Improvement plans approved at West Central school

Because the school improvement plan was due the first of March, West Central School Board members were approving an improvement plan that was already submitted to the state. 
During a regular meeting, superintendent Don Street said the plan was delayed due to waiting for ISTEP results. The school principals, Dan Zylstra and Pat Culp, gave a brief overview of the improvement results to the school board members. 
“Our goal this year was to adhere to the Indiana blueprints of the standards that they have laid out,” said Zylstra, who is the principal at the elementary school. “We made that our goal in math and language arts.” 
The reason for reviewing the Indiana blueprints throughly was because last year when the students were taking the ISTEP testing, teachers took a look at some of the questions and found that some topics had not been covered. 
Teachers have been using Thursday mornings during professional development time to review those standards and work together.
Another goal is to help ensure that students are attending school. He said the attendance rate has been more than 95 percent and the school will continue to encourage students to be on time and be ready for school.
Culp, who is the principal at the middle and high schools, said several of the items on the improvement plan have been all year, while some are also addressing next year. 
He said the teachers are implementing using depth of knowledge questions and differentiated instruction. Depth of knowledge questions have four levels with each question harder than the first. The depth of knowledge questions have students state an opinion and support it or cite evidence with something that they have read.