From Tuesday April 3 through Tuesday April 10, the Alaska Standard Based Assessments (SBA) Test and High School Graduation Qualifying Exam (HSGQE) will be administered at all Nome Schools. I wanted to take some time to share this year’s testing schedule and explain the importance of this test. There are several things you can do to help your child be more successful. A few of those items will be listed.

The SBA and HSGQE tests are very important for children and the schools. Results of each test become a part of student’s permanent record. The State Department of Education maintains a data bank of this information ensuring it follows children through their educational career. The school system and the school refer to the results of this test when planning school programs for the upcoming year. Our school and school system established key educational goals for this year based on last year’s test results. Finally, federal and state agencies use test results to rate the schools. As you see, these tests are important for students and the school. Children’s efforts really do matter.

The Testing Schedule For This Year Is As Follows:

- Tuesday, April 3 – Reading

- Wednesday, April 4 – Writing

- Thursday, April 5 – Math

- Tuesday, April 10 – Science for grades 4, 8, and 10

Testing Details:

- 3rd through 9th take the SBA Test

- 10th grade plus some 11th and 12th graders take the HSGQE

- One test is given per day

- School will continue and students will be released at the normal time on test days

- Breakfast will be served on test days *THANKS to Nome Eskimo Community, PTSA and Rotary for supporting breakfast on test days!

*In case of an emergency and a child must miss one of the tests, they will be scheduled for a make-up test. Hopefully, this will be avoided, as this would require a child to take their test separate from the rest of their classmates. The last make-up test will be given April 16. There are No Make-Up tests for students taking the HSGQE.

What Can You Do To Help Your Child For The Test?

There are several things that can be done at home to help your child come prepared for the test.

1. Appointments such as those to the doctor or dentist should be scheduled around the dates of the test.

2. Discuss the tests with your child. When parents take the time to explain that these tests are important for them and the school, it helps children be more serious about it.

3. Be sure your child gets a good night’s rest EVERY night of the testing week. This factor alone can be the key difference in a good or bad test day.

4. Be sure your child gets to school at the beginning of the school day. Breakfast will be served and teachers will be sharing important details for the test.

I hope this information is helpful as we all prepare for SBA week. Thanks so much for your continued support of our community’s educational programs and your school!

Mike Brawner

Superintendent

Nome Public Schools

School Funding at the State Capital

A very important bill is now under consideration in the Alaska Legislature. This bill will effect education in Nome and across the whole State. Please consider sending an email in support of this bill.

The bill is called Senate Bill 171 or simply SB 171. This bill provides money to schools through the State of Alaska funding formula. This funding formula is called the Base Student Allocation or simply the BSA. SB 171 proposes to increase school funding through the BSA by the following amounts:

$125 per student (2012/2013)

$130 per student (2013/2014)

$135 per student (2014/2015)

A key feature of this bill is that it locks in these increases to student funding while other means of providing funds to schools are only one-time allotments. One-time allotments may help some school districts across the State for a current year but one-time funds inhibits the ability to plan for the future. SB 171 provides funds that remain in place supporting, not only the current school year, but also the years to come.

SB 171 passed through the Senate with much support. The Senate Finance Committee voted in support of the bill with an 18 (yes) to 2 (no) vote. At the current time, the House Finance Committee is holding the bill. Leadership in the State of Alaska House of Representatives sound like they are against SB 171. They sound like they want to only grant one-time funds, one year at a time, leaving school districts across the State unsure of ANY future funding. The House truly needs to support SB 171 to secure financial increases for schools for years to come.

Governor Parnell has repeated the same message. He speaks in favor of one-time funding for schools and against securing funds for schools for the future. The Governor truly needs your encouragement to change his position and support SB 171.

School Funding Facts:

· The State of Alaska has provided No Increase to the Base Student Allocation (BSA) in the last two years. This means, while inflation has increased, the BSA has remained “flat”.

· Alaska has dropped from 10th in the nation in the amount it pays per student in 2004 to 22nd in the nation in 2010.

· Alaska ranks 2nd (after Hawaii) in the overall cost of living.

· 34% of the 2011 Nome Schools graduates qualified for the Governor’s Performance Scholarship while only 29% of total State graduates qualified.

Additional Funding Facts:

Support SB 171:

Should you choose to email either the House of Representatives Finance Committee and/or Governor Parnell, their email information is provided below.

House Finance Committee Email Addresses:

CHAIR: Representative_Bill-Stoltze@legis.state.ak.us




Representative_Bill_Thomas@legis.state.ak.us

Representative_Anna_Fairclough@legis.state.ak.us

Representative_Bryce_Edgmon@legis.state.ak.us


Representative_Reggie_Joule@legis.state.ak.us

Representative_Mark_Neuman@legis.state.ak.us

Representative_Tammie_Wilson@legis.state.ak.us

Representative_David_Guttenberg@legis.state.ak.us

Representative_Les_Gara@legis.state.ak.us

Representative_Mike_Hawker@legis.state.ak.us

Governor Parnell’s Email Address:

Governor@alaska.gov

Thank you in advance for your thoughtful consideration of this important topic.

M. Brawner

Mike Brawner, Superintendent

Nome Public Schools

Nome Public Schools is considering the best placement for 6th Grade for the 2012-2013 School Year. Community input is greatly appreciated to assist in making a final decision. Please consider the following presentation and complete the one question survey to provide input remotely. If you have the time available, please attend the community meeting at Nome Elementary School on February 7 at 6:00pm to be able to hear the presentation in person.

The survey will be closed February 14. Once the survey is completed, responses will be posted in this location.

Click on this link to open the presentation.




Provide your input by completing this one question survey:
6th Grade Planning Survey


SURVEY RESULTS ARE LINKED BELOW:



Thank you for taking the time to contribute to this process.

Mike Brawner, Superintendent
Nome Public Schools

Courses Developed for Pathways in January 2012

The College/Career Pathways work at Nome-Beltz is making progress. This work has involved a survey of student interests around courses considered possible to offer as early as the Spring Semester of the current school year. This survey revealed high interest in the area of health related careers including Emergency Trauma Training. There was also significant student interest in taking a class in Conversational Inupiaq. Nome Public Schools and UAF Northwest Campus have worked together with other local organizations to develop the following course offering. The development and offering of the following courses is considered a very important step in the work of establishing clear College/Career Pathways for students attending Nome-Beltz.

Conversational Inupiaq; ESK F106

Students learn to speak and understand basic words and phrases of the Inupiaq Eskimo language of the Northwest Artic. Instruction is thematic and the focus is on communications for everyday situations.

Introduction to the Health Field & First Aid/CPR HLTH; F105 & HLTH F122

This course will introduce students to the roles and responsibilities of various members and units of the health care career field. Students explore the wide variety of health care jobs available and the education required to enter them. Upon completion of this course, students will be invited to participate in summer internships at Norton Sound Health Corporation.

Professionalism in the Workplace & First Aid/CPR; HLTH F110 & HLTH F122

Students will earn CPR, First Aid and Health Care Provider Certifications for adults, children and infant patients. This course will help students learn the skills needed to ensure success for the professional secretary, receptionist and medical worker. Includes a fully funded trip to the UAF Campus in Fairbanks to kickoff the class.

Emergency Trauma Training First Responder; EMS F152

Students will learn the basic emergency care knowledge and skills needed in order to provide emergency care when arriving as the first person on a scene. Once fully certified as an ETT, students become eligible to join the Nome Volunteer Ambulance Department that involves driving the ambulance, participating in training drills and responding to emergencies.

The development of College/Career Pathways will directly address a community desire to have a wider variety of courses offered in areas relevant to student futures in either college or careers. College/Career Pathways are also intended to address the low graduate rate of 62% documented for the 2010-2011 school year. Being able to offer these courses the Spring Semester of this school year signals an important progress in this work.

Targeted Accelerated Growth

The Read 90 program is designed to help students read at grade level by the time they complete 3rd grade. There is an associated understanding that students enter school reading at different levels. While some students read at high levels, others read at lower levels. The Read 90 program intends to help students reading at high levels continue to read at high levels while assisting lower level students to catch up. At the heart of assisting students to catch up is the Targeted Accelerated Growth Loop, or TAG Loop.

The TAG Loop consists of four steps:

1) Diagnostic testing

2) Proportional increases in instructional time

3) Focused teaching to the deficient sub-skill

4) Retesting to assure that learning has actually occurred

· Diagnostic testing is used early in the school year to determine the reading ability of all students. Reading materials are then selected for each student based on the level of their reading ability. School staff tested students in the first weeks of school to identify each student’s reading ability.

· Proportional increases in instructional time allows students more time to improve their reading ability. Schedules at Nome Elementary School have been adjusted to provide students extended reading time.

· Focused teaching to the deficient sub-skill is used to address the specific reading needs of students. This step in the TAG Loop again refers to the use of the proper materials for students based on their individual reading ability. The two main reading material sources for the Read 90 program include the Houghton Mifflin and Reading Mastery Reading/Language Arts Series.

· Retesting is used to monitor student progress during the year. The Read 90 Program uses a Mastery Model for achievement. Students are required to learn lessons to a mastery level before they advance to the next lesson. This model helps to assure actual student learning has occurred.

Teachers and staff have always worked hard to help all boys and girls receive an excellent education. Through implementation of the Read 90 Program, with the associated Targeted Accelerated Growth Loop, special attention is now being used to help students who enter school with lower reading abilities read at high levels while helping students with higher abilities continue to grow.

Nome-Beltz College/Career Pathway Program – Part 1

College/Career Pathways are courses of study taken by high school students leading to either college programs or immediate entry into careers. The goal of college/career pathways is to help students explore college and/or careers that follow completion of their high school education. Pathways can be established for students as early as the middle grades. More often, students enter a college/career pathway their freshman year of high school.

A number of factors have combined leading to an increased interest in college/career pathways at Nome-Beltz. Factors include, but are not limited to:

- The need for a wider variety of classes identified during the development of the NPS Strategic Plan in the Fall of 2010.

- The 2010-2011 NPS District Report Card reflecting a graduation rate of 62%.

- Many sources informing that relevance in education is an important factor encouraging students to complete school and move into either college or careers.

The development of college/career pathways leading to either college study or careers in the local region are practical methods of addressing these and other similar factors.

With information in-hand, the school has opened discussions with local organizations to explore how initial steps could be taken to increase the number of pathways available to students attending Nome-Beltz. Northwest Campus facilitates a wealth of pathway type courses. It was decided that an exploration of student interests in a small group of these courses would be a reasonable first-step in expanding the programs offered at Nome-Beltz. There is much work to be completed to have fully defined college/career pathways at Nome-Beltz. Gathering student interests in possible pathways is simply the first step.

Completed on September 20, 2011

The 2011-2012 school year marks the year that the Nome Public Schools sets off on a journey in which it will implement a resolution adopted by the local Board of Education on February 22, 2011. This resolution states that Nome Public Schools officially adopted the following Reading Goal: “90% of our third graders will read at or above grade level by the end of 3rd grade within three years (2014), as measured by the 40th percentile on Measures of Academic Progress (MAP).” This important journey will take place mainly at the Nome Elementary School (NES) where Kindergarten through 3rd grade students will be taught Reading based on their current reading skill level. This effort has been named the Read 90 Program. To understand a little about this program, it is important to know the source of the basic program material. It is also helpful to get a basic comparison of schools that have initiated a similar program as the Read 90 Program. This basic introduction of the Read 90 Program is provided in order to help more understand this important work hoping many will join NES on this journey of helping 3rd graders read at or above grade level.

The basic source material for the Read 90 Program comes from what has become known locally in Nome as the “Green Book”. This book, written by Fielding, Kerr and Rosier, (2007)1, is based on a Reading program implemented by the Kennewick School District in Kennewick, Washington. This school district had thirteen elementary schools who, from 1996 to 2006, worked to meet the same Reading Goal as that adopted by Nome Public Schools. Beginning with 57% of their 3rd grade students reading at or above grade level in 1996, after implementing their local Reading Program, in 2006 89.89% of their 3rd grade students were reading at or above grade level. The Green Book has been used to help design the Read 90 Program implemented at NES. It will continue to serve as a guiding document in the years of implementation to come.

It is heartening to consider a basic comparison of the elementary schools in the Kennewick School District and NES. The elementary schools in the Kennewick School District had an average of 57% of students completing 3rd grade reading at or above grade level when they implemented their Reading Program. Nome Schools used the same assessment as the Kennewick School District used to determine the Reading Level of 3rd grade students. It was found that 61% of 3rd grade students at NES were reading at or above grade level. This is good news. NES will start at a place slightly ahead of the schools in Kennewick who implemented the model NES will follow. Additionally, it is even better to be able to implement a model where the lessons learned from successful schools have been clearly identified. Considering the success of the schools in the Kennewick District is certainly encouraging compared to the starting point of NES.

This basic introduction to the Read 90 Program has been provided in hopes it will bring more understanding to those who have a chance to consider it. Nome Schools has set out on an important journey. The goal is to help students reach or exceed their grade’s Reading Level by the time they complete 3rd grade. It is my sincere hope many will join us on this journey.

1. Fielding, L., Kerr, N., Rosier, P. (2007). Annual growth for all students, catch-up growth for those who are behind. Kennewick: The New Foundation Press.