Weidner recognized by school board

The Big Lake Board of Education met last Thursday, honoring Roxanne Weidner for 10 years of service as secretary to the superintendent.

“It has been a real honor to work for the school district,” said Weidner, now five weeks into her retirement. “It’s a great school district and there are good things happening here.”

The board heard a presentation from Liberty Elementary Principal Caryl Gordy, Assistant Principal Theresa Smock-Potter, Kris Leesberg, Jean Hagberg and Carla Johnson  on how they are working to raise student literacy levels through modeled reading, shared reading, guided reading and independent reading  and writing projects. 

Students learn about “talking marks” or punctuation in first grade and students are encouraged to take the marker and help write the daily message on the smart board. Students are also learning to read works of non-fiction and listening to fluent readers while they track along.

“We have fluent readers but they are not always understanding what they read,” said Teacher Jean Hagberg, noting the students in her class range over six levels of reading ability. “The challenge has been to find reading level appropriate non-fiction on each subject.”

Students have been learning about genre, authors, purpose and must provide evidence from the text they are reading to support their answers.

Fourth grade students have their own book bins in the classroom, containing books borrowed from the school library and the class library. Now they must also include at least one book which is non-fiction. Students maintain a notebook, detailing the books they have read, listing the main idea of the book and their response.

“It’s all hands on deck,” said Gordy, noting the moms who monitor the playground use the popcorn words as a chant as they march the students into school.

Specialist teachers also know the vocabulary words the students are supposed to know and incorporate them into their lessons. special education teachers are spending more time in the classroom, adding their skills.

The teachers also took the MCA tests the students take in an effort to see how they can help them prepare.

“It gave all our tummies a little leap,” said Johnson, “Although we weren’t worried about failing. It takes a little stamina. It’s a long test.”

“I think it is neat how you incorporate learning into the entire day of the student,” said Board Member Mark Hedstrom.

“How do you expand the time kids spend reading when they are not at school?” asked Board Member Dan Nyberg.

“We have things like multi-cultural night, math night and reading night,” Gordy said. “We are doing our best to engage the community in the process.”

Middle School

Big Lake Middle School Principal Mark Ernst introduced Assistant Principal Keri Neubauer and reading specialist Barb Nelson. 

In the middle school, focus is placed on making sure the students really understand what they read.

“Seven weeks into school and the students are already talking about their lexile,” Neubauer said.

Most students take literacy as part of their Hornet Hour studies. Others study math, or organization skills.

Rolling carts with 400 books on each have been set up for distribution through the classrooms. Tubs of books geared to different topics at different readability levels have been put together. 

The next step is to replace 2,800 reading titles on the shelves of the library/media center.

“That takes time and money,” Ernst said. “But I will leave you with a quote. In times of profound change, the learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves perfectly equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.”