Mrs. Fortunato Presents At Best Practices Conference In North Carolina

I had the good fortune of attending the RTI Best Practices Institute in Wrightsville Beach, NC with a team from Burlington.  It was great to hear some well-known RTI comsultants discuss Best Practice, but the highlight was listening to Burlington Math Coach Carrie Fortunato discuss all of the things happening in our Burlington Elementary Schools to make sure students are making progress developing their math skills. 

While the entire slideshow is above, I want to highlight a few of the key things that I took away from Mrs. Fortunato's presentation. 

• In Burlington we have clearly defined what math is in the elementary levels and prioritized what students need to know in grades K-5 within these defined areas.
• Our priorities are Number Sense, Number Concept, and Numeracy
• We have clear measures to check on the progress of all students and specific interventions we employ when we find students are lagging in progress.
• In addition we have clear data to see how we are progressing both as individuals and at each grade level.
• Slide 7 - Shows what was done last year in the first year of this work by Mrs. Fortunato and her team. 
• Slides 8-9 show the five clearly articulated parts of Number Concept
• Slides 10-11 show the five clearly articulated parts of Number Sense
• Slide 12 states what all Burlington students should be able to do in regards to Numeracy by the end of fourth grade
• Slides 22-29 describe the assessment procedures that we use for Numeracy in grades K-5
• Slide 43 highlights what are assessment procedures will look like next year and beyond

BPS Math Coach Carrie Fortunato

There is a lot more in the presentation that is work checking out, the key thing is that the work that Mrs. Fortunato has done along with our dedicated staff of classroom teachers and tutors has allowed us to ensure the development of strong foundational skills for all students.  This is due to the time an effort that has been given to make sure we all agree on the following three things:

1. What we teach all students
2. How we monitor the progress of all students
3. What interventions we put in place when students are struggling

It is clear that people were impressed with the work that has been done in Burlington in the area of elementary math instruction!  We look forward to sharing more about this work in the future. Thanks also go to Dr. Scott Methe and his graduate students from UMass Boston for their consultation work that has supported our efforts.