WCUUSD Curriculum Newsletter

Dear WCUUSD Educators,

In an effort to improve my communication regarding curriculum, instruction, and assessment, I am creating a monthly newsletter. This is the first edition! This is also a concrete way for me to practice transparent and responsible leadership, one of our district's core beliefs.

As I get more experience writing this newsletter, I hope to establish a template so that the monthly topics are predictable. I will also aim to send it to you at the end of each month going forward.

Any ideas for a snazzier or more captivating title?

As always, I welcome your feedback. And, if you have any questions or concerns about the contents of this newsletter, please reach out to me at jmillerarsenault@u32.org or (802) 229-0553 x1310.

Warmly,

Jen

Our 2024-2025 Local Comprehensive Assessment Plan has been posted on our Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment site. Each year we revise the LCAP based on teacher and administrator feedback. Many thanks to those of you who provided feedback!

In an effort to balance the importance of focusing on our students' well-being and instructional routines in the beginning of the school year and our desire to maximize our instructional time, the fall window is longer than it has been in the past. Our hope is that teachers will assess students at the time within the window that makes the most sense for their students, balancing both academic and social emotional learning priorities.

I hope that you will all take a few minutes to look over the LCAP. Please pay particularly close attention to the Introduction and to the assessment windows for any grade levels with which you work. Note that our fall assessment window opens on September 9.

If you are involved in the administration of i-Ready math or i-Ready reading, I encourage you to check out these tips from Curriculum Associates as you prepare to administer these assessments.

Assessment data are meaningful only if we use the results to inform our instruction. To that end, analyzing the results and engaging students in reflection and goal-setting in response to their results are important practices that will help us develop a stronger Local Comprehensive Assessment System.

The Acadience Reading K-6 Assessment and the i-Ready reading and math diagnostic assessments yield particularly rich data sets that inform classroom practice and interventions. There are a lot of helpful resources on i-Ready Central. If you are a teacher or administrator who has an i-Ready account, I encourage you to log into it and check out this guide to analyzing district, school, class, and student data and these tips for introducing data chats to students.

The foundation of a strong MLSS is excellent universal instruction for all students. And sometimes students need targeted interventions to supplement their classroom instruction. We are working hard to systematize our practices and processes regarding all aspects of our Multi-Layered System of Supports across the district. For more information and links to our MLSS referral forms, go to the MLSS Intervention Resources page on the WCUUSD Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment website.

The Education Quality Committee is a committee of our school board that is focused on student achievement. They typically meet on the first Wednesday of the month just before the regular board meeting.

Tomorrow I will present a district overview of our Spring 2024 i-Ready and Acadience data. In October I will present a deeper dive into the Spring 2024 data, with a focus on disaggregated data and our district's equity indicators. Here is the complete slide deck. Below are two presentation slides that reflect broadly our students' performance and growth by grade level on last spring's i-Ready math and reading diagnostics, respectively.

Universally designed lessons are those that provide multiple means of engagement, representation, and demonstration of learning. The goal of UDL is to empower all learners to succeed, and it requires proactive planning in order to remove barriers to learning.

Recently Novak Education announced that the UDL guidelines have been updated in order to cultivate more learner agency and inclusion. You can learn more by reading or listening to this brief article. And, if UDL is new to you or you want a brief refresher, check out this 3 minute video by Katie Novak.

The purpose of our district Curriculum Council is to promote the coordination of our curriculum across our district to support instruction and inform professional learning so that every student has access to engaging, relevant, and culturally inclusive universal instruction and support.

Curriculum Council will be meeting on the second and fourth Mondays of the month when school is in session. Going forward, I will include our Curriculum Council talking points in this monthly newsletter.

Curriculum Council members for 2024-2025 include:

• Berlin: Celia Guggemos
• Calais: Jenna Howard
• Doty: Allison Fayle
• East Montpelier: Alicia Lyford, Hilary Paquet, Dave Willard
• Rumney: Veronica Eldred
• U-32: Erin Galligan-Baldwin, Elizabeth Marks, Amy Molina, Brittany Perry
• WCUUSD: Ellen Dorsey, Jen Miller-Arsenault