• Category 1

    Selected in 2017

  • Grades: pre k - 5
    School Setting: rural
    Town Population: 17
    Student Enrollment: 336
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 0.5%
    White/Caucasian: 88%
    Hispanic: 8%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0.3%
    Asian: 0%
    Native American: 1%
    Other: 2.2%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:18
    % Reduced Lunch: 42%
    % ELL Learners: 0%
    Founded: 1986
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Brett Dahl
  • CONTACT:
    1685 Hill Pond Dr.
    Sheridan, WY 82801
    307-672-9059
    brett.dahl@scsd2.com
Sagebrush Elementary School
Sheridan, WY
We believe that all students can learn at high levels and it is our job as educators to ENSURE this happens!
Describe the most successful activity your school has initiated to strengthen ties to your community.
We believe that the strongest change agent for continuous improvement is the Professional Learning Communities framework. We have committed to the 3 pillars of PLC; 1. Focus on Learning 2. Collaboration 3. Focus on Results. These 3 pillars along with the 4 guiding questions now guide all discussions at Sagebrush and center our work; 1. What do we want our students to learn 2. How will we know if they have learned it 3. How will we respond when they haven't learned? 4. How will we respond when they have learned? Without highly trained professional educators committed to and focused on the right work, our purpose of "Ensuring high levels of learning for ALL children", would simply be a statement written on the wall.
What are your school’s top two goals for the next year?
Without question, Sagebrush is focused on student learning as our fundamental purpose
Describe the program or initiative that has had the greatest positive effect on student achievement, including closing achievement or opportunity gaps, if applicable.
In our quest to ensure ALL children achieve high levels of learning, we are in a constant state of improvement and growth. The four essential questions of the Professional Learning Communities framework have had the most impactful effect on student achievement. What do we want students to learn? How will we know if they have learned it? How will we respond if they have learned it? How will we respond if they haven’t learned ? These are the guiding questions that drive our work. Unwrapping standards and creating success criteria allowed our teachers to become experts in the standards. Analyzing each standard vertically led to a deep understanding of how standards build complexity through each grade level and has allowed our teachers to provide more targeted and intentional instruction while ensuring long term mastery and success of our students. Additionally, this knowledge has allowed us to create valid and reliable assessments that tell us what our students truly know. When students have yet to learn, we have a systematic intervention process that breaks down standards into specific learning targets, making learning and teaching more intentional and available to our students. When they have mastered the essential skills, we utilize the same systematic approach to extend their learning.
Explain how Title I funds are used to support your improvement efforts.
Linda Darling-Hammond’s (Stanford University) research found that, “teacher quality has 6 times greater impact on student learning than all other factors combined, including ethnicity and socioeconomics”. Because our purpose statement is To ensure ALL children achieve high levels of learning, we focus our Title I funds on the highest yield resources available - Educators! While supplemental programs and resources can assist teachers in meeting the needs of our students, we know nothing can replace the learning experience provided by a highly trained teacher. Therefore, we utilize our Title I funds to hire, train, and retain highly trained and effective educators.
Describe your school culture and explain changes you’ve taken to improve it.
The Professional Learning Communities (PLC) framework provides the platform for which all work is done at Sagebrush. We create a guaranteed and viable curriculum through complex and detailed work with the standards at each grade level. We utilize resources and best practice to drive our daily instruction as well as a variety of assessments and data sets to measure growth and proficiency of our students. In every instance, we utilize the data from these assessments to measure student learning, instructional effectiveness, and to guide our future instruction. Without question, Sagebrush is focused on student learning as our fundamental purpose.
Stats
  • Category 1

    Selected in 2017

  • Grades: pre k - 5
    School Setting: rural
    Town Population: 17
    Student Enrollment: 336
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 0.5%
    White/Caucasian: 88%
    Hispanic: 8%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0.3%
    Asian: 0%
    Native American: 1%
    Other: 2.2%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:18
    % Reduced Lunch: 42%
    % ELL Learners: 0%
    Founded: 1986
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Brett Dahl
  • CONTACT:
    1685 Hill Pond Dr.
    Sheridan, WY 82801
    307-672-9059
    brett.dahl@scsd2.com