Title I Focus School
August 19, 2012
Title I Focus Schools: Pleasant Ridge Elementary School
Recently, the Michigan Department of Education released school and district accountability results that include the Top-to-Bottom (TTB) school ranking list. The Top-to-Bottom ranking is a new way of looking at Michigan’s school performance. Nearly all K-12 public schools are ranked based on student proficiency, student improvement, and achievement gaps between students within a school. A school with a high ranking is one that has a high level of proficiency, is improving over time, and is ensuring that all students are learning and achieving at a high level. This ranking helps provide important information to all schools regarding their performance and how it compares to other schools across the state.
Pleasant Ridge Elementary School has a school ranking of 76. This means that Pleasant Ridge ranked higher than 76 percent of schools across the state of Michigan on the Top-to-Bottom list. In other words, Pleasant Ridge students outscored 2180 out of 2867 other schools in the state of Michigan. Subject areas that are included in this ranking for our school include mathematics, reading and writing. Several specific results include:
Area of Success: Pleasant Ridge students, as an overall group, have shown significant achievement that is well above the state average. In addition, students over the past several years have been improving at a rate that is above the state average.
Focus: Pleasant Ridge has been labeled as a Focus School. Schools with the largest achievement gaps are called focus schools and need to dig deep into diagnostic data, facilitate professional dialogue and customize interventions to meet the needs of all students.
In order to address this achievement gap with our lowest 30% of students, we are being very proactive with an intervention model using Response to Intervention to actively target students at risk and apply many reading intervention strategies. We are confident that these initiatives will result in increased student achievement.
As a result of being a focus school, parents do have the right to request a transfer to another school that does not have the focus label. Harvest Elementary in our district does not have the focus label. However, there is no space available in that building. We have made arrangements to have students that would like another option to attend Klager Elementary School in Manchester, MI. We will be able to provide transportation if you would like this option. If you would like to apply to transfer to Klager, please contact either of us at your earliest convenience.
Pleasant Ridge is a very high achieving school. However, we are very aware of the need to help our struggling students and are actively providing additional support.
Sincerely,
Brad Bezeau
Saline Area Schools
Pleasant Ridge Elementary School Principal
(734) 429-8000 x. 8941
bezeaub@salineschoools.org
Steve Laatsch
Saline Area Schools
Assistant Superintendent of Instructional Services
Voice: (734) 429-8002
Email: laatschs@saline.k12.mi.us
