February 2017
Rio Vista Elementary
Newsletter
Principal Siobhan McCarthy
Assistant Principal Marlene
Mustang Success, Nothing Less! We Bee-lieve in you! Letter from Principal McCarthy
Response to Intervention: Meeting the
Needs of All of Our Students
Upcoming Events
in February:
1st
Early Release
2nd
6th-8th grade Sweetheart Dance,
4:00-6:00pm
7th
Rio Vista Mustang PTA
General Meeting,
4:00pm
Response to Interventions (RtI) is a very effective and successful process used at Rio Vista, and actually nation wide, to
meet the needs of all of our students. RTI consists of 3 “tiers,” or levels, beginning with Tier I.
Tier I focuses on strong class-wide instruction using our core curriculum. All of our students participate in Tier I as it is
their regular classroom instruction with their teacher. With best practices and highly effective strategies, 80% of our
students are expected to show success in their classroom.
PESD Governing Board
Meeting at District
Office, 7:00pm
Tier II is in place to focus on remediation and enrichment of students’ learning. All students participate in Tier II and
attend some sort of intervention based upon their needs in Math and Reading.
Our Tier II interventions are provided by our interventionist, special education teachers, classroom teachers, our gifted
teacher, and instructional assistants. These intervention groups are smaller in size and target specific learning objectives/
skills Our interventionist works with our intensive students in reading. She utilizes district approved research based
programs to remediate phonemic awareness, phonics, comprehension and vocabulary. The Special Education Teachers
provide remediation of skills that are driven by their student’s IEP goals. Our classroom teachers support students that
are at the strategic and core level and they use resources to support our English Learner student Our PEP teacher
works with our gifted students and enrichment groups to advance their learning and support them in exceeding the standards. We are excited to announce the addition of Achieve 3000 and Smarty Ants to help our students in their reading
achievement. ALL students in K-3 are using Smarty Ants an average of 60 minutes a week and then in 3rd-8th grade,
students are selected based on their current fluency and achievement levels to use this program. Both programs are
computer (web) based and extremely engaging for our students. As many of you know, Dreambox, is another web
based program that we are using with ALL of our K-8 students to help supplement, review and extend their math abilities.
The Tier III process is used by our interventionists for Kindergarten through third grade. Students performing in the
intensive range or Falls Far Below, and are not showing significant progress in Tier II, are “double dosed”, meaning
receiving interventions and extra help twice a day. The Tier III groups are even smaller in size than Tier II to provide
more explicit instruction. Classroom teachers can also provide Tier III instruction as they feel necessary during their small
group instruction time.
In order to form groups effectively, we analyze and sort various forms of student data. Galileo, DIBELS and the phonic
screeners are tests that we give to students throughout the year. Galileo is a test taken 3 times a year and students take
it in Reading, Writing, Math and Science (4th and 8th grade only). Phonics screeners are used in the primary grades for
reading, and DIEBLS is used in grades K-4 for reading as well. Data from these tests are compiled to target student
needs and to appropriately place the students in their intervention groups. Teacher-made assessments and progress
monitoring materials are used to assess progress and drive future instruction within the intervention group. After DIBELS
and Galileo are administered, grade level meetings with the teachers and administration are held to review the data and
create new groups based on achievement.
The RtI process allows for specific student needs to be targeted; resulting in academic success. Through our commitment to the Response to Intervention process, we at Rio Vista are striving to help our students achieve their academic
and life goals by laying strong foundational understandings and preparing them to be college and career ready.
Your partner in education, Siobhan
McCarthy
8th
Early Release
Cafecito 7:45am
9th
PESD Parent
Luncheon at the PLC,
11:00am
10th
Rio Vista School
Carnival, 4:00-7:00pm
14th
PESD Community Partners Breakfast at PLC,
7:30am
15th, 16th
and 17th
Early Release for
Parent/Teacher
Conferences
20th
No School: President’s
Day
21st
Governing Board Meeting at Canyon Breeze
School, 7:00pm
22nd
Early Release
27th
Spring and Group
28th
Peter Piper Pizza
STUCO Fundraiser,
4:00-8:00pm
5th gr. Ballroom Dance
Competition, 4:00pm
Page 2 Counselor’s Corner: Setting Goals
Studies show that being able to set goals and achieve said goal(s) is a critical developmental asset in individuals of all ages. It is important
that we work with students on how to set goals. Each year people set goals, or a “New Year’s Resolution” with the intention of meeting that
resolution before a preset date or time frame. Often, we set goals with good intentions but give up our resolution within a few weeks. More
often than not, a reason this happens may be because of the way we are setting these goals. The process of setting goals allows students to
choose a desired goal or outcome, and then set a plan in motion to achieve that outcome.
Having sharp, clearly defined goals, which students can measure, will allow them to take pride in accomplishing those goals. Students can see
clear forward progress in what might have seemed too complicated and a long drawn out process.
Setting goals can help students to accomplish the following:
Improve academic performance
Increase motivation to achieve
Increase pride and satisfaction in their performance
Improve self-confidence
Keys to effective goal setting includes expressing goals with positive intentions and outcomes; being accurate in how and when you will accomplish such goal(s); setting priorities in order to minimize obstacles from keeping them from reaching their goal(s); keeping goals small
and easily obtainable, so students can see progress and accomplishments taking place more regularly, which keeps motivation up and moving
forward; setting goals the student can control (i.e. studying, exercise, etc.); and being flexible in adjusting goals and processes in achieving
their goal. Goal setting gives students long and/or short term visions which motivate students to proceed with the steps needed to successfully reach those goals and become successful in what they do.
Phillip McNamara
School Counselor
We are proud to announce that Rio Vista won 1st place in the City of Avondale’s School Spirit Holiday Food Drive! Rio Vista brought in 2,107 pounds of food to those less fortunate in our city. We have received a trophy and have placed it in the front office for all to see. Thank you to all of our families for your continued support of our school and community! What a great cause and effort to celebrate!