River's Edge School Motto, Mission Statement, and Teacher and Student Success Plan
Motto: Every day is a new day!
Mission Statement:
At River’s Edge School our mission is to provide a safe and positive learning environment that supports students’ success in the least restrictive setting possible.
We will accomplish this mission by:
- Delivering data-driven behavior programs with consistency to facilitate positive behavioral skills across settings.
- Engaging students in high-quality individualized academic instruction that promotes measurable growth.
- Collaborating with school, home, and community resources to foster self-advocacy and social/emotional wellbeing.
2024-2025 Teacher and Student Success Plan:
River’s Edge School is committed to continuous improvement in teaching and student learning. Our goal is to increase teachers' capacity to engage students in high-leverage strategies and effective behavioral programs. In academics, we expect to see at least 50% of students demonstrate typical or above typical growth from fall to spring on Growth Measure scores.
Our 2024-2025 Teacher and Student Success Plan focuses on the areas of coaching, professional development, and school-based initiatives, as outlined below.
1. Coaching: Licensed staff will participate in coaching cycles with our instructional coach or teacher specialist in the areas of academic engagement and high-leverage strategies. They will also be given the option of participating in an additional coaching cycle in the area of behavior management.
Action Steps
- All licensed teachers will participate in at least one coaching cycle. A complete coaching cycle will include a goal-setting meeting, initial observation, coaching meeting, follow up observation, and final debrief. At the conclusion of a successful coaching cycle, in which the teacher demonstrates improvement on the selected target skill, the teacher will receive a stipend funded through Land Trust.
- Language arts teachers will be required to learn about a group contingency called “The Good Behavior Game.” This strategy has been shown to increase engagement and student response rates, as measured by our school psychologist in a study conducted at River’s Edge. Language arts teachers will have the option to implement the strategy and receive feedback on their implementation, which will be a second coaching cycle. The option for training and implementation of the Good Behavior Game will also be made available to all other content teachers on a voluntary basis. At the completion of a second coaching cycle, in which a teacher demonstrates improvement on implementing the group contingency of the Good Behavior Game, the teacher will receive a stipend funded through Land Trust.
- A stipend will be paid to those facilitating coaching cycles, which may include our instructional coach, teacher specialist, and/or school psychologist. This stipend will be paid through Land Trust.
2. Professional Development: We will provide the opportunity for teachers and staff to attend PD in the areas of core academic content and behavior management.
Action Steps
- We will use a portion of the TSSA funds to cover the cost of registration for applicable PDs.
- We will access district resources for training during selected faculty meetings and PD Days.
3. School-Based Initiatives:
3.1 Support Behavioral Progress of River's Edge Students: Our main goal for supporting student behavior in the current school year is to implement improvements to the River's Edge level system. We will also continue to partner with the creators of our digital dashboard to align the updated physical point card with the digital point card entry, so our dashboard reflects our updated system.
Action Steps
- We held summer workgroups with a cross-section of our staff to restructure the River's Edge level system. Teachers and ESPs were compensated for their time.
- We paid a stipend to an outside consultant to update our digital behavior dashboard to align with the new system.
3.2 Support the Academic Progress of River's Edge Students: We will continue to provide a stipend to our licensed teacher who manages the academic database. Additionally, we will continue to provide students ongoing access to high-quality programs to supplement core instruction, such as Lexia.
Action Step
- We will pay a licensed teacher a stipend for managing our Academic Database.
- We purchased Lexia licenses for our students to supplement core language arts instruction.