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School begins tracking reading skills
Lincoln-McKinley embraces tech for pilot program
Zach White
Computers are everywhere and do everything these days.
The Havre Public School district is testing a new database for tracking the progress of its students' reading skills.
"Information is critical, " said Karla Wohlwend, the district's director of personnel. "Up-to-date information is especially critical. "
The program keeps track of what the students do well, what they need to work on and what has been done to help them improve already.
Right now, it is set up so the district's instructional coach will input most of the information about children and their performance. School principals and Wohlwend are able to make adjustments to those parts.
A separate "strategies" section is for the teachers to record what they are going to try and then how those plans worked.
The district started testing the program at Lincoln-McKinley in November and is seeing if any unexpected problems arise. If not, the program could be extended to all of the elementary schools by the end of the school year, according to Wohlwend.
The idea started over a year ago when Wohlwend and other administrators formed a technology committee to discuss the difficulty in information exchange.
"Everything was being done with hard copies, " Wohlwend said. "Then when the child moves from one grade to another in the same school, it could be easy going from one teacher to another. But when they change buildings, it should follow the children. "
The committee came up with a list of features that they would want for the database and approached Stephen Abson, the district's data management specialist, to see if what they wanted was possible. Superintendent Andy Carlson said it would have been nearly impossible without Abson.
"He is such an integral part of our district, " Carlson said. "So much credit goes to him on this. "
The superintendent is glad to see this district on the digital frontier.
"I am excited that we are beginning to use technology as a means to get data into teachers' hands in a fast easy manner, " Carlson said.
Computers are everywhere and do everything these days.
The Havre Public School district is testing a new database for tracking the progress of its students' reading skills.
"Information is critical, " said Karla Wohlwend, the district's director of personnel. "Up-to-date information is especially critical. "
The program keeps track of what the students do well, what they need to work on and what has been done to help them improve already.
Right now, it is set up so the district's instructional coach will input most of the information about children and their performance. School principals and Wohlwend are able to make adjustments to those parts.
A separate "strategies" section is for the teachers to record what they are going to try and then how those plans worked.
The district started testing the program at Lincoln-McKinley in November and is seeing if any unexpected problems arise. If not, the program could be extended to all of the elementary schools by the end of the school year, according to Wohlwend.
The idea started over a year ago when Wohlwend and other administrators formed a technology committee to discuss the difficulty in information exchange.
"Everything was being done with hard copies, " Wohlwend said. "Then when the child moves from one grade to another in the same school, it could be easy going from one teacher to another. But when they change buildings, it should follow the children. "
The committee came up with a list of features that they would want for the database and approached Stephen Abson, the district's data management specialist, to see if what they wanted was possible. Superintendent Andy Carlson said it would have been nearly impossible without Abson.
"He is such an integral part of our district, " Carlson said. "So much credit goes to him on this. "
The superintendent is glad to see this district on the digital frontier.
"I am excited that we are beginning to use technology as a means to get data into teachers' hands in a fast easy manner, " Carlson said.
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