Once upon a tile - Winters Express

A-12 — Winters (CA) Express, Thursday, October 22, 2009Photo by Molly Davisolunteers (mainly from Americorps) were busy digging trenches on Sunday for irrigation lines in the Wintersommunity Garden, located along Putah Creek just west of the East Street lift station.Winters resident Mike Brigssecured fencing for the garden as a donation from Pacific Coast Steel. The fencing was chosen for distractings little as possible from the landscape.GARDENContinued from page A-1al beauty of the creek.Mike Briggs arrangedfor the fencing to be donatedfrom PacificCoast Steel, and BillMaynard assisted Koroswith the project.And the garden isearly ready just as theFarmers Market ends.On Sunday, Oct. 25, thelast market will be heldfrom 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. atRotary Park, as a “HarvestMarket.”As City Housing ManagerDan Maguire describedit, the last marketwill be a “big to-do,”with craft vendors and acommunity potluck followingthe market.Meanwhile, Maguireand Kormos are workingwith market vendors,sponsors and customerson the best wayto run the market nextyear, and are asking thecommunity for suggestions.“Lots of people wouldlike to see the marketheld on Saturdays,”said Maguire, but ultimately,the decisionusually rests on the vendorsthemselves. “It hasto make sense for thevendors,” he added.For more informationon the community gardenor the FarmersMarket, contact Kormosat 795-5200, or wintersfarmersmarket@gmail.com.SCORESContinued from page A-1back to teachers.“We were not evaluatingteachers, we werelooking at what the kidswere doing, so we couldbring this to other staffmembers. At first it wasnot well received, but aftera few times it becameclear we were not evaluatingteachers, and itworked out very well.”Holtemann held regularone-on-one meetingswith teachers, with anemphasis on testingdata and discussions ofindividual students. Anothercomponent was“parent engagement.”The school held twoevening programs thatincluded parents in discussionof the CST-STAR (California StandardsTest and StandardizedTesting andReporting) testing.“This year, our goal isto take what happenedlast year and tweak it.”Discussing the test results,Holtemannshowed that targetscores for the FederalAnnual Yearly Progress(AYP) evaluation movesignificantly upwardfrom year to year, withthe statistically unlikelyresult of 100 percentproficiency required inthe year 2014. Waggonerhad 38 percent of studentsin the proficientor advanced category inEnglish Language Arts(ELA) and 54 percent ofstudents in math. Theschool exceeded thisyear’s 47.5 percent targetshort of the 46 percentShe was proud of the 7percent growth in ELAfrom the previous year.The growth in math proficiencywas very high,12.5 percent for all studentsthe challenging Englishshowed the 63-point increase,after two negativeyears, and this increaseis the highest inimportant, the increaseswere high in the traditionallydifficult subgroups.group increased by 58taged by 61 points andthe English Learners by“If you came in andsaid there was a 63 pointdrop,” said trustee Jaywhat went wrong? What“It was a combinationof the things I talkedmann. “It was importantto go back to basics forthe language arts curriculum.It was changingtime. We received a lotof professional developmentabout how to scaffoldfor different learnersroom. That was very importantfor us. It wasarts intervention in additionto, instead of inin math, but felltarget in language arts.and 15 percent inlearner category.The California APIYolo County. EquallyThe Hispanicpoints, the SocioeconomicallyDisadvan-76 points.Shepherd, “we’d say,do you think went right?”about,” said Holte-how we allocatedwithin the classroom.having our languagelieu of, the core time.”