Friday, September 7, 2012

Thoughts on Week

Well, we've survived the fires ... thanks to the hard work of firefighters! This includes the many federal agencies, our local Volunteer Fire Department, as well as many area ranchers out lending a hand to protect property. It was quite the community and regional effort!  We are blessed to live in the surroundings of so many caring people.

Back to school .... We are continuing to focus on our school goals of reading and writing skills for all students. At Chadron High School, every teacher is a reading and writing teacher. Every class, every semester is required to include a reading activity with selected academic vocabulary terms related to the classroom subject with students completing short written summaries.  These summary papers are graded and placed into the students' portfolio.  When the student graduates, we give them their portfolio showing four years of improved writing skills. In addition, every week we have a school-wide 30 minute time for silent reading.

Our amazing results on the recent state tests lead us to believe that the efforts we've placed on reading and writing is providing the foundation for our students to succeed on standardized tests. Success on tests of math, science, social studies, or any other subject relies on reading and comprehension of the material and questions. Therefore, we'll continue to invest our time on our school goals of reading and writing for all students.