The Minnesota Elementary School Principals’ Association established a task force on standards assessment which guides schools through the self-evaluation process.
The Paynesville staff reviewed the evaluation process during their last staff meeting of the 1996 school year. At the start of this school year, committees were established to cover various areas required to complete the report.
“The staff has put in a lot of work into the School of Excellence program,” Gary Heineman, elementary principal, said.
“The whole process made us take a good long look at things we do and showed us what areas we are strong in,” Chris Quale said. “The process gave us the opportunity and the time to look at ourselves, otherwise we did just our day-to-day jobs.”
Tricia Skahan stressed self-evaluation can only bring about improvement within the elementary school.
“As we look at the program, we found our children have respect for other children and the staff, they are learning conflict resolution skills which will help them manage their feelings and how to function better around one another,” Heineman said. “A lot of these values are learned at home.”
All the teachers agreed students are learning a lot that doesn’t come from a textbook but from people.