Casserian Engeri

All the children are well.

This is the greeting and response that we learned at our annual back-to-school professional development this year. Each year the director of elementary education for our district gives each of us a phrase to hang up somewhere to remind us of our mission. Last year it was "Mess with my pigs" in reference to the Bible story of the pigs who had the demons driven out of them and went over the cliff. There was actually a practical application in that for us, and boy did they mess with our pigs last year!

This year we are seeing the fruits of our labors. I posted an article on facebook in anticipation of our mid-year universal computer screening and the dread that will accompany it as we begin to wade through the mountain of data it will create. I hate thinking of my students as "numbers". But if I have to, it is good to know that they all are where they need to be. Only one student missed the cut scores. That is incredibly good news.

Along those same lines. We had a literacy cadre meeting after school this week and our principal shared the reading level data for our district. Our school had the biggest gains in first grade of any other school! My principal was almost in tears. It is pretty amazing the progress I'm seeing this year. I can only take some of the credit, as the kids are the ones doing the work.