Dr. Kristin Mueller

Facilitator: Dr. Kris Mueller, Supervisor of Standards, Assessment, and Program Improvement, School District of La Crosse

Dr. Penny Reedy

Facilitator: Dr. Penny Reedy, Principal of Longfellow, LDI and 7 Rivers, School District of La Crosse

The Classroom Approaches team is working to accomplish the following goal:

1) Increase the amount of students that are actively engaged in their schools by 5-10%.

The Classroom Approaches team is working to provide support for students so they can be actively engaged in their learning.  In determining what supports may be needed a Gallup Student Poll was given to our students. The Gallup Student Poll is a 20-question survey that measures hope, engagement, and well-being. Gallup’s research has shown that hope, engagement, and well-being are key factors that drive students’ grades, achievement scores, retention and future employment.

Once we received the Gallup results, each building staff determined their schools greatest areas of needs and then discussed what they could implement with the students to support their needs. We then came together as a district to determine an area of focus.  It was determined the focus would be on teaching more problem solving strategies, along with giving more positive recognition to the students.

Our next step is to involve community stakeholders by opening the classroom doors to bring available supports in such as volunteers and peer tutors, while determining what we can offer our students to personalize their learning. The main objective is to build the supports for each of our students so they can be actively engaged in learning to be successful in their future endeavors.