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Our Focus 2025-26

For the 2025-26 school year our school’s learning focus is: 

 

Last school year, we noticed that there was a need to grow our students’ capacity in their Personal & Social Core Competencies which connects to their Social-Emotional Learning (SEL). We connected SEL to literacy by anchoring our efforts in literacy activities in the library and in class. This will be our 2nd school year with this SEL/Literacy focus. 

The data that supports the need for this school learning focus is: 

 

 

The data that supports this need: 

  • School survey that went out last year. 75% of students felt like they belong at McKinney, which means we have to work hard to ensure that the remaining 25% begin to feel connected this year. 

  • Feedback from teachers align with this goal 

  • We are in the process of completing our Fall Reading Assessments and this will inform what areas of reading comprehension/building perspectives we want to explicitly connect to our SEL goal in order to improve both SEL and literacy in our students. 

Actions that the school will take to achieve the goals of our school learning focus include: 

  • School wide assemblies that focus on our new CARES language (McKinney cares for self, others, place).  

  • Explicitly teach SEL skills during our buddy classes & anchor it in a picture book lesson 

  • Continue the use of ACT and EASE lessons in the classroom 

  • Give students the opportunity to have voice by meeting in smaller focus groups again this year 

  • Monthly spirit days and leadership opportunities to help the feeling of belonging. 

  • We will engage in self-reflection: asking students about their self-regulation habits and SEL strategies that they utilize. 

  • Collect Data: Reading assessments, School-wide surveys, as well as 1-to-1 walk-and-talks with staff and a focus group of students. 

  • Professional Development Days for the staff with district social responsibility team.  

The intention of these actions is to make the following difference(s) for learners: 

We are hoping to see the following in regards to SEL: 

  • Build their personal awareness and personal responsibility 

  • Appreciate their personal and cultural identity and have a sense of belonging at McKinney 

  • Build their social awareness and social responsibility 

We will connect to literacy by: 

  • Building CARE Through Anchor Books 
    Using anchor books with our buddy classes will help students learn to name and manage their feelings/emotions/improve personal and social awareness.  

  • Using the pillars of literacy, Intermediate students will use also use SEL texts to explore multiple perspectives and transform their understanding of texts though —revising, rephrasing, and synthesizing ideas.  this should help them improve their literacy skills, while also hopefully connecting to SEL and how they consider the peers’ perspectives and build their social awareness. 

We will know our actions are making a difference when we have data that demonstrates the following: 

  • Reading Assessment Data from the Spring 

  • Conversation with Students 

  • Observations from staff about how students are improving their ability to care for self, others, and place; as well as information about how students are developing in the core competencies. 

Our Focus 2024-25

Over the past couple of years, McKinney has focused on students’ ability to communicate what they are learning, sharing the big ideas behind what they are working on in class.  After a thoughtful discussion with the entire staff, we have decided to switch our focus for the 2024-25 school year to SEL (Social Emotional Learning). Students have shown much growth in their ability to communicate what they are learning (and why it is important); however, we noticed that there is a need to grow students’ capacity in the Personal and Social core competency and SEL knowledge. SEL will be our focus for the 2024-25 school year, so that all learners can:

  • Build their personal awareness and personal responsibility

  • Appreciate their personal and cultural identity and have a sense of belonging at McKinney

  • Build their social awareness and social responsibility

 

Our Actions

1. Let's explicitly teach SOAR, SEL skills, have SOAR assemblies, buddy lessons, ACT lessons, etc.  

2. We will engage in self-reflection: asking students about their SOAR knowledge, self-regulation habits, and SEL strategies they utilize. 

3. We will use literacy activities to anchor our SEL knowledge and grow our Personal and Social competencies as we engage in the reading of picture books and texts with SEL themes. We will build upon students' abilities to "exchange ideas and perspectives to build shared understanding" (a language arts curricular competency) and connect it to our ability to the same when using SEL skills with our peers. 

4. Collect Data: School-wide surveys, class-wide reading activities and note-taking of student responses, as well as 1-to-1 walk-and-talks with staff and a focus group of students.

Updated: Friday, October 31, 2025