National Blue Ribbon Schools Program

Galeton is a small, rural community located eight miles northeast of Greeley. We are part of the Eaton School District and are a K-5 school with one class per grade level. The community that feeds into Galeton Elementary is mostly comprised of families who work in the dairy, ranching, farming, and oil field industries.

There are several strategies that have proven to be successful for our students at Galeton. One is WIN (What I Need/Intervention)time that is scheduled everyday in a 30 minute block. Students work on the skill(s)they need in reading in order to help them be successful.We know that giving students what they need regardless of their level is crucial to helping them achieve their full potential. We also have a 30 minute math enrichment time where all students have opportunities to work on skills they struggle with or for advanced students, they get to add new skills to their toolbox and be challenged. We add project based learning and STEM projects into every content area to support students abilities to create and problem solve.

Our strategy of adding more individualized instructional time in reading and math came about as a result of our students not making the growth we expected of them. Prior to school year 2019/2020, reading intervention was done by ability and there was no math intervention. Students were not closing their learning gap and we were not moving advanced students. We also increased the number of times we assessed and progress monitored. We also do a strategic assessment at the beginning of each month to make sure we catch any student who starts to fall behind or is moving ahead of grade level. We have weekly MTSS meetings to discuss behavior, interventions and advancement.We have data discussions with a team including the principal, literacy specialist, interventionist, and classroom teacher every six weeks to look at data and make a plan for all students going forward. This has also helped increase the success of students.