The teachers and kids seem happy with what has worked at YMS this year surrounding PBL and Mastery Connect. With any new program there are bound to be areas that take a bit longer/more work to accomplish. What are 3 areas that are problematic and still being worked on to "meet the standard"? Thank you.

This is a great question. Thanks for asking it. We will continue to work to improve what we do.

Here some of our top priorities for improvement as we move forward.


1. The reporting tool and the report card. Top priority! MasteryConnect has not been able to meet our expectations so far. We have experienced too many technical glitches. They system is also difficult to understand and has proven confusing to parents. It's almost too much information. MasteryConnect does have some real strengths for internal use however (collaboration, teacher accountability, data tracking). We are working with the company to modify and streamline the portal so that it is more user friendly. We are also working on a more simple report card that is uncomplicated and easy to understand.

2. In terms of teaching and learning, our top priority is to improve the way in which we differentiate instruction and assessments to meet the needs of all of our students. Teachers will be working to develop more in-depth and consistent options for exceeding standards. We want to make sure that our high achieving students are challenged and pushed to excel when they demonstrate mastery of standards. For students who struggle, we will continue to improve interventions and protocols that are effective in helping them to progress in their learning. It's important to note, that this goal has absolutely nothing to do with PBL or our standards-based instructional model. In fact, the work we have done in recent years is already improving our ability to meet the needs at both ends of the spectrum. This will continue to be an important goal for school improvement and we are thrilled that this in an area in which we are already making great strides.

3. The third general area that we will be working to improve is the continued refinement of our practices and across-the-board consistency. We will be focusing on the areas of communication, the use of our scoring guides, the way we assess and provide feedback for HOWLs, and way in which we use our targeted learning time.

We greatly appreciate the thoughtful feedback and input we receive from parents. It really does help us to improve what we do everyday.