With Mathematics and Computer Science identified as an ongoing priority within The Success Effect plan, the teachers and leaders in the Mathematics Department have been quietly going about the business of strengthening instruction, increasing communication, and reaching all students with meaningful learning.
Key Area: Learning
Priority Action Area: Literacy & Early Learning
During the mathematics instructional materials adoption of 2013, the district-wide committees identified three focus areas for instruction that have now become our Pillars for Instructional Excellence in Mathematics. These three Pillars are:
Skills fluency demonstrated through rigorous application
Student discourse through speaking, listening, reading and writing for a variety of… Read More
Friday, December 23, 2016
BVSD has adopted the CDE definition of Multi Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS): a prevention based framework of team‐driven, data‐based problem solving for improving the outcomes of every student through family, school, and community partnering and a layered continuum of evidence‐based practices applied at the classroom, school, district, region, and state level.
Key to understanding and implementing MTSS is realizing that it is a framework, not a program. A framework is the basic structure underlying a system. In 2016-17, school-based MTSS Leadership Teams will be planning how to implement the district adopted framework for MTSS at their buildings during the… Read More
Friday, September 30, 2016
Data in Education
When you first think about data in education, your thoughts might jump immediately to test scores and grades, however, our students are much more than numbers on a page! Each student brings a unique set of strengths and experiences to our schools, requiring us to adjust and meet their needs in a thoughtful and timely manner. This is the driving force behind VizLab, a visual analytics tool that is designed to help BVSD school administrators and district personnel see and understand student data in a way that impacts student learning, growth, and development. A subset of the Strategic… Read More
Friday, September 16, 2016
As our students head back to school this fall, many of the kids in our Phase 1 Schools are noticing significant changes to their learning environments. In addition to much needed operational and maintenance work, we are excited to kick off our Innovation Projects in these buildings.
In my previous blog post, I provided some of the details about our Innovation Projects and how our schools are engaging in deep thinking about both Innovative Learning Environments and Innovative Teaching and Learning as outlined in BVSD’s Innovation Guiding Principles. We are thrilled to see these previously two dimensional designs on paper come… Read More
Friday, September 2, 2016
Boulder Valley School District employs 4,300 employees. Almost half of our employees are teachers and the other half serve the district in departments such as food service, transportation, maintenance, business services and curriculum and instruction. Hiring takes place throughout the year, yet summer and fall are two seasons in which we welcome the largest number of new employees. The Educator Pipeline Priority Action Team’s primary goal is to attract, recruit, hire and retain the most qualified candidates for each position within BVSD. Once new employees are hired, BVSDwants to provide an onboarding experience that not only welcomes new employees but… Read More
Tuesday, August 23, 2016
The Graduation Guidelines committee continues to advance the vision of the Boulder Valley School District to provide a comprehensive and innovative education for all students so that they are successful, curious, lifelong learners. We are pleased to share that the Successful, Curious, Lifelong Learners priority action team has endorsed the recommendations of both the work from the Capstone and Testing Subcommittees so that all students have the opportunity to meet the new graduation requirements beginning with the Class of 2021. The teams are recommending Graduation requirements that include Capstone and Testing options so that students may identify the path that… Read More
Friday, July 8, 2016