This week is Staff Appreciation Week! We love our WLMS Staff!

As we near the end of the school year students in Math and Language Arts are taking their final MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) assessment of the year.  This assessment is adaptive meeting students at their individual level and precisely measuring student progress and growth.  I encourage you to ask your student’s teachers about the MAP testing that was completed this year and what it revealed about your individual student’s progress and growth.

Throughout the year, we use this data from MAP in combination with data collected from other sources in the classroom to support students in reaching growth goals and to make instructional decisions to best impact positive outcomes for students.  In addition, a team of teachers across the building who serve on our Instructional Leadership team engaged in Instructional Rounds this year.  This process is based on the concept of medical practitioners making rounds to check the status of their patients.  Similarly, each month we visited classrooms across the school to gather information on the status and progress of our school community.  From this information, the team made decisions about how to support the learning of our teachers and staff through professional development opportunities.  We will be continuing to build on this process into the next year at Westlake.

[wmd-divider style=”fading” spacing=”40″ color=”#002426″ size=”2″ ls-id=”5905f7ec1a6f3″/]

As much as we may wish to have a manual on how to support our children as they grow up none of us were given that manual….at least I didn’t get one!  Thankfully, our Westlake community is full of supportive adults going through this experience of raising children and going through middle school.  Please consider joining our Parent Teacher Organization to get in touch with other parents who are experiencing similar questions and challenges in raising middle schoolers. Our next meeting is this Wednesday at 6:30pm and we would love to see you there!  In the meantime, here is a Parent Toolkit resource that may be helpful to you.