The Janesville Culver’s Scoopie Night workforce and offers opportunities for the community to support this work. “We wanted to teach the community how keeping kids learning and engaged with lifelong learning is what’s going to build the future of our community,” Hermanson said. “I think when you have kids in school, you’re hyper aware of the value of that. But if you no longer have kids in school, your mind focuses on other things.” Hurda said she encourages everyone in the community to stay engaged and informed with this work. “Strong public schools play a vital role in developing our future leaders, preparing a skilled workforce and contributing to the long-term success and viability of Janesville,” she said. INVESTING IN A K-12 EDUCATION In order to create real economic growth for Janesville, the district and Forward Janesville recognized the importance of investing in the Janesville school system. Together, the two organizations agreed to seek funding for two programs that would support the district’s goal of improving math, reading and attendance for all students and would align with the district’s four strategic priorities identified by the school board – student academic excellence, staff excellence, operational excellence and community and family partnerships. Thanks to gifts from Forward Janesville’s Forward Foundation, Forward Janesville and the district were able to implement the national program Studer Education districtwide and the Bright Spots Grant Program at Wilson Elementary School and Craig High School earlier this year. The Forward Foundation, Hermanson said, consists of a group of community members who help allocate funds to local initiatives in need of support. As its name implies, it allows local programming to look ahead to the needs they are serving rather than scramble to find funding sources. “When those times [of need] occur, it is quite challenging to do fundraising at the same time that you're trying to do messaging and build a coalition of community to support a particular event,” Hermanson said. As Bright Spots integrated into Wilson Elementary School and Craig High School, it began offering a unique approach to achieving the academic goals of both schools. “What’s great about the Bright Spots grant is that the funding is really supporting our principals and leaders to have access to resources that drive some of our strategic goals at the classroom level,” DeGraaf said. “And it does it in a less traditional way.” Rather than sending educators to conferences or professional development seminars to help increase literacy rates at Wilson, DeGraaf said the Bright Spots method allowed Wilson staff to visit a school with similar demographics in Ohio that has some of the highest reading scores in the state. From there, Wilson educators began implementing new techniques in the classroom, like the cupcake strategy. The more advanced the students can make their sentence structure, the more layers, like frosting and sprinkles, get added to the proverbial cupcake. Though this is only the first year of Bright Spots at Wilson, DeGraaf said teachers are already noticing the improvements these strategies are having on their students’ success. In fact, reading abilities climbed to 166% of presumed growth for fourth grade students. Bright Spots also allowed Craig High School to bring in a coach who worked with educators on strategies to close achievement gaps and raise ACT scores. Holzman said that, as a result, for the first time since 2012, Craig’s ACT scores are at or above the state average. The alignment Bright Spots has with the district’s focus on academic and staff excellence is part of what makes the program shine, Holzman said. “We can’t have great student outcomes without great teachers,” he said. “When we watch what great people do, and we can emulate that in our own practice, that raises the bar and grows what we’re trying to accomplish in the end.” Studer Education offers another path to great schools, this time with an emphasis on the entire district. Through its 9 Pillars of Leadership Excellence, which includes strategies on communication and continual improvement, Studer aims to provide a unified voice and direction for everyone in the district. “Studer Education really did a great job of providing a common language and a discipline process for continuous improvement,” Hurda said. “That’s helping us strengthen alignment across governance, leadership and our schools.” She said that adopting the Studer method was an easy decision because its framework aligned with the strategic vision and priorities the board helped put in place. The Studer method www.forwardjanesville.com |9 Superintendent Mark Holzman regularly engages with students and staff in the schools. It is part of a philosophy to keep the magic of educating youth front and center to the school district’s work. “What’s great about the Bright Spots grant is that the funding is really supporting our principals and leaders to have access to resources that drive some of our strategic goals at the classroom level.” CHECK OUT BRIGHT SPOTS Scan the QR code to learn about how Bright Spots Grants are supporting measurable gains in student literacy at Wilson Elementary and precision math instruction at Craig High School. Bright Spots Grants were made possible through a partnership with the Vision Forward Fund of the Forward Foundation.
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