Team approach cited for ratings improvement

BOARDMAN — Several factors contributed to the district’s achieving an excellent rating on the state report card, a key one being a more comprehensive team approach.

That was the message Dr. Linda Ross gave at Monday’s board of education meeting.

Ross, the district’s director of instruction, praised teachers for reaching goals that helped make the excellent rating possible.

Last year the district received a designation of continuous improvement; the last time Boardman schools got an excellent rating was during the 2002-03 school year, Ross noted.

The designations are excellent, effective, continuous improvement, academic watch and academic emergency.

The district had a performance index score of 100.4 with 100 or higher needed to qualify for excellence.

Ross said that an emphasis was placed on grade-level meetings in which data from the previous years’ achievement tests were reviewed.

After reviewing the information, teachers of all grades were asked to set goals pertaining to reading and math, Ross pointed out.

People’s written responses provided teachers with better ways to see how they expressed their thinking.

Strategies were then developed to help the kids improve their writing skills across all curriculum areas, she added.