Episode Details

Happy Friday!

I want to begin by thanking everyone for their dedication and the hard work you put in this week to help us meet our performance targets. As we continue pushing forward, your commitment to ensuring our students reach their full potential is making a difference across the district. We are constantly setting the bar higher and working together to meet the expectations we have for our schools and our community. With that said, this week, I want to focus on a crucial element of our long-term success: the LEARNS Act's emphasis on early childhood education. By investing in our youngest learners, we are laying the foundation for future achievement and ensuring that our students are ready from the moment they enter kindergarten. We will take a closer look at the work being done to support early childhood learning and how it connects to our vision for student success.

As we continue refining our performance targets, we have temporarily removed the graphs for ELA, math, and science on the performance targets page. This decision was made to ensure that we present the most accurate and meaningful data. We are currently determining the best format for incorporating last year's ATLAS results and this year's interim data. Once we have the appropriate structure in place, we will update the page accordingly to provide a clear picture of our progress.

(As a fun coincidence, the ATLAS comet made an appearance in the night sky just as our ATLAS assessment results were released—clearly, the universe is keeping an eye on our progress! Perhaps it is a sign that we are reaching for the stars… or at least aiming for a few more Level 3s!)

ATLAS Insights

We have had some time to review our ATLAS scores and engage in conversations with educators at the state and co-op levels, and we have gained some valuable insights. One of the most important takeaways is that our Level 2 students have the potential to move up if we challenge them more by increasing the rigor of our lessons and deepening the level of knowledge we require. This means we need to push our students to think critically and stretch beyond surface-level understanding. Additionally, every teacher must know their standards forward, backward, and inside out. Mastery of these standards is the key to ensuring that all of our students, regardless of their current level, can reach their full potential. All of our lessons must support the standards and we must stay on pace to have those essential standards mastered before the end of the year.

Furthermore, our K through 5 teachers must be confident in both their knowledge and application of the Science of Reading. This foundational skill set is essential to developing strong readers who are capable of higher-level thinking and comprehension as they progress through school. I encourage each of you to reflect on your knowledge and abilities in these areas where growth is needed and seek the support or resources necessary to improve. Together, with intentional focus and effort, we will see our students grow and succeed.

LEARNS Early Childhood

Since the LEARNS Act became law in Arkansas, early childhood education has become a top priority, with a renewed focus on preparing students from their earliest years. The LEARNS Act, championed by Governor Sanders, emphasizes the critical importance of early childhood learning, particularly in areas such as literacy and numeracy. A significant initiative born out of this reform is the

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