by: Terrae Minter

At October 11 Lee County school board meeting, four Lee County schools principals presented plans to improve student learning. One of those principals was Lee County High School’s Betsy Bridges. 

The other three schools represented were East Lee Middle School, JR Ingram Elementary School, and West Lee Middle Schools. The four schools from the district were required to develop a plan after being identified as a low-performing school by the State Board of Education. 

Bridges’ main focus is improving students academically. 

“At Lee County High School we are working the rigor of our instruction but having support for all of our students,” Bridges said. 

Bridges wants teachers to improve their lesson plan by not having students behind a computer all the time and actually engaged, wanting to learn and be in school. The school administration is incorporating a lot more walk throughs and observing teachers.

“An observation of our teachers with immediate feedback on these strategies we are seeing in our classroom so coaching in the moment or after we’ve been through about what we have seen and what we think that is working well or something they might want to tweak to get better and to reach more students in their classroom,” Bridges said.

Another goal  Bridges has is to increase the growth in the  school scores as well as the test scores and  ACT exams, one of the big things at LCHS.

”So we’re taking a multi-prong approach with that where we are targeting our jacket sting advisory group time where all students will receive test taking and test prep on the act so they understand why they’re taking it,” Bridges said. 

They did move the ACT score last year from 17 to 19 so there was a two point gain. That’s big when it comes to ACT scores so LCHS is targeting students and  going to look at their Pre-ACT to see what areas need improvement. 

“ Give the students  instructions from the teachers in our building as well as our coach from our district to help them in those areas which are the reading language arts, the math and the science areas,” Bridges said.

LCHS is implementing a multi-tiered system of support for all  the students, not just the ones in an immediate need.

“Starting at our tier one which is what we make sure all our students have and then going up in the terms of support for students that are struggling in our classroom with their academics as well as socially,” Bridges said.

Teachers are taking time to get to know their students and what they do need with communicating with all the resources LCHS have available.

“ We are restructuring to a more team-wide approach structuring our school so that everybody has a voice”,said Bridges.

The Lee County School Board approved the plan and it will be on the school website for the next two weeks. Families are allowed to provide written feedback on the plans which will be taken under advisement by the School Improvement Team. The final plans will be presented to the Lee County school board on November 1.