SHEPHERD — TEA Conservator Trish Hank was accompanied by the Director of Teaching and Learning, Marjorie Pineda, to present a new plan for the upcoming school year to the board.
This new strategy comes after not meeting performance expectations set for the last academic year. Shepherd ISD reported that only 1 in 3 Shepherd students meet state grade-level expectations.
The plan was discussed at the Thursday regular meeting.
“We have the heart and passion; now we need to work together in the same way so every student can succeed,” Hanks said.
The Pirates’ Pathway to Success plan focuses on student success. High quality materials, demonstration of learning, and helping each student are the three objectives for this plan to work.
“Every student deserves great lessons, the right help when they need it, and a clear plan from us every single day,” said Hanks
Shepherd ISD instructors will see a shift in the way they manage their classrooms with enforcing deep relationship building, real time instructional adjustments, helping students talk and learn, and localized student feedback.
“We are freeing teachers from building the tools from scratch so they can focus on teaching the students in front of them,” Pineda said.
Pineda said that protecting commitments are crucial to this new pathway to success, especially the commitment to master schedules, the protected time for teachers and students.
“It's gonna feel intense at the beginning, but then after about 6 weeks, it'll start to lift because then it would turn into coaching and feedback. So it will feel very specific to that individual teacher,” Pineda said.
Hanks said that the Shepherd ISD administrators will begin training in July, while teachers will begin training in August with a goal set to be ready for the first day of school.
