We have had a tremendous start to the school year. I would like to start by congratulating our students and staff in their accomplishment of making Adequately Yearly Progress (AYP). PAS has made AYP as a district and both PAMS and PAHS made AYP as individual buildings in all subgroups tested. AYP calculations are a combination of student growth and standard achievement.  We should be very proud of the success our students had in the MCAII reading test and MCAIII math test this year. I believe this is a result of our students working hard on a daily basis to understand and apply the curriculum being taught in their classes. Secondly, our faculty in all departmental areas has worked to utilize reading comprehension strategies into their curriculum and has developed math skills into multi-disciplinary areas. Our English and math departments continue to diligently work to align these core areas with the state standards, examine individual student and class data over time to focus on areas needing development and utilizing best-practice strategies into their classrooms.  

For the last nine years, Minnesota has been taking the state MCA Exams. A fact you may not be aware of is the PAHS (individual building) has made AYP every year. I believe this demonstrates that our District has an exemplary K-12 educational program. In education we cannot forget each year builds on the next. Our faculty’s focus is to enhance growth in our students. Our faculty has been working to examine student data across all grade levels; networking their findings and working together in developing our programs across grade levels where needed. Our graduates are meeting state criteria and excelling as they prepare for their post high school endeavors. Help us continue to support our children and our Paynesville staff as we move into another academic year.

On another note we have had a tremendous amount of activities throughout our first quarter. Our athletic teams, Happy Days Musical and FFA has been in full swing.  During homecoming the bulldog spirit was everywhere. The halls were filled with cowboys, aliens and movie stars all week long. The super-fans showed up to all our athletic events and our athletic teams battled hard. Our Team-Up Group sponsored our pep-fest and all that could be seen was a sea of cheering green bulldog’s at all three buildings.  I could not be more proud of our high school students. They were true leaders all week long.

Through staff development the district has developed a new program called “Peer Academic Coaching”. This program is being lead by Mary Leyendecker, Teresa Bogie, Ed Gardner, Ann Marie Stevens and Dina Hengel. The goal for this group is to continue to develop instructional best-practice strategies within classrooms, to be resources for teachers working with data and provide assistance to teachers looking for other instructional research. This group will be examining an assessment survey that was taken by all PAS teachers. In our secondary building our lead teachers are facilitating Mini-Pro Net Programs. Our first was “Smart board Use in the Classrooms that Promotes Best Practices”.  Our elementary building is continuing their work in PLCs (Professional Learning Communities). I would like to thank our faculty for their continued dedication to the continual growth of our students here in our Paynesville community.  

As you can see we have had a tremendous start to the 2011-2012 school year with more to come. If you have an opportunity please join us at any of our MS or HS athletic events, musical concerts or Happy Days Musical. A schedule of events can be found on-line at www.paynesvilleschools.com.  GO BULLDOGS!!