McDowell Mountain Elementary School is gearing up for another big year, capitalizing on existing education enhancement programs and incorporating several new initiatives in the coming months.

McDowell Mountain Elementary School Principal Joanne Meehan gave an update on the school’s progress through the final months of 2013, as well as a glimpse at the road ahead during the Jan. 22 meeting for the Fountain Hills Unified School District governing board.

Meehan’s presentation was covered in the Jan. 29 edition of The Times, along with the announcement that the lifelong educator would be retiring. The original story was not printed in full, however, and the missing portion can be found below.

McDowell report

As for her school, Meehan told the board last week that McDowell Mountain is doing quite well these days.

One of her key phrases for the Jan. 22 report was “response to intervention.”

“Or RIT,” Meehan said.

“That’s something you’ll hear a lot of at McDowell Mountain. As a group, we look at where the kids are, where they should be and where we can take them.”

Meehan said that all McDowell Mountain students are monitored for success via testing and regular evaluation, the results of which are utilized to determine the evolution of a given student’s education.

“That’s the advantage of team teaching and working with a wonderful, wonderful staff,” Meehan said.

“We assess, find out where the students are and, as a group, we build on it.”

Meehan said each of her students (grades K-3) are broken down into tiers related to their needs including intense, strategic and at/above benchmark.

Meehan then showed off the school’s data wall, literally a wall that displays the three tiers of success and where students in each grade level have settled.

“We refresh the wall in August and update it twice annually,” Meehan explained.

“This helps our teachers get a better idea of where their students are on an individual and group-based level. We also track their progress and education plan on the cards that we post on this wall, so we can see exactly what’s being done to advance each student.”

As far as on-campus enrichment and activities go, Meehan said that McDowell Mountain is still involved with Junior Achievement, the highly successful mentoring program, as well as positive reinforcement programs like Kiwanis Terrific Kids.

In order for students to take ownership in their school, Meehan said that McDowell Mountain also relies heavily on Character Counts, a student council and student leaders group and more.

To assist in classroom enrichment, homework lab, Success Makers, Spanish classes, Reflex Math and Reading by Tiers are also a big part of the school’s ecosystem this year, as well as an upcoming pilot for the Junior Legos Club.