Dear Friends of Dansville Schools,
Superintendent Amy Hodgson
It is an honor to have the chance to serve the families and staff of Dansville Schools in the role of superintendent. I have truly enjoyed the last four years I’ve spent as the Dansville High School principal and will dearly miss those responsibilities. I am looking forward, however, to getting to know the students, parents and community members in this new position.
It is no secret to anyone in this community that we have an incredible school district. Our staff members work very hard to make the entire school experience – from the time students step foot on the bus in the morning until they leave at the end of the day – a rewarding and challenging opportunity to grow. The staffs at Dansville are special because they truly want to do what’s best for kids 100% of the time.
The focus of our school for the past few years has been to ensure that “Failure Is Not an Option” for our students. We have studied the six principles of highly effective schools and implemented many programs to help reach all students. Last school year, we studied and began piloting an initiative called RtI, which stands for Response to Intervention.
What does this mean for you and your student? It means that every student will be evaluated on a continual basis to make sure progress is being made in their learning. If a student is struggling, the teacher will choose an intervention to help the student get back on track. The teacher will then continue to monitor the students’ progress and see if the intervention is working (if the student is responding to the intervention). If not, then a different intervention will be tried. This process will continue and the interventions will become more intense so that eventually we reach our goal of all ensuring that we have provided every opportunity for students to be successful in the program that is most appropriate for them. This RtI process will also help identify students who are proficient and allow teachers to provide additional learning opportunities to challenge them.
For the 2010-11 school years, we will continue to work on implementing the academic aspect of RtI as I’ve just described, but we will also begin to learn more about behavior interventions. Academic motivation has been identified K-12 as an area for improvement for students. To help address this issue, we are bringing in a national speaker from a program called WhyTry to train our staff for two days in August. This training will be a springboard for the staff to begin to plan ways to increase student success through improved motivation.
This is an exciting time for schools, as we continue to streamline our services to provide the best possible education for our students using our existing resources. The teachers at Dansville Schools are on the cutting edge in many of their practices. The elementary has made great strides in the areas of literacy and assessment, as well as in developing a standards-based report card. The high school has embraced a balanced approach to assessment that is making a big impact on student learning. The middle school, despite some major transitions they’ve endured in the past few years, has continued its tradition of academic excellence. In the recently published Top to Bottom School Ranking list, Dansville Middle School had a statewide combined math/ELA achievement/improvement percentile ranking of 93.6%, among the top in the state. We have so much to celebrate here!
It is indeed a privilege to be a part of both the community and the schools in Dansville and it is my hope that we can all partner together to continue to make this school the best it can possibly become!
Sincerely,
Amy Hodgson,
Superintendent of Dansville Schools