Last year at this time I proudly announced the results of the WKCE exams that were taken by the sophomores the previous fall. We saw record high scores for our school last year and I was eager to see what this year would bring. For the past several years we have placed an emphasis on reading and math across all content areas. Our English and math teachers have collaborated with their colleagues to help them learn strategies for integrating good reading and numeracy skills into their lessons every day.
I’m please to announce that this and our other efforts to increase the rigor and to demand more and higher academic achievement has again paid off. Once again, we have increased our WKCE scores in all five subjects and have even high scores than last year’s previous records. See the graph.
We believe that the focus we have placed on “Academics, Career and Character” during the past three years, the implementation of our Guided Study intervention program using the concepts of RtI (Response to Intervention - www.rtinetwork.org) and the positive impact of our advising program have are all showing pay-off. These results are just a part of that.
We will certainly not be resting on these laurels, but continue to look at ways to improve. Here are just a few examples of what we are doing to keep this trend going. This year our math department and technology education departments are completing their program reviews. They are working with our Curriculum Director, Deb Olson and with each other to determine the essential skills and the important curricular items that students need to know. They are using the recently adopted, Common Core State Standards (http://www.corestandards.org/) as their guide and some changes have already been made. First, our math department has scoured the Math III curriculum and compared it to college math and the ACT requirements. They are in the process of aligning the curriculum more with the needs for college math. Our goal is for BRFHS students who choose college to be well prepared to step right into the rigor of college math courses. Second, the technology education department is working with the math department to compliment the math skills through their hands on coursework. There are many other initiatives that our staff is working on to keep pushing the performance of our students higher. Please contact your son or daughter’s teachers or me if you have any questions about our curriculum.
