There’s renewed energy for learning at the Oberon school this year!
The Oberon school board agreed to purchase a new reading curriculum called: Reading Mastery for grades 2-4 along with Corrective Reading for grades 5-8 and UFLI (University of Florida Literacy Institute) for grades K-1.
In addition to that, they hired a school consultant who works with School Improvement. The results have been very encouraging.
Meet Ms. Shelly Hoerer, a school consultant, who got started in this area a few years ago because she had seen the need for some schools to have a person who could really work in-depth with them for a couple of years to organize and build capacity and systems that could help them stay on track and succeed.
Prior to 2021 when she started work as a school consultant, she worked with the North Central Education Cooperative located in Bottineau. She had many duties but focused on School Improvement and Professional Development.
Hoerer was contacted by the superintendent of the Belcourt Public School. At the time their middle school was in TSI (Targeted Supports and Improvement) meaning it was in the bottom 10% of the state in student achievement. She experienced a strong team to work with and according to the NDSA North Dakota Summative Assessment, success was the outcome.
2020-21
Math- 13% of students were proficient
ELA – 25% of students were proficient
2021-22
Math- 18%
ELA- 33%
2022-23
Math- 21%
ELA- 39%
This work and success at the Turtle Mountain Middle School caught the eye of Dr. Wayne Trottier who has been serving the Oberon School as a consultant and administrative advisor.
He and Ms. Hoerer got in touch with each other and sat down with Jordan Brown the principal/superintendent at the Oberon School to discuss what could be done for the Oberon Students, who like Belcourt, were in CSI (Comprehensive Supports and Improvement) and lower in student achievement placing in the bottom percentage of the state.
2023-24 is Oberon’s first year with the new reading curriculum and working with a school consultant and while data is still being collected, results have been showing progress and improvement. (see bar graph)
Note that the bar graph only includes the students who started in the Oberon school system at the beginning of the 2023-24 year in grades 5 -8.
Also note that at the beginning of the year there were 3 of 22 students on College Pathway for their reading fluency and as they head into the last quarter of the school year there are 14 on College Pathway; a significant increase.
The teaching staff have been implementing Reading Mastery in grades 2-4, Corrective Reading in grades 5-8 and UFLI in grades K-1 along with other certified staff providing one on one and small group tutoring.
UFLI is based on an explicit and systematic program of teaching early reading concepts and recommended by the school consultant, Hoerer.
Hoerer is at the school once a week during which she works with the students, completes observations, and goes over data with Brown and the teaching staff.
There is no doubt that the Oberon school board, administration and teaching staff take student achievement seriously and are determined to take action to support the students’ learning and success which they are currently doing.
