This year’s national theme for Catholic Schools Week is “Catholic Schools: Faith. Excellence. Service.”
In addition to the bishop’s Livestreamed Mass, festivities in the Diocese of Charlotte and across the country include community service projects, open houses and other spirit-building activities for students, families and parishioners – reinforcing the positive impact Catholic school students have in their local community.
GREENSBORO — Like the Diocese of Charlotte’s other 18 schools, students at St. Pius X School have been enjoying in-person learning since August. With health and safety protocols in place, students are thriving, made more evident by recent mid-year benchmark assessments.
St. Pius X School uses Dibels Reading and EasyCBM Math assessments to monitor students’ progress multiple times throughout the school year, as well as administering an additional yearly Terra Nova and InView standardized test. Since August, class overall composite scores have increased by as much as 90 points. Students needing intensive support in reading and math have decreased by half, and students performing above grade level have increased so much that several classes have over half the class performing above grade level both in reading and math.
As well as mid-year benchmarks in reading and math, teachers also assess writing three times a year using narrative, opinion, expository and persuasive writing prompts and grade-level appropriate writing rubrics. Teachers keep on-going reading, math and writing portfolios on all students from prekindergarten to the eighth grade, carefully monitoring growth as students progress through grade levels each year.
The school’s Student Assistance Team which meets weekly to evaluate underperforming students and to plan intervention, using specific reading and math products such as “Read Live,” as well as afterschool programs such as “Math Boost & Title I Tutoring,” to remediate students and bring them up to grade level through individualized and small group classroom instruction. The Academic Enrichment team, staffed by Sigrid Couch and Lisa Sullivan, works tirelessly to identify students with identified learning disabilities so that each student may receive additional support through individualized instruction within the Academic Enrichment room several times a week.
This spring, teachers will participate in intervention training in reading, math and writing to support their efforts to ensure each student reaches grade level achievement. This professional development in turn will be disseminated to teaching assistants and to parents.
— April Parker
Pictured: Julie Ray’s sixth-grade Reading Breakfast Group meets weekly to practice oral reading fluency using nonfiction SCOPE articles. (Photo provided by April Parker)