KENWOOD TRAIL MIDDLE SCHOOL 19455 Kenwood Trail West Principal- Kate Eisenthal Lakeville, Minnesota 55044 Dean

Beckie Bierman Telephone 952-232-3800 Dean Steve Kovach FAX 952-469-3508 www.ktms.isd194.k12.mn.us

Summer 2013 To the Parent/Guardian of AddressBlock: Kenwood Trail Middle School is committed to preparing every student for success at the high school level and beyond. In effort to meet this commitment, we are fortunate to offer an additional math class that will provide your student more time during the school day to work toward mastery of the mathematics concepts necessary to meet standards on the MCA (Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments) math exams. You are probably aware that Minnesota students are required to pass a state math test to receive a high school diploma. The MCA tests that students take in elementary and middle school align with the high school test. At this time, First_Names MCA and MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) scores indicate that AddressBlock needs additional math assistance to reach grade level proficiency on the state exams. Research says that the most effective way to improve adolescent math skills is to provide additional time during the school day to work with math concepts. We have scheduled AddressBlock into an additional math course, called Math Acceleration 7. The Math Acceleration course is an additional math course in your childs schedule. It does not replace AddressBlocks Math 7 course. Instead, the course will be taught every other day opposite AddressBlocks physical education/health class and will take the place of AddressBlocks music course. The course will help students improve upon math skills that align with the state MCA exams. The class will be significantly smaller than our regular class sizes, allowing for increased student-teacher interaction. The course will be graded on a pass-fail basis, and students may move out of the course and into Band or Choir if/when a certain level of proficiency is reached (please note that our band teacher, Ms. Nygren, is willing to work with band students to keep them in lessons and in some large group rehearsals on a regular basis). Ms. Clark, a KTMS math teacher, will teach the Math Accelerated 7 course. Among her teaching materials and methods will be the use of Think Through Math, an online math program that is aligned to National Council of Teachers in Mathematics (NCTM) and individual state standards. She will also use the Des Cartes Learning Continuum information from the Northwest Education Associations (NWEA) Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) testing results. We feel fortunate to provide AddressBlock with this excellent learning opportunity. Please contact one of us with any questions you may have regarding this course placement for your child. Sincerely,

Kate Eisenthal, Principal kate.eisenthal@isd194.org 952-232-3810

Steve Kovach, Dean (L-Z) steve.kovach@isd194.org 952-232-3833

Beckie Bierman, Dean (A-K) beckie.bierman@isd194.org 952-232-3832