From Our Director

Happy Fall Palouse Prairie families! I am happy to continue my Director's Notes during the 23/24 school year. In my notes, I will share our Design Principle for the month, construction updates, and other important school systems information that needs to be shared. As always, feel free to call or email to schedule a time to meet.

Design Principle(s):

This month we are focusing on two Design Principles:

Success and Failure: All students need to be successful if they are to build the confidence and capacity to take risks and meet increasingly difficult challenges. But it is also important for students to learn from their failures, to persevere when things are hard, and to learn to turn disabilities into opportunities.

Responsibility for Learning: Learning is both a personal process of discovery and a social activity. Everyone learns both individually and as part of a group. Every aspect of an EL Education school encourages both children and adults to become increasingly responsible for directing their own personal and collective learning.

The fourth grade crew will share how they demonstrate Success and Failure and Responsibility for learning at our October 27th Community Circle starting at 8:30. Feel free to join us!

Construction Update:

Construction on our expanded Multi Purpose Room and Mezzanine for PE/Adventure storage and office space continues at PPCS. As it always seems to work with construction, we have had a few delays that have postponed the completion to the New Year. In the last few weeks, a lot of progress has been made. The concrete slab was poured, the walls have started to go up and electricity is wired. We are happy to see things moving forward. Idaho Stage Construction and the school have a plan in place to ensure that the exterior walls are up prior to complete deconstruction of the current wall. This will ensure that the PE/Lunch room will be temperature controlled and dry.

Student Leadership at PPCS

Our Middle School Crew has taken on the responsibility of creating a student leadership team. As a crew they have decided to name this team the Quail Council. After reaching out to experts in the field, including our own PPCS Board, our Quail Council has decided to run similarly to a school board. Each Middle School grade level will have three student leaders. The board will meet twice a month and will create committees to research and implement procedures and systems that will benefit our school as a whole. We are excited to collaborate with this incredible group of Middle School Leaders as positive change agents for our school and to incorporate student voice into our school operations.

Multi Tiered Systems of Support

We use MTSS to support all students in academic and character development. Throughout the school year, teachers assess all students for proficiency and growth toward meeting grade level standards for English Language Arts (ELA), Math, and Habits of Scholarship (Responsibility, Collaboration, and Craftsmanship) that guide students’ approach to academic learning. The MTSS team — comprised of the Special Education Teacher, Title 1 Teacher, School Counselor, Executive Director, Instructional Coach, and a classroom teacher representative — meets three times a year with each classroom teacher to identify students who could benefit from specific interventions. The MTSS team reviews formative assessment data, discusses students’ emerging and ongoing needs, and plans specific interventions to help students demonstrate growth in their academic and social learning.

Small group intervention starts as early as the first week of school. In October, the staff spends a PD day deeply analyzing current data to inform school wide goals, classroom goals, and individual student goals. Based on this data we form tiered intervention specific to student needs. We will be notifying parents with a letter if your student will be receiving specific intervention. In order to support your student in developing specific skills, we will offer them a daily intervention in addition to the regular literacy lessons in class. This intervention will be provided by the classroom teacher, title 1 teacher, or special education teacher during your classroom’s designated small group time. The intervention time is a dedicated instructional block and students will not miss any instruction as all students in the classroom will be receiving small group instruction at this time. If you received a notification your student is receiving intervention and are interested in learning more about MTSS and reading support your child is receiving at school please join us on October 27th 9:00-9:30 at PPCS for an annual Title I and MTSS meeting. If you aren’t able to attend at that time, you will have access to the presentation after the meeting.

Thank you for taking the time to read this unusually lengthy Director's Note.

Warmly,

Sara Beggs, PhD

Executive Director

Email: office@palouseprairieschool.org
Website: https://palouseprairieschool.org/
Location: 406 Powers Avenue, Moscow, ID, USA
Phone: 208-882-3684
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PPCS.org/