Cottonwood County Sheriff’s Office reported 33 calls in the week of January 26th to February 1st. Deputies conducted 8 Civil Processes, worked 1 theft, handled one drug complaint, a verbal domestic and conducted 5 traffic stops. A full listing of all calls in the Cottonwood County Sheriff’s Office Weekly Citizens Report is available by clicking the link below.
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Today’s meetings include:
- Murray County Board of Commissioners at 8:30am in the Murray County Government Center. If you would like to listen in by calling or view the meeting via zoom you can find the information on the Murray County Homepage.
- Jackson County Board of Commissioners and the Drainage Authority at 9am at the Jackson County Court House Commissioners Board Room
- Cottonwood County Board of Commissioners at 9:00am at the Cottonwood County Courthouse in the Commissioners Room.
- St James City Council at 5:30pm in James City Hall in Council Chambers. Meetings can be viewed live or anytime on the City of St James’s YouTube Channel.
- Windom City Council at 6:30 pm at Windom City Hall in City Council Chambers. Meetings can be viewed live or anytime on the City of Windom’s YouTube Channel.
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As a reminder, coming up on Wednesday is the monthly test of the Emergency Warning Siren System. The City of Windom has an outdoor warning system and it is tested the first Wednesday of each month. If you would like to learn more about this go to windommn.com
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Numbers don’t lie, and Windom Area Elementary School is rocking the Science of Reading and literally seeing a difference. At the last School Board Meeting the Board was presented with some astronomical numbers for 1st graders through 4th graders reading skills. According to Superintendent Jamie Frank this is the first year that all teachers and students are participating in the UFLY program. UFLY stands for University of Florida Literacy Center and it is a new literacy program with a curriculum that teaches phonological awareness and phonics.
Superintendent Jamie Frank Sound Bite: “So when we started, the reason we picked UFLY is because it is researched based and other districts across the country not so much popular in Minnesota, but across the country, they are getting some great results from UFLY. So that’s why we picked UFLY, it seemed to make sense to us and it aligned with the professional development that we’ve been receiving through the Science of Reading training”.
In the first “season” of the program scores showed an increase in every aspect of performance. Frank stated that she had high expectations but never imagined that they would accomplish so much so quickly. Frank went onto say, teachers and students are working hard and the results are amazing. Even with the success Frank stated that they won’t lose sight on why they started with the UFly program.
Superintendent Jamie Frank Sound Bite: “Our goal is to Always to help every student read at grade level. So if I have a Kidergardener student, I want that Kindergartener to be reading at grade level as measured by our screener. A First Grader we want to be reading at grade level, so ultimately our goal is to have those graphs at 100% across all categories.
Even though the elementary school has seen such fantastic results Frank stated they understand that not all children are the same and there are many different strategies to continue to help improve reading and sight words for all the students.
Superintendent Jamie Frank Sound Bite: There are so many different strategies that are in UFLY, even before you get to phonics, knowing that A says Ah and B says Buh putting those together make words. But even before you get to that, there’s a whole program on phonological awareness. That is just hearing that there are sounds in words, if you think of the word MAT, you can hear that there is “Mmm, Aa & Tuh” and just being able to play around with those sounds. Change Mat to Bat, how does that work? You have to change the Mmm to Buh” and so phonological awareness, practices to get kids ready to match those letters to the sounds. So, if you have a 3rd Grader that is really struggling, with reading, you can take them all the way back to the beginning in UFLY and work on some of that phonological awareness, and build the skills. There is a program for that, there is a systematic program.”
Frank shared the presentation with all the incredible Performance Comparisons for grades 1st through 4th grade. This presentation is available on KDOM’s Website under today’s Local Headline News. Honestly, THIS is worth checking out. The UFLY program truly mirrors the Windom Eagle Team Vision. “Learning, Leading and Excelling together.
Windom Area School Presentation Fall vs Winter Performance Analysis
School Board Presentation pg 9
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