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Lahaina Intermediate moving forward on new mandates

By Staff | Dec 26, 2013

The Lahaina Intermediate School Renaissance program last week announced the “Students and Staff of the Month” for November: (from left) seventh-grader Ronnie Criste, Steve Royer (nominated by the staff), sixth-graders Haley Bogar and Johan Flores, Mark Smith (nominated by the students), and seventh-grader Marley Calapini. Not pictured are eighth-graders Keala Cabanilla and Darren Alibin.

LAHAINA – Happy holidays to all! We have completed our first half of this school year and will commence, with vigor, the second half when we return in January 2014.

Needless to say, with the new Effective Educator System (EES) in place, the teachers have been “spinning” to meet all expectations and requirements.

We have almost completed the first cycle of classroom observations and will start the second cycle toward the end of January.

In addition to two classroom observations per year, teachers are also expected to meet the requirement of two Student Learning Objectives (SLOs) and perform proficiently within the Core Professional Domain of EES.

Although we were told that this is a “learning” year, we have diligently followed the implementation plan for the state’s EES in order for all teachers to be ready with clear direction and understanding come school year 2014-15.

Fitting all mandates in has been a “trip” for us all, but we are progressing – we are moving forward. No surprises for LIS!

During the week of Dec. 9, our students completed the first attempt to the HSA-Bridge. Remember that we will administer the Smarter Balance Assessment next school year.

The reason this year’s assessment is labeled the HSA-Bridge is because it includes all past HSA test items that are covered by Common Core instruction. This is a “learning” year for student instruction, too.

We have heard that the results of the Smarter Balance assessment will reflect a dip in proficiency levels, as we transition to a new assessment tool. How much of a dip? We will see…

For now, the results of our students’ first attempt at the HSA-Reading are: Grade 6, 46 percent of students are proficient; Grade 7, 51 percent; and Grade 8, 51 percent.

While the HSA covers the entire year’s worth of instruction, our students’ proficiency results measure a pretty good proficiency rate at the end of the first half of the year. Yay! We will keep moving forward with rigor.

Please remember that students return to school after the Winter Break on Jan. 7, 2014. A teacher work day (between semesters) is on Jan. 6 – no school for students. One last day of sleeping in. Please enjoy your holidays with your family and friends. We all look forward to a successful second half of this school year.

Always know that we are here to support. Call us at 662-3965 with concerns. Have a wonderful time as we say aloha to 2013. Bring it on, 2014! IMUA!