Administration

Admninstrators

Parents/Caregivers and Friends of AHS,

We are off to another great start at American Horse School. Our enrollment continues to go up each school year. So with an increase in enrollment, we have also increased our teaching staff at AHS. American Horse School has two kindergartens both teach SRA Reading Mastery Signature Curriculum, Saxon Math and Number Worlds for the math curriculum. One kindergarten is a transition kindergarten which has an alternative structured class time for reading and math for students who have not attended a pre-school in order to prepare them for the regular 30-45 minute reading and math sessions that are required in the regular classrooms. In Kindergarten through seventh grades we have two classrooms for each grade and on 8th grade classroom. We have three new teacher joining Alexa Talamo, Christine Poor Bear and Kim Hicks in the middle school; they are Christine Sorensen, Dean Haley and Brittany Yount. One new teacher, Hannah Cook joins Andrew Madson, Amanda Maehara, Eric Poris, Mabel Eagle Heart and Jeanette Bettelyoun in the intermediate grades. There is also one new teacher Valerie Andrews joining the primary staff that consists of: Megan Kittisopikul, Hattie Powell, Michael Drawbaugh, Bonnie Hopper, Carly Cooper, Elizabeth Maffetone and kerry McLaren. All of our teachers are cerified teachers in the state of South Dakota and are also designated as highly qualified teachers in their grade assignments. Eighty-two (82%) of our para-professional staff have also passed the South Dakota Para-professional Praxis exam and are certified by the state of South Dakota. We are also proud that the majority of them have associate degrees in education or early childhood and many just are a few hours from studen teaching or receiving an AA or BS degree in education from OLC. We also continue to receive the FACE program grant which educates parents and their children from birth to five years of age. Jodi Richards is the coordinator of the program with Jerilyn Fast Wolf as early childhood teacher and Jennifer May as adult educator. Joining them in teaching the parents and children are DeVonna Bush, Lucy Cottier and Gene Standing Bear. We are proud to welcome back all of our staff from the custodians, maintenance, cafeteria, and security, nyrsing and bus drivers and commend our School Board on hiring local community members to assist our certified staff in teaching our students. our new front desk receptionist is Elwanda Fire Thunder, while Erin Red Bear continues as the administrative assistant and Jodi Richards is the administrator for the middle school and serves as Special Services Coordinator (FACE and 21st Century Programs). In accordance NCLB regulations, AHS is required to notify the parents of the school's adequate yearly progress as measured by the South Dakota standardized assessment Dakota Step-10. Our annual year report for the 2010-2011 academic years has been completed. AHS made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for participation for all grades 3-8th in taking the Dakota Step 10 and also made AYP for attendance rate with our attendance being 95.94% or 96%. Even though our 3rd-8th grade classes did not reach the reading and math benchmarks established by the State of South Dakota, overall there was individual student growth with the AHS Reading scores rising by 5% while the Math dipped by less than 1% or .7%. Regardless of our growth American Horse School will enter into its **second year of restructuring.** An American Horse School Improvement and Restructuring plan has been developed by the school improvement and leadership team and is available for review in my office. AHS Board will continue to support a combination of the transformation and turnaround school improvemnt model which will be based upon a direct instruction SRA curriculum for both reading and math. The direct instruction requires additional teaching assistances in all the classrooms. Shilo Krolikowski provides oversight for the direct instruction programs as the building coordinator. AHS continues to use the accelerated reading and math programs as the response to intervention for reading and math practice and students work on these skills in the extended school day which is from 8 to 5:30pm T - TH. These programs were recommended by the BIE study of 2006. AHS is also mandated by BIE to have weekly teaching training, so Monday and Friday afternoons are set aside to meet these requirements. The school improvement and restructuring plan are all monitored on line by the Pine Ridge Education Office and BIE Directorate of Performance and Accountability with a software program called Native Star.

Last year was the first year AHS received an academic grant for reading and math, the grant is titled the School Improvement Grant 10.03 g. AHS administration had applied but not been awarded any grant funds for reading and math for the previous ten years. Due to this grant we were able to procure new reading and math intervention programs and hire additional people to assist our teachers in the classroom, we believe this is what helped student's raise their reading and math scores. Our business manager Suzanne White Lance and Superintendent Dr. Gloria J. Coats Kitsopoulos are the grant writers for American Horse School. Obviously we want all our studens at advanced and proficient levels for the grades they are enrolled in, but we are glad that the majority of our students continue to improve academically and with a basic score will be able to be successful in their high school academic years. AHS continues to set their expectations high for academic success by increasing the length of the school day to get more instructional time for reading and math, writing grants for an after school program to provide additional academic time for struggling students and for a preschool to get our students into at an earlier age to work with them on early literacy skills. Please be a positive supporter of your student's academic years at AHS there is enough negative things in our world today, our children need to hear about the positive things in their lives. Congratulate them on reading a book to their siblings, getting their homework done and getting up and going to school each day. Please come and visit with me or your student's teacher if you have concerns about American Horse School or our academic curriculum. Dr. Gloria J. Coats-Kitsopoulos Superintendent American Horse School __//** ﻿ **//__ __//** ﻿ **//__

Welcome back all students and staff after the Christmas break. I know that we are all ready to work hard and continue to give the students here at American Horse the best education possible. I would like to thank all the staff, students, parents, and community members for having positive involvement and making great things happen the first half of the school year. -**//Jodi Richards//**

__//**School Philosophy ﻿﻿ **//__ //The American Horse School believes that every child has an inherent right to lifelong learning. We believe that ALL children have the potential and ability to learn.//

//**__Vision__**// //We stand together to create a healthy learning environment so that our children at American Horse School have the opportunities to acquire leadership competencies for building a better future by achieving a level of greatness experienced by our people carrying the values that are uniquely and beautifully Lakota.//


 * In partnership, we help to facilitate the achievement of personal goals and embrace and retain Lakota values.**