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At Crawford
AuSable School District, our vision and passion are symbolized
by our message of "Growing to Greatness!" The staff of the CASD is totally committed to helping all our students reach the
greatest level of success possible for them. We believe that the
students, the teachers and the parents must work together to reach
that level.
Our focus is student achievement, and we continue to make
the necessary curricular and organizational changes to improve
it. The entire district is now on a trimester system designed
to increase student learning. Grayling High School has
switched from an alternate-day block schedule to an every-day
five-class trimester schedule. With the mandated State of
Michigan high school curriculum, this change should improve
student achievement.
Our staff works continually and collaboratively to develop the best
techniques and strategies to educate our children. One current
initiative is the 6+1 Writing Traits (an analytical writing system
developed for K-12 teachers and students to instruct and assess
important components of skillful writing) because we want our
students to learn to be effective communicators, which we know is
essential to success.
Our entire district is embracing writing as a means for developing
higher order thinking skills as well as providing students
with the invaluable life-long skill of effective written
communication. Our elementary schools are completing the
circle of the writing process with total incorporation of
writers' workshops. Our young students continue to impress us
with their unprecedented achievement levels.
Our district uses computerized assessment through
the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA). These assessments --
conducted in grades K-8 in the fall and spring -- are state-aligned
computerized adaptive tests that accurately reflect the
instructional level for each student and measure growth over time.
They provide our teachers with tools to identify any
achievement gaps of their students and then design individual
instruction. We are using the data gained through the assessments to
drive instruction in our classrooms.
We at CASD value education in today's global society, and we want
the entire community to value it too. The gift of a great education,
which we strive to give to all our students, is a lifelong gift
that that can never be taken away from them.
Please visit our Website regularly to stay well informed about what
we are doing in the CASD. If there is anything you would like to see
included on these pages to help our students "grow to
greatness," I invite you to e-mail me at the address below.
~
Joe Powers,
Superintendent
to e-mail the superintendent:
jpowers@casdk12.net |
