward to ending
this semester with fun holiday themed activities such as Polar Express Day, Grinch Day, and
Gingerbread Day in addition to continuing our studies of countries around the world

We have administered and discussed data involving our second common formative assessments in
both ELA and math. We agree that our math scores are looking great, but we recognized some gaps
that need to be addressed in reading comprehension. We have collaborated during PLC and
determined ways to reteach and enrich our students based on their educational needs.

In our core reading lessons we are working on categorizing and classifying, and determining main
ideas and details. In our core math lessons we are working on double digit subtraction strategies such
as breaking apart numbers to subtract, modeling and recording 2 digit subtraction, and rewriting two
digit subtraction facts to solve.

Second grade is excited to see the growth in our students when we come back from Winter Break!

3rd Grade Report-Submitted by Jessica Kowalewski
In ELA, we began our 3rd unit of the year. The first two weeks focused on more expository texts and
had an emphasis on Space and the Planets. Students continued to think critically about texts and use
text evidence to support their thinking. In Math we started our first chapter in division. The kids are
doing a fantastic job and have made lots of progress on these important third grade math skills.

We celebrated the Winter holiday season with many different classroom activities including a Grinch
Day and many reading/math and stem activities. The kids enjoyed a break from the regular routine
while still focusing on our standards for the year.

3rd Grade is looking forward to a busy January. We will be FastBridge testing and are hoping to see
lots of progress at the halfway point in the year. We will also be preparing the kids for our field trip to
the School of Economics at the end of the month. They will be learning about needs vs. wants, goods
and services, supply and demand, and even how loans work!

Special Education- Submitted by Leesa White
The Special Education department of LES is participated in quarterly training with Mary Alice
Schroeger the first full week of December. It was helpful to be able to meet as a group and receive
updates and pertinent training.

SpEd teachers are consistently evaluating data about student progress and implementing
instructional changes as needed for our students. Additionally, when students struggle to maintain
'expected behaviors' we implement behavior plans to help that student achieve his/her goal as
provided by the Behavior teacher. Working together we can provide a cohesive team to support our
student needs. Our Students were included in the holiday program and holiday parties.

PE Report-Submitted by Lee Matezeder
The month of December was a festive one! We played a favorite tag game called Round up the
Reindeer. We have two Mr. and two Mrs. Clause’s and of course a sneaky elf that plays tricks on them.
We also did Christmas dances for a warm up.

Our main activity for December was Christmas bowling! Our students learned about how to hold the
bowling ball, strikes and spares. They also used simple math to keep track of pins.

Music Report-Submitted by Ryan Rothmeyer
Kindergarten performed their musical, The Gingerbread Man, and reflected on the experience. They
also worked on Christmas carols, focusing on melody, and pitch.

First, Second, and Third, all worked on songs from a variety of holidays including, Kwanza, Hannukah,
and Christmas. They mainly focused on melody, pitch, and form in music

Art Report-Submitted by Dawn Blankartz
Art K-3 has been working on cut, glue, and attach techniques making reindeer and Wasilly Kansinky
style trees. Some students made paper bag/fiber puppets.

ESOL-Submitted by Amy Scruggs
All groups/grades are working on independent writing sentences paying close attention to the four
components each sentence should have: begins with a capital/uppercase letter, tells a complete idea,
includes finger spaces, and ends with punctuation.

Kindergarten and First Grade groups are also focusing on phonics lessons from Reading A-Z which
include applying those skills and knowledge into reading decodable books. Third grade is working on

basic English vocabulary and writing sentences.

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