CASA GRANDE — Casa Grande Elementary School District Superintendent Adam Leckie told the district Governing Board Tuesday that attendance rates have improved recently.
Leckie said improving those rates is a key goal for the district and that he and his staff had worked hard to encourage school attendance.
“One of the things that we’ve been talking about often this year, one of our goals, is increased attendance throughout the year,” he said.
“It’s really critical because we know our students can’t learn if they’re not attending school. We’ve worked really hard at this. It’s a challenge in a lot of ways for families, for kids and for us as educators but I’m really happy to report that the last couple of weeks we’ve seen some of our highest numbers of attendance this whole year. ‘We’re really excited that we’re starting to get some positive traction on that. We know families are a big part of making sure your students attend school consistently and they benefit the most that they can out of their education.”
During the student of the month presentation, Palo Verde Elementary School Principal Carol Wrightson said the naming of a jaguar cub, representing the school mascot, had contributed to increased numbers at the school.
“Instructionally we are really focusing on attendance as all the schools are,” said Wrightson. “Kids will get an opportunity to name a newly found cub that needs a name and so that’ll go along with our Jaguar theme. We’re posting goals and tracking attendance to celebrate kids coming to school and our staff attendance as well. We’re walking through gathering data, getting feedback, giving feedback to staff to continuously get better and improve in the classroom through assessments and pre-tests and post-tests. In addition to that, we have some professional development we’re going to be doing like ‘Teach Like a Champion,’ which I know the district is doing.”
Leckie said that with the school year coming to a close the important testing season would soon be underway and that it is critical that students attend.
“It’s really critical right now for students to attend what we affectionately call testing season,” he said.
“This is a really big logistical undertaking for us to administer all of our state assessments from our earliest learners all the way through our eighth grade students to show what they know, and we really want to make sure our students have every opportunity to really showcase their learning and get credit and have their scores and their efforts really count throughout the year and so it’s really important that they attend.”
Leckie said that some of the initiatives of the district’s “story of improvement” had been recognized nationally. He recently appeared on a Studer Education podcast to discuss the theme of “transforming district culture with people-first strategies.”
Studer Education is described on LinkedIn as a “body that partners with organizations across the country to support system-wide continuous improvement and performance excellence.”
“We had an opportunity, or I did as superintendent to really share our district’s improvement story and improvement work in a couple of different ways. In the last month or so that is being recognized nationally, the types of things our teachers and students are doing in classrooms and how they’re being included in the learning process of their voices being elevated, and how much they’re a part of driving their own learning.”
Board President Blanca Varela paid tribute to Leckie and district staff’s efforts in promoting positive learning initiatives and culture.
“He’s (Adam) represented our school on a podcast nationally, on other conferences, not only statewide, but the Casa Grande Elementary School District name is out there nationally. I know I am and the rest of the board are very proud of the fact that he’s put us on the national radar. To him, to his leadership and office staff, we sincerely thank you,” Varela said.