New Salem-Almont School District

What do you get when 13 Holsteins walk into Fargo for the state tournament? How about three state champs, a runner up and two more top placers and a third place team finish: 106 Wyatt Engwicht - Champion 113 Cole Gerhardt - Champion 126 Ethan Maier - 6th place 152 Ethan Hammons - 3rd place 160 Ty Wolding - Runner-Up 285 AJ Heins - Champion Saturday brought a tight opening loss to Carrington and wins over Hettinger and Velva for a 5th place dual team finish. Lead the whole way by our ND Class B back to back to back state coach of the year Dave Wolding. This team has titles to defend, titles to claim, the heart to earn it and the leader to lead it. "Success is not obtained overnight. It comes in installments; you get a little bit today, a little bit tomorrow until the whole package is given out." Israelmore Ayivor

Feb 13-19 Junior Class Calendar Raffle ticket winners! Feb. 13- LeAnn Rasmussen Feb. 14- Dean Bachler Feb. 15- Cory Gullickson Feb. 16- Vivki Kunz Feb. 17- Sheila Christian Feb. 18- Mike Doll Feb. 19- Brenda Kovar

Mrs. Bennett shares her experience with Edmentum ExactPath - see the article below! SCHOOL SPOTLIGHT Accelerating Learning Recovery in New Salem Story by Madison Michell, Edmentum https://blog.edmentum.com/accelerating-learning-recovery-new-salem-north-dakota Prairie View Elementary School of New Salem-Almont School District serves 165 elementary students in the small New Salem, North Dakota, community. Recently, I had the pleasure of connecting with Principal Lauren Bennett to learn how educators and students alike are forging a new path toward academic growth in partnership with Edmentum. “We knew, going into this year, we were going to have a lot of challenges and learning gaps,” remarked Mrs. Bennett. “We really needed to hit it hard with some intervention that was good for all kids.” Unsurprisingly, this story is all too familiar nationwide. In a schoolyear crippled by learning disruptions, accelerating learning recovery has become the reigning theme. How It Started “We were home from, obviously, March until August [2020], and so that was a big drop in education,” reflected Mrs. Bennett. “We knew we needed something. We really liked Edmentum, a company that we had already worked with, so we were really excited.” Prairie View Elementary became one of many North Dakota schools implementing Edmentum Exact Path, a K–12 diagnostic-driven individualized instruction program, in the 2020–21 academic year. Exact Path has been provided at no cost by the governor’s office of North Dakota and the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction for all North Dakota students through September 30, 2021. “Our Title I program is who started using it first,” commented Mrs. Bennett. “A couple of times a week, [students needing intervention services] would go on for reading or math, and our Title I teacher really liked what she saw.” Favorite features and functionality for Mrs. Bennett and her teachers centered around the user-friendly nature of Exact Path. The depth of the instruction, variety of practice, and inability for students to just buzz through without first demonstrating mastery were also elements that quickly stood out. “Any question I had [about the program] was always answered right away,” remarked Mrs. Bennett. “And, as far as getting all our [student] information in there, it was really nice. It was already in there, so that was really great.” Flexible professional development and training opportunities have also been an important element for educators looking to increase their Exact Path knowledge. In addition to synchronous learning options, Edmentum offers many North Dakota–specific on-demand training sessions for easy consumption. “We’re a very small district,” noted Mrs. Bennett. “A lot of us are coaches or bus drivers. It’s definitely not like you’re a classroom teacher and that’s your only role. So, it is really tough to be able to say, ‘OK, we need an hour and a half of your time after school.’ That can be very difficult, so I like this flexibility.” How It’s Going In mid-January staff meetings, conversations turned to extending the program’s reach to a schoolwide implementation for all students. Prairie View Elementary offers daily “WIN (What I Need)” time in every classroom, and teachers are always looking for new intervention ideas for struggling students, as well as acceleration opportunities for highflyers. “It’s not like, ‘Oh, here’s another paper to do’ or like, ‘Let me find something additional to take up some of your time’ but [Exact Path] is something worthwhile that they’re actually going to get something from,” shared Mrs. Bennett. Additionally, using Exact Path with all students makes regular assessments and progress monitoring actionable. Students at Prairie View Elementary School complete NWEA® MAP® GROWTH™ assessments three times a year, and an integration with Exact Path means that each student can receive a tailored instructional path based directly on those scores. “I really liked that Exact Path worked with MAP, because we really dive deep with test scores,” commented Mrs. Bennett. “We don’t take the test and then never look at it again. Exact Path allows that intervention based on their test score, putting students where they need to be.” Those connection points seem to be paying off according to Mrs. Bennett: “We’re seeing our [NWEA MAP Growth] test scores go up, which is amazing, so we know what we’re doing is working. And some of that definitely has to do with the interventions we’re using.” Assessment data indicate that the future is bright for elementary students in New Salem, North Dakota, and a partnership with Edmentum is offering one powerful tool to the school’s instructional toolbox. “It’s very difficult to be able to tailor many kids with many different interventions,” concluded Mrs. Bennett. “Teachers are just working so much and are absolutely amazing, and it’s incredibly helpful to be able to have one part of that being taken care of. We feel very lucky to have something that will do that [differentiation] for us.”

Tonight the Board voted to lift the mask mandate for students and staff. Masks are recommended and teachers will do their best to try and separate if possible. In the motion, the Board put in a mechanism that will return the district to a mask mandate based on 15 or more active student/staff cases for two or more days in Morton County schools. The mandate would be lifted once the numbers go down. The website that shows the information is below. https://www.health.nd.gov/k-12-school-dashboard The other trigger included in the motion would be if a school building in our district would have 5 or more active cases, then that building only would return to a mask mandate until those numbers declined.

BBB game tonight against Linton/HMB will be live on "HMB Public School" on Facebook for those who can't make it.

Junior Class Calendar Raffle ticket winners! Feb. 6- Shane Tellmann Feb. 7- Shawn Feiring Feb. 8- Shelly Nehl Feb. 9- Toby Olin Feb. 10- Kathy Sanders Feb. 11-Tammie Jueth Feb. 12- Jerome Slag

Boys Basketball tonight against Linton/HMB will be in HAZELTON. Games will begin at 6:00 p.m. with JV. Good luck Holsteins!

Cheer on the GBB team in Districts starting this Friday in New Salem at 5:30pm. Since this a District tournament comprised of 5 other teams, we cannot stream the game live. However, the games will be on our NFHS network, but on delay, so you will be able to watch Friday's games on Saturday. We are also not allowed to stream via Facebook either.

Order your yearbook now! Go to www.jostensyearbooks.com and click "Order Yearbook". Don't miss out!

Junior Class Calendar Raffle ticket winners! Feb. 1- Brook Mosbrucker Feb. 2- Ronda Marshbecker Feb. 3- Rick Klatt Feb.4- Tyanne Ryan Feb. 5- Tamara Kautzman Winners for Feb. 6-12 will be posted this Friday!

Order flowers for parents, grandparents, friends, or sweethearts for Valentine’s Day Sunday, February 14, 2021 Place an Order: Orders will be accepted in the morning from 8:00am- 8:20am in the commons area Feb. 2nd- Feb 9th Or Kayla in the HS office or Ms. Schmid - Room 205 Carnations - $3 (Red, White, Pink) Roses - $6 (Red, Pink) Order between February 2 - 9. ORDERS CLOSE at the end of the day on TUESDAY, FEB. 9! Payment is due when order is placed.

REMINDER: There is no school tomorrow- Friday, January 29. Have a great weekend!

Congratulations to the following January Students' of the Month: Nathan Pletan, Pearl Johnson, Brady Brandt, Morgan Stang, and Caleb Feland. Students are chosen based on integrity, respect, discipline, leadership, effort, citizenship, and positivity. Congratulations everyone!

New Salem-Almont is finalizing the move to a 1:1 model that gives either an iPad or laptop to students in grades 7-12. Going into this school year we already had well over half of the devices needed to transform to a 1:1 setting and with the stimulus money this year, we were able to purchase the rest. Many reasons went into this decision, with the biggest reason being the convenience this will provide to our students moving forward. With technology at their fingertips, students do not have to travel and disrupt another classroom to grab a device and teachers don’t have to worry if enough devices will be available for a lesson. The 1:1 model aligns with our Profile of a Graduate vision that centers around 21st Century Learning. A third advantage is the ability of students to stay signed in to Microsoft Teams, which is used by NSA teachers to make classroom announcements, assign and collect work, collaborate with students on group projects, and meet with students virtually. Finally, the speed in which our devices work will not slow down; meaning when multiple students log onto one device each day it tended to slow our devices down. Multiple login’s during the day also caused students to experience glitches when trying to save/load documents because it won’t sign out of the previous user completely at times. Moving forward, students will be responsible to handle their device with care, keep it charged, and to bring it to their classes. Furthermore, students will learn how to use technology appropriately which is a part of being North Dakota “Choice Ready”. Before the device is handed out, Mrs. Binstock and Mr. Klaudt will have met with the students to discuss the acceptable use agreement and the ramifications if a student is careless with a device. Your child will be bringing this document home so please review carefully. We are excited for this initiative and plan to use the coming months to iron out any issues that arise.

A c-squad game has been added to tonight's GBB games against Richardton-Taylor. C-squad game will begin at 4:30.

GET READY TO RUMBLE! Holstein youth wrestling will start Monday, January 25th. Practices will be Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm. A parents meeting will take place on Sunday, January 24th at 6 pm in the high school library. If you have any questions before the parents meeting, you can contact Leland Irwin at (701)220-6507.

Masks are still required in NSA in order to keep the close contact exemption in place but by spreading desks around the room, having reading corners, and other locations in the classroom for a mask break, teachers have done a great job minimizing the amount of time kids need to wear masks. With that being said, please remind your kiddos to bring their masks home tomorrow so it can be washed. We do provide masks and have a bucket where kids can put their dirty mask if needed as well.

After talking with bus drivers, school will start on time but they may be a little late as they run the route. As always, if your child is not riding please call your bus driver the night before or the school in the morning at 843-7610.

2019-2020 YEARBOOKS are in! If you forgot to order one, we have some extras that you can purchase. The cost is $50. Students can pick-up from Mrs. Binstock.

JHBB Schedule Change: Saturday, January 16 JHBB at Flasher. 10:00 8th grade game 11:00 7th grade game