From our February Newsletter:
This month I am pleased to be able to inform the Midvale community that our school has come out of turnaround status. For the last several years, Midvale has been working closely with the Canyons School District, the State Board of Education and consultants from the University of Utah to improve educational outcomes for our students. Two years ago, we started developing a restructuring plan for our school that included the switch to the two-teacher model, introduced new programs and curriculum to daily instruction, created a social emotional support team to help students, and helped us narrow our focus on providing solid core instruction on important concepts in reading and math.
We have come a long way since we started with this new plan
last year. Our students scored better than ever on benchmark assessments that
we gave throughout the year. Just before the winter break I was informed that
our growth on RISE testing last year was above the state average in all
categories. We went from “critical needs” to “commendable” on our state
accountability report in just one year. I am also pleased to report that our
benchmark assessments this year continue to show high levels of learning and
progress in reading and math. We are excited about the changes and grateful for
the support of our community through this process. We know how important it is
to have parents and families engaged in learning with teachers and students.
Thank you for making education a priority.
Just because we are no longer a turnaround school doesn’t
mean that we are finished working to make Midvale a better place. Our goal is
to continue pushing to improve teaching and learning so that our students are
performing just as well as any other school in the Canyons District. We want to
do this because we want our students to have every opportunity to succeed in
middle school, high school, and beyond. As teachers and staff of Midvale
Elementary, we look forward to working with you to make sure that this goal
becomes a reality.
Sincerely,
Mr. Watts
