School Learning Plan

Jacob Wismer Elementary School

Our Story

Welcome to our Jacob Wismer story! For the 2022-2023 school year, we welcomed students back into the building with open arms and hearts while still being mindful of the continuing COVID 19 pandemic. Our students come to school each day with smiles on their faces, excited to see their teachers and friends. Despite optional masking requirements, the smiling eyes and faces of our community’s precious children are a sight we continue to value and cherish.

We continue building opportunities for personal connections, not only with children, but between the adults at Jacob Wismer who teach and support our students. We focused our early professional development on building connections with one another as a staff with the strategic use of activities that were directly transferable to the classroom. With our focus on connections with each other and our community, we developed goals that will continue throughout the year. We have built our stamina for both social-emotional wellness and academic instruction that is rigorous, inclusive and representative of our rich linguistic and cultural diversity. We aim to embrace and enrich the identity of everyone in our community, and celebrate the uniqueness and brilliance that exists within each of our students.

Jacob Wismer is fortunate to have a dynamic group of families and loving adults who are woven into the fabric of our school community. Our volunteers are many, with adults actively engaging in a variety of ways that support both our staff and student populations. The impact of our families’ advocacy and involvement is felt throughout the school with projects, art and extra curricular activities, such as an OBOB program that is fully supported by our group of loving adults. We have eagerly welcomed Art Literacy, our Eagle Run Fundraising Team, and library volunteers back into the building. We are beginning other in-person projects with our community partners.

Our staff is highly collaborative, and we are truly better educators because of our accountability to one another. Our students keep us learning, evolving and improving our practice. One of our key strategies for collaboration has been the implementation of cross grade level articulation teams. These teams serve to not only increase the connections between non-grade alike personnel but provide educators with opportunities to articulate and explore holistic school-wide academic and social-emotional goals. We are intentionally using meeting and professional development time to develop and hone our collaboration skills.

Our partnerships don’t begin and end in our immediate neighborhood. One collaboration we are particularly proud of is our long-lasting engagement with Sunset High School. We have a partnership with the Sunset High School Leadership Team where high school students mentor younger students and partner with our teachers at the classroom level. Another long relationship we are proud of is with the Bethany/Cedar Mill Library. They provide a critical community connection in the work that we do to promote family and independent reading. Our vision is to cultivate a love and culture of reading. Starting with our earliest readers, we know quality literature builds vocabulary and promotes oral language development. We want to extend and connect with our school community through books that provide mirrors and windows to our beautifully diverse neighborhood. Books can foster connections between students and with families as they teach skills such as kindness, being a good friend, and developing patience and resilience. As we read together, so do we build community.

Equity Area of Focus

Equity AREA OF FOCUS:

Anti-Bias Anti-Racist (ABAR) Plan

Equity Goal:

1. Every child will know that all adults at Jacob Wismer care about them and see them for the genius they bring to our school community. We will measure this by the responses in our student and staff surveys for the 2022-2023 school year.

Key Strategies:

Item 1.

• Our Anti-bias, Anti-racist (ABAR) Equity Team has been folded into the Leadership Team in order to integrate this important work into all aspects of our teaching and learning together.

•Continue to provide small group venues for adults to participate in discussions where it feels safer to be vulnerable through the use of articulation groups (cross grade level groups).

•Teachers feel well-equipped with resources, tools and training to see and interrupt inequities through the use of restorative practices and healing conversations.

•Seek out opportunities to develop and grow family and community partnerships that reflect the diversity of our student body. We are specifically looking for ways to connect to our families’ cultural experiences and identities.

•Our teacher leaders are supporting staff education about implementation of Tribal History/Shared History.

•Embed a focus on identity into all content areas. Use 5 D+ “Best Practices” content area documents to guide this work.

• Teach the way students learn. Strive to understand how this may be different from how we teach.

•Value student voice in establishing a warm and inclusive environment in all classrooms.

•Continuously reflect on our teaching practices so we can continue to expand on our equitable work with children.

• Analyze the ways we talk to and about students so that it reflects our belief in their genius.

Academic Excellence Area of Focus

Academic excellence AREA OF FOCUS:

Mathematical Thinking and Communication

Academic excellence Goal:

1. 100% of all students will make academic progress in mathematical communication as measured by at least one level of growth on a four point grade level rubric. The growth will measure students’ capacity to clearly explain and justify their reasoning using numbers and symbols, pictures and models, and/or tools and touch. This will be measured by growth from a fall baseline to a late spring assessment.

(Please note that teachers may also use an anecdotal records/portfolio approach to gathering student data instead of through a singular assessment.)

2. In 100% of our classrooms, student talk is central to mathematical learning as measured by teacher formal and informal observations, planning and notes.

Key Strategies:

Item 1.

•Utilize the inquiry cycle on professional days to regularly dive deeply into student work every six weeks.

- What do we want our students to learn?

-How will we know when our students have learned it?

-What will we do when students haven’t learned it?

-What will we do when students have learned it?

•We believe that our best work as educators happens when we collaborate in intentional ways. This includes using the cycle of inquiry in examining student work and reflecting on next steps every six weeks.

•Administrators will offer regular and intentional time for staff to collaborate both with and across grade levels.

•Administrators will support the work of teachers through math professional development every six weeks.

•Intentional focus on number talks, math congress, spotlighting student thinking and sharing

•Purposeful instruction, interpretation and break down of the launch and mathematical tasks for all learners

•Strategic mathematical partnerships and small groups

•Support of subitizing and automaticity through games and intervention fluency kits as needed

•Creation and use of student-friendly math language checklists and anchor charts

Item 2.

•Specific strategies and structures are in place in classrooms to facilitate participation and meaning making by all students (e.g. small group work, partner talk, writing, modeling, etc.)

•Math talks, congress, and spotlighting student work

•Strategic groups and partnerships

•Purposeful instruction to interpret mathematical tasks

•Increase math fluency through games and the intervention fluency kits.

•Reflection and self evaluation by students at the classroom level

•Staff will review our commitments quarterly.

•Feedback is provided by administrators after teacher observations that is specifically focused on growing student talk/thinking.

Collaboration Area of Focus

Collaboration Area of Focus:

Community Collaboration Projects

collaboration Goals:

1. Jacob Wismer will partner with the Sunset High School student leadership team to provide classroom support and enriching experiences for our student community. We are also seeking a potential partnership with our neighbor, Stoller Middle School this year.

2. We will continue our collaboration with Bethany and Cedar Mill Libraries with an emphasis on procuring resources and fostering community connections through reading.

Key Strategies:

Item 1.

•Survey teachers for classroom support and determine mentor/mentee potential for individual volunteers.

•Admin team and counselor will meet regularly with the activities director at SHS to explore additional opportunities, including holiday help, for families in need.

•Utilize 5th grade Principal’s Student Advisory Groups to generate ideas for future partnerships.

•Schedule and brainstorm partnership opportunities with Stoller Middle School. Plan at least one event for the 2022-2023 school year.

Item 2.

•We will maintain frequent contact and collaboration with library staff members Kris Neville and Marianne Coalson with the goal of cultivating energy and excitement about reading and libraries. This includes procuring grants for books, promoting book check out and engaging our JW community with their incentive programs.

•Continue to include Bethany & Cedar Mill Libraries at community and school events when relevant.

•Distribute County library cards to those students who do not yet have them.

Date of Last Revision: November 21, 2022

District Goal: WE empower all students to achieve post-high school success.

WE Expect Excellence

WE teach students knowledge and skills for our evolving world.

WE seek, support, and recognize world-class employees.

WE Innovate

WE engage students with a variety of relevant and challenging learning experiences.

WE create learning environments that promote student achievement.

WE Embrace Equity

WE build honest, safe, and inclusive relationships with our diverse students and their families.

WE provide needed support so that every student succeeds.

WE Collaborate

WE work and learn in teams to understand student needs and improve learning outcomes.

WE partner with our community to educate and serve students.

Beaverton Schools

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School Learning Plan

Jacob Wismer Elementary School

Our Story

Equity Area of Focus

Equity AREA OF FOCUS:

Equity Goal:

Key Strategies:

Academic Excellence Area of Focus

Academic excellence AREA OF FOCUS:

Academic excellence Goal:

Key Strategies:

Collaboration Area of Focus

Collaboration Area of Focus:

collaboration Goals:

Key Strategies:

District Goal: WE empower all students to achieve post-high school success.

WE Expect Excellence

WE Innovate

WE Embrace Equity

WE Collaborate

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