West Central schools improvement plans focus on math, language arts

School improvement plans for West Central School Corporation were already being followed but were not officially approved by the school board until a regular school board meeting on Dec. 1. 
The delay in approving the plans happened because the school administration was waiting for ISTEP scores before finalizing them. In the meantime, the plans were tentatively created and followed. 
Principals Dan Zylstra and Pat Culp spoke with the school board about how the school improvement plans were created for this school year. Zylstra said the elementary school plan was created by school unit leaders. 
Two of three school improvement plan objectives revolved around math. Zylstra said one of the issues the corporation has seen in regards to the ISTEP math testing is that students have not encountered some of the material in class. 
The second part of the plan involves math and technology. Zylstra said the students will be taught the math lessons and then use math apps and activities to learn more. Zylstra said the apps adjust to the skills of the students. 
The third objective of the plan is addressing student attendance. Zylstra said last year there were some problems. This year the elementary school will be a little more aggressive to go after the students who are truant on a regular basis. 
Culp started with the middle school plan. He said a middle school improvement team and the staff were invited to participate in the creating of the plan. The two goals that stood out were improving English and language arts and writing. The goal is to increase the scores by 4 percent at each grade level. Test scores were used to determine what the areas of need are. 
The school improvement plan at the high school was created by a team and includes three goals including depth of knowledge improvement, improving reading comprehension skills, and using data to drive instruction. Culp said the teachers already do a good job of using the data to adjust their instruction accordingly. 
The school improvement plans were approved.