All Granby Public Schools staff engaged in a high energy convocation to explore our theme, Connect. Believe. Achieve, and prepare for the year ahead. Our Granby Teacher of the Year, Kristin LaFlamme, addressed her colleagues with a reminder about the power of teamwork and connection. We also celebrated the 2024 Granby Public Schools Staff Person of the Year, Bridget Sullivan, one of the GMHS campus supervisors.
The first day of school with students was extremely positive and there were smiles and laughter at every level. It is wonderful to have our classrooms, hallways and playgrounds filled with the sounds of learning and joy. This is sure to be a great year!
Getting to work on our goals
At the board of education Meeting on Sept. 4, I shared my superintendent goals for the year. While work will continue in all six strategic goal areas, this year’s focus will support the first two goals for student achievement and communication. First, I will work to:
Improve student achievement, academic performance and opportunity at all grade levels and for all ability levels and decrease achievement gaps on the path to college and career readiness.
Student achievement remains our top priority as we look to improve math scores across the district and ensure every student makes the necessary growth on state standardized assessments. In the second year of this important goal for students’ overall growth and academic achievement, we will:
• Expand use of vertical surfaces and Building Thinking Classroom strategies.
• Analyze data and monitor progress for each student to inform decision making.
• Integrate small group instruction for deficit areas across all grade levels.
• Embed SAT-like math practice in both high school math and science classes.
• Support the new middle school math interventionist to develop and implement effective materials for intervention.
• Examine secondary support structures within our current schedule to identify improvement.
The district is entering year two of our communications plan and is making progress in streamlining our communications to help families find the information they seek. The district website has been improved and information is shared with families in a timely fashion through the Thrillshare app, with the community through The Granby Drummer, and with all audiences through the askGPS blog. The following goal remains a priority:
Enhance communication and build trusting relationships with all stakeholders.
Our focus for this second year of the communications plan will be to:
• Increase available information and details for school events and GPS curriculum, strategic goals, equity work, and policies related to student conduct.
• Create and share a public and internal Addressing School Concerns process chart to help all audiences get their questions answered and problems resolved.
• Train administrators and content creators on writing for today’s audiences to improve readability and to engage targeted audiences.
• Share school successes by sharing engaging student and staff videos to help tell the district’s story.
• Prepare audiences for emergencies by sharing a clear description of crisis communication protocols with appropriate audiences.
Summative Assessment Results
The summative assessment results from the Smarter Balanced and Next Generation Science and the school day SAT were shared with the Board of Education on Sept. 18, and the entire presentation can be found on our district homepage. Parents of students who tested last spring in grades 3–8, and 11 received a summative assessment report in the mail the week of Sept. 23. Please reach out to your child’s teacher if you have any questions.
Districtwide we are seeing areas of improvement when compared to last year. We are above the state average in every area and all students are making growth. In some grade levels, students have made significant gains particularly in English Language Arts. Our math scores continue to be an area of focus for improvement and therefore across the district this remains a priority for all students.