Middle, high schools discuss performance plans

The School Improvement Teams from both Churchill County Middle School and the Churchill County High School presented their School Performance Plans to the Board of Trustees at their regularly scheduled meeting on Oct. 11.

Trustees also recognized the Future Farmers of America for their success at the Western Nevada State Competition held in September in Eureka. The winners advance to national competition.

Trustee Carmen Schank presented certificates to the FFA students. Range Team: Sterling Lee, Connor McGowan, Declan Bernard and Chance Wood. Soils Team: Cody Sponslor, Darcy Countryman, Aubrey Renfroe and Carlinn Silva. Homesites Team: Renfroe, Whitney Bernard, Countryman and Sponslor (He also placed second individually overall). Sponslor was not in attendance.

Principal Amy Word, teachers Tracy Miller, Kathy Buckmaster and Emily Alexander and technology coach Nate Waite presented an overview of the middle school’s improvement plan.

The highlights of the presentation included the following:

The objectives include having department collaborative weekly and monthly meetings, implementing common grading across the curriculum, creating assessments, establishing a program or team drive that contains one assessment in case a teacher leaves and developing consistency in writing tasks.

Other goals are to arrange teachers in the building by content areas, provide a safe learning environment for students and monitor and measure growth assessment by using mapping.

The committee further expounded on the need to implement ways to use technology across the curriculum and to analyze achievement areas and needs for improvement based on state requirements. The goal is to create common semester assessments by the end of the first semester.

The purpose of a Power Half Hour is to create clubs for students that meet on Fridays. Students indicate by choice the clubs that interest them such as chess, garden, craft, rodeo, creative writing, etc. Teachers also indicate a club they would like to organize and conduct.

Waite said a major goal is to foster community involvement, have the school open after school hours for events such as technology night and host a multicultural night to make the school more inviting.

The high-school committee of Myke Nelson, Mandie Lister and Steve Johnson explained components of their plan, especially having consistent writing tasks for the students, writing across the curriculum, professional collaboration and development opportunities. Another area includes reviewing and editing curriculum maps in each content area.

The CCHS Counseling Department would seek to maintain a positive climate with the school. In order to attain positive behavior support, the Counseling Department would ask the school district look at the safety plan and how it fits in with today’s world.

A plan to ensure student success would include student monitoring and also allowing classroom observations undertaken by the administration and peers.

Nelson said this would allow teachers to move their classrooms and watch another teacher’s instruction.

The committee said a goal is to look at how parents and the community impact student learning. Another area is to look at student fees and how to reduce or eliminate them and ask the school board to augment some of those fees.

CCHS Principal Kevin Lords discussed Career and Technical Education (CTE) classes and job shadowing for students. He said students currently job shadow in the health field, while advanced carpentry has internships.

“I’m starting to get more partnerships,” he said.

Lords said the instructor currently teaching the construction class has more of a cabinet-making background. According to Lords, the junior and senior students are honing their construction skills, while the freshmen and sophomores are in cabinet making. He said retired teacher Louie Mori is on a contract to help finish a construction project.