Stretching Resources

     While we are thrilled at the growth in enrollment at Cashton Elementary School which, for likely the first time, has a higher enrollment than the high school, we have perhaps stretched our building in ways its designers hadn't anticipated.  We are fortunate that the community has provided an outstanding facility for our students and helped it to improve with changing instructional practices, the values of smaller class sizes, and the importance of understanding the benefits of technology for future success.  In the pursuit of instructional practices that target the individual needs of students, there is an increased need for space beyond the traditional classroom walls.  The staff has demonstrated considerable flexibility and embraced creative solutions, but each time the building is stretched further, there are fewer options remaining.  Students today are learning is a safe and time-tested environment that is appropriate for their needs.  The question at hand, however, is whether the resources of today will be ideal for tomorrow's students.  Consider a few ways we have stretched our building to support its largest student body in decades.

What was once an employee lunch area, now serves multiple purposes including housing copying services, centralized printing, laminating, materials preparation, and instruction...and it continues to be the employee lunch area.  Overlapping the uses of this space freed space in other parts of the building for instruction.

This year, students outgrew the seating capacity in the cafeteria.  Serving lunch in three shifts and borrowing tables from the high school has enabled a quality, yet full, lunchroom, but there are few options for future growth.  Nearly 250 of the 300 students participate in the school lunch program each day.

What was once the copier room is now the office and instructional classroom for Speech and Language services.  This creative solution provided the privacy and quiet environment needed to support the needs of students.  The impressive job Mrs. Miller did in transforming the space was much appreciated.

 

The original stage built in 1964 now serves as in instructional classroom for reading and writing classes.  The square footage is well used to provide more individualized instruction in a safe environment, but the performances by elementary students are certainly missed.

Noticeable to many families is the dramatic increase in class size at grades four and five.  After years of experiencing smaller classes due to SAGE, a state funded program that supports small classes in grades K-3, fourth grade students are having a different experience.  This year, students are learning to succeed with 27 students in each fourth grade classroom and 24 in each fifth grade classroom.  While that may be below class sizes in large districts across the country, it is far different from what Elementary families have valued and appreciated in past years.  With all classrooms currently used for instruction, the building could not house a third section. 

Mrs. Johnson has done an commendable job of encouraging families to read with their children in the library.  That space is well used!  The increasing needs for housing technology tools has pushed the space farther than originally planned.  Thankfully the space was designed with growth in mind, but it is clear that the LMC is often at full capacity.

Other responses to growth include the doubled classroom at grade three that includes two teachers to support a larger class size that is still within SAGE limits, the dual use of a small room that houses both the curriculum director and the server for the building's computer network, and a larger classroom that was split with a portable room divider to meet the needs of two instructional specialists.  As the community grows, the elementary will stretch, flex, and adapt to the fullest extent to support students.  The question however exists, how much farther will it stretch? 

Welcome Back!

With the first two weeks complete, students, families and staff have made it through the transition from summer vacation to the excitement and promise of a new school year. We begin a season of successes, challenges, change and growth, all against the backdrop of the ultimate goals of student achievement and social growth.

This is a year of great potential and certainly one of new experiences. As we welcome one of the largest groups of students to the elementary in decades, we also welcome eight staff members, stretching opportunities and facilities further. We thank our staff and maintenance crew for the many days of preparation and flexibility needed to help our resources meet the expanding need.

This year, you will also notice the local impacts of several State and Federal reform initiatives especially in the areas of curriculum and assessment. For better or worse, it is clear that much more is expected of our children at even younger ages. Within two years, all math and English-Language Arts curriculum will be rewritten to align with the Common Core State Standards and the newest version of testing accountability for students and schools will be in place. The adoption of Math Expressions is a visible result of changing expectations.

Families will soon see a public report of state testing results from last Fall’s WKCE. Performance expectations on the otherwise unchanged test have risen significantly which will certainly make nearly all schools in Wisconsin appear as though students have suddenly become less proficient. Data from the past will be remeasured with a different stick.

Each year brings change and challenges. Teachers, families, and students have always worked together to adapt and succeed. I would like to remind everyone that parents are teachers also! You are the first and most important teacher in your child’s life. The environment you provide for your child makes a critical difference. We thank you for your many efforts and sacrifices in pursuit of success for your children, especially taking the time to read to them every day. There is no better way to support your child’s academic progress.

We encourage communication and cooperation. School staff and parents share the common goal of providing children with the experiences necessary to enable students to achieve their dreams. Together, we make the very real difference.



-Mr. Alderson

Meet the Teacher Night at Cashton Elementary School

Meet the Teacher Night at Cashton Elementary School

     Cashton Elementary will be conducting a “Meet the Teacher” night on Thursday, August 30th from 4:30 PM until 6:30 PM for students (5K-Grade 5) and their families.  The purpose of the event is to help families to become more familiar with the school, the curriculum, and teachers with the hopes of supporting a strong connection between home and school.  This partnership is essential to the learning process and helps teachers better meet the unique learning needs of each child. 

     With exception of the time scheduled for grade-level meetings, Cashton Elementary teachers will be available in their classrooms for open house visits with parents and their children.  Parents have a wealth of knowledge about their children’s social, emotional, and academic needs.  In many cases, they will be able to help their child’s teacher better meet their needs by helping them understand their individual strengths, challenges, and interests. 

     Grade-level teaching teams will conduct a 15-minute group meeting to provide an overview of the skills and topics to be addressed, explore curriculum handbooks, explain classroom routines, share topics that are unique to the grade level, and answer any general questions families may have.  This meeting is also an opportunity to meet the additional teachers who will be working with each child.  Sessions are staggered in the interests of families with more than one child in the elementary school.  It is understood that some families may have a conflict with the assigned time and will not be able to attend. 

Scheduled times are as follows:  5K 4:30-4:45, Grade 1 4:50-5:05, Grade 2 5:10-5:25, Grade 3 5:30-5:45, Grade 4 5:50-6:05, Grade 5 6:10-6:25. 

(Note:  4K families will be scheduled for individual meetings with their child’s teacher and should contact the Elementary office if they have not received the orientation letter by late August.)  Families are welcome to bring their children’s school supplies to this event to lighten their backpacks on the first day of school.

The New Summer School



Video Game Design - Gamestar Mechanic



"Summer School" is a concept that for some conjures images of struggling or disengaged students battling through sweltering summer days in a school library who are trying to convince the assigned school teacher that there was just enough remediation work completed to replace a sub par grade.  Granted, that is a likely reality in a minority of circumstances, but summer school has become so much more.  One must remember, during the summer, the vast majority of summer students are choosing to spend their fleeting vacation days intentionally in a classroom.

In contrast to the teaching and learning environment during the traditional school calendar so strongly influenced by outside factors, summer school remains something of a academic laboratory for teachers and students alike.  While the expectation of learning and excellence doesn't rest in the summer, there is an opportunity to try something new, expand or improve past practice, experiment with current technologies, and attempt to connect to and build upon academic interests with less fear of embarrassment if all doesn't go as hoped.  It has become an environment where failure is recognized as an element of learning and an unavoidable side effect of the pursuit of innovation and experimentation.  The result is an increased willingness among students to engage and explore and for teachers to offer newly-created classes and learning opportunities .

Already this summer, through the coordination of our district summer school program, one that has expanded from three weeks to twelve over the last five years based on the ever-increasing student interest and participation, I have witnessed the enthusiasm of our students as they have explored interests ranging from the staples of reading and math to the enrichment opportunities of health and wellness classes, band, agriculture, robotics, graphic design, and video game creation with so much more yet to come.  I am proud of our students and teachers for their enthusiasm for learning, exploring, attempting, designing, and engaging.



Lego Robotics Programming



Lego Design Challenge

Couldn't be more proud of our third grade team...

Schools and organizations are infinitely more successful when talented individuals are enabled and empowered to use their unique talents and strengths to achieve a shared mission and vision.  Recently I was approached by one of our outstanding teachers who had an idea.  Being a tech savvy, creative, and outgoing teacher, he saw an opportunity to teach his students how use technology to share a message that mattered, the message that bullying is destructive, hurtful, and not welcome by students at Cashton.  The idea, create a lip dub that promoted our vision and value of being a "bully free" school.  (A lip dub is a type of video that combines lip synching and audio dubbing to make a music video. It is made by filming individuals or a group of people lip synching while listening to a song or any recorded audio then dubbing over it in post editing with the original audio of the song. -thanks Wikipedia) As soon as he finished explaining to me what a lip dub was, and I heard his enthusiasm as he shared the plan, I knew the project had merit and would be a great learning experience for kids no matter how the actual project turned out.  At worst, students would learn another use of the abundant technology tools in the district and reaffirm their beliefs that bullying is not part of who we want to be.  Today I saw the end product, and I couldn't be more proud of what he, with the support of his excellent and supportive colleagues and a top-notch group of third graders, was able to teach and create even as the school year comes to a close.  Nice work, Mr. Brown!

(Wondering about the T-shirts...they were created by students in the high school innovations lab learning valuable job skills.  The text is not quite clear in the video, but the message is still strong..."Hey bully,  Who do you think you are?")

Ooblek - Fun or Physics?

Ooblek...have you heard of it?  I hadn't either until I discovered a group of first grade students at Cashton Elementary were planning to use the substance as part of a discovery lesson.  What group of engaged and excited six and seven year olds wouldn't be interested in non-Newtonian fluids?  Students were deep in thought as they made predictions, observations, and formed hypothesis about the bowl of strange pink...something in the front of the classroom.  Sure, it was just a basic mixture of cornstarch, food coloring, and water, but to challenge the students to understand a substance that isn't classified as a solid, liquid, or a gas certainly made for an interesting, if somewhat messy, first grade science class.

Digital Cameras and 1st Grade Geometry

Digital Geometry Scavenger Hunt

 Cashton 1st grades students were able to demonstrate their understandings of geometric shapes by finding real-world examples and taking a digital photograph.  After finding and photographing an example of each of the polygons the students had been recently reviewing, they shared the images with their teacher...no worksheets here, just a group of engaged students applying their learning and tech skills.

Formative Assessment - How did I do?