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- News from the Nest — May 30, 2025 May 30, 2025
- Principal’s Update — May 23, 2025 May 23, 2025
- News from the Nest — May 23, 2025 May 23, 2025
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Posted May 23, 2025
Dear McKinley-Thatcher Community –
As we wrap up the school year, I want to take a moment to reflect on the tremendous growth, hard work, and collaboration that defined our time together for the past 10 months. This has been a year full of learning, resilience, and meaningful progress, and I’m incredibly proud of what our students, staff, and families have accomplished together.
In particular, I want to celebrate that our students are demonstrating the highest levels of reading proficiency in my ten years as principal here. I am overjoyed to share that 79% percent of our students are reading at grade level in kindergarten through 5th grade, and that 53% of our students in these grades are reading ABOVE grade level! I am so proud of our students and our staff for this incredible achievement!
A huge congratulations and THANK YOU goes out to our amazing staff members who are hitting a milestone in their years of service with DPS.
We are always sad to announce our staff transitions at the end of each school year. This year, the following staff members are leaving the McT community:
Though we are disappointed to lose these members of our community, we are thrilled with the new folks who are joining our team! We also have one staff member in a new role! Please extend a warm McT welcome to:
We still have a few positions open, and we’ll announce those new staff members later this summer.
DPS is implementing a new math curriculum, called Illustrative Mathematics, this coming school year! We have already begun preparing for this change by piloting a few units in 2nd and 3rd grade. This curriculum is well-aligned with our McT Core Principles, and supports experiential learning and individualized support for all students. It also emphasizes problem-based learning by encouraging students to engage in mathematical investigations and to make sense of concepts through real-world applications. Illustrative Mathematics prioritizes in-depth understanding of mathematical concepts rather than rote memorization, and uses diverse representations and scenarios in its materials to make mathematics more inclusive and relevant for all students.
We are excited that we will be provided with extensive professional learning opportunities for teachers, including expert-led training and ongoing support to help implement the curriculum effectively and continue to develop our instructional practices in mathematics. To learn more, please click here.
The McT team will also be implementing a new social and emotional skills curriculum in all grades (ECE – 5th) next year! The curriculum is called Second Step, and is designed to help students grow and develop into well-rounded individuals by equipping them with the human skills they need to navigate their lives successfully. This curriculum will help all of our students to be confident, have positive connections with others, develop a growth mindset, and have the skills they need for learning and for life. This is one of the leading research-based social and emotional skills curricula for students at the elementary level. To learn more, please click here.
Beginning in the 2025-2026 school year, our kindergarten classrooms will be returning to a traditional instructional model where students will have one teacher for all content areas (as opposed to the platooning model that we are currently using in kindergarten). We believe this change will support our kindergarten students in many ways. This model will be less of a transition from ECE or preschool, where most students have one teacher all year, and will also support stronger relationships and deeper connections between staff and students, which will help to eliminate academic gaps before they begin.
In 1st through 5th grade, we will continue to use the “platooning” instructional model (also called content specialization), where our teachers specialize in teaching either literacy or math, science, and social studies.
Thank you, McKinley-Thatcher families, for another great year! I hope you have a safe, healthy, and joyful summer. We can’t wait to see you again in August!
All the best,
Ms. Geerdes