Hot Springs County High School is in year six of our PLC journey and it just keeps getting better! Staff and student culture has been transformed through a clear focus on student learning with a No Opt Out system of support and interventions. 

Collaborative teams are built around content areas and include special education teachers, as well as general education teachers across grade levels and courses. For example the science team includes the biology/environmental science teacher, chemistry/physics teacher and an agriculture teacher whose students compete in the agriscience competitions at the national level.

In our small high school collaborative teams have meaningful connections, even though they are technically "singletons" of the specific courses they teach. 

The WHOLE school functions as the Professional Learning Community. We are "tight" about the key components of the PLC framework which includes: collaboratively identifying essential standards as vertical content teams, building "collaborative" formative assessments that are peer reviewed by the vertical content team, creating proficiency scales within our vertical teams and troubleshooting the challenges of creating strong interventions and extensions that successfully support students in achieving the standards/skills. 

Friday PLC Roundtables provide the opportunity for learning together. Twice a month we bring artifacts to the table and share our work around the 4 PLC questions across grade levels, content areas, cores and electives. The PLC Roundtable creates mutual accountability as each teacher shares a recent assessment, proficiency scale, data analysis by student/by skill,  intervention/extension strategy or other product of the PLC work. Everyone brings an artifact, everyone shares and together we all get better. "There are no singletons when the WHOLE school is the PLC!" (Breez Daniels, 2023).

In year four as a Professional Learning Community the team of teachers at Hot Springs County High School began to see data that proved their collaborative work was paying dividends as all students showed measurable gains in academic achievement as measured by our SMART goals. 

A collaborative bridge was built between Thermopolis Middle School, a Model PLC since 2016 (grades 5-8), and Hot Springs County High School (grades 9-12).  In a rural district with grade level and content singletons the need to collaborate across schools became key to building stronger vertical content teams focused on learning together. 

Hot Springs County High School became committed to ensuring continued academic growth for all students as they transitioned from middle to high school, as measured with cohort trend data. The need to ensure student achievement data did not slip during the high school years created a need for authentic collaboration between the middle and high school.  

The Professional Learning Community model provided a framework for re-organizing content singletons isolated in separate buildings in a rural community and to instead create vertical collaborative teams that work together in the summer, and at least once a month throughout the school year, to calibrate expectations around essential learnings.

Grades 9-12 teachers form year long collaborative teams to unpack essential learnings within content areas by course, designing assessment items with peer feedback, making decisions about rigor and DOK levels, and analyzing data while fully articulating questions one and two of a PLC.  Even though these teachers would be singletons in a tradional high school with 200 students, at HSCHS they function as collaborative teams within the PLC model. 

Hot Springs County High School teachers have time built into the school day for collaboration as a 9th-12th grade content team twice weekly.  High school teachers collaborate as content teams, as well as grade level "advisory" teams. One unique aspect of this small high school is that each content team grades 9-12 has one class they teach in common, this has been a catalyst for significant professional learning and growth within the PLC model. A typical high school reduces "teacher preps" by assigning "like courses" to individual instructors.  For rural schools of singletons this means that one English teacher typically teaches all freshman English classes or for example all freshman and sophomore English. Within our collaborative model at Hot Springs County High School all three high school English teachers teach one section of freshman (9th grade) English. This ensures a strong collaborative base for this team, while each of them also has their individual assignments of multiple sections of sophomore, junior and senior English respectively. 

The master schedule will be uploaded as an artifact and will illustrate that every content team at Hot Springs County High School has at least one like course with common outcome assessments, shared data and all of the work associated with quality collaborative practices within a PLC. Each content team also works collaboratively on the content courses taught by their teammates, including being transparent about student data on common formative assessments. 

The combined structure of mutual accountability within content teams, across courses, and then expanding the system to include like courses for all high school teachers to become authentic members of a collaborative team around student achievement data has transformed teaching and learning at Hot Springs County High School.  

An integral piece of the learning process has been the classroom assessment. Each vertical collaborative team builds  assessment items as standards are unpacked. The peer review process around outcome assessments is critical for creating mutual accountability and shared learning targets. Teachers spend time together evaluating DOK levels and the scaffolding of learning across grade levels by skill. Cassandra Erkens, Tom Schimmer and Nicole Vagle (2017) place assessment at the center of learning, “Classroom assessment is central to every teacher’s success and every learner’s success. It is central to addressing the standards. It is central to guiding instruction. It is central to making individual and program improvements. It is more than just a measure of learning; it must promote learning. We hold the vision that assessment practices must build hope, efficacy, and achievement for learners and teachers” (p.5). 

Higher levels of learning mean our students retain foundational key concepts in core content areas and build on these concepts through scaffolded learning pathways in math, science, reading and writing throughout their high school experience (depth, not breadth). A small high school has a decisive edge in doing this work well. The simple logistics of all teachers being members of collaborative teams and sharing the same students means there should be no excuses for being knowledgeable about what is being taught and assessed up and down the curriculum.  

A common problem in any school system is the blame game. As students transition from grade to grade or school to school (elementary to middle to high school) the teachers feel it is necessary to spend months reteaching what “should have been taught” the previous year(s). You can hear the refrain in any school, anywhere, about what kids don’t know, that they should have been taught the year(s) before. This is where the power of a collaborative approach to teaching and learning can completely change the student experience in a 5-12 collaborative system. 

Collaboration as a professional practice amongst teachers is the key to higher levels of learning for all students, especially in small schools with singleton teachers. Singleton teachers in many small schools may be the ONLY math/English/science teacher a student has for two or three years. If this teacher is answering PLC questions one and two by themselves a student's entire academic future lies in the hands of this one teacher. In Raising the Bar and Closing the Gap: Whatever It Takes, Richard DuFour, Rebecca DuFour, Robert Eaker and Gayle Karhanek place commitment to a collaborative culture as key to transforming schools stating, “We cannot achieve our fundamental purpose of learning for all if we work in isolation. Therefore, we must build a collaborative culture in which we work together interdependently and assume collective responsibility for the learning of all students” (p. 21). 

The idea of teacher collaboration as a catalyst for improving student learning has been central to our work at Hot Springs County High School in developing ten Career-Tech, College, Military (CCM) Launch standards that effectively capture ten cross-curricular standards that all students MUST have at graduation.  The truth is that when teachers begin to work together to understand the progression of student learning grade by grade, skill by skill, across content areas they are gaining expertise that can directly impact student learning this week, this semester and this school year.  Each teacher is promising the teacher below them and the teacher above them that they will provide essential learnings at proficiency/mastery for ALL students. 

In the book Leaders of Learning Richard DuFour and Robert Marzano provide a review of the research on the tradition of teacher isolation K-12 and evidence of a culture of professional isolation. They report, “ A study conducted by the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future (Fulton, Yoon, & Lee, 2005) describes isolated teaching in stand alone classrooms as the most persistent norm standing in the way of improving schools” (p. 50). 

Through professional collaboration and mutual accountability teachers at Hot Springs County High School have become experts in what students should know and be able to do at each grade level, within each unit of instruction.  Teachers work together to prioritize essential learnings, identify learning targets and define specific skills that will be embedded in units of instruction, even in the grade levels they don’t currently teach. 

Small schools should be a hotbed of talent for this type of work. Daniel Coyle found that “talent hotbeds follow the same pattern: a breakthrough success is followed by a massive bloom of talent. Note that in each case the bloom grew relatively slowly at first, requiring five or six years to reach a dozen (people). This is not because the inspiration was weaker at the start and got progressively stronger, but for a more fundamental reason: deep practice takes time” (p. 99). 

The PLC Roundtable held two Friday afternoons a month from 1:00-3:00 pm includes all  teachers responsible for student learning at the high school and the school counselor.  The focus on learning together is a springboard for sharing current research on assessment, quality instructional strategies, instructional resources, lesson plan techniques, student goal setting templates, as well as schoolwide data analysis and expectations for collaboration within the PLC framework. The Friday roundtables plant the seeds for continual growth and improvement in a peer to peer environment. 

 Hot Springs County High School teachers are honing the process of professional collaboration - learning with teachers that will teach the same content, to the same students, the year before or the following year has created a dramatic shift in school culture and accelerated student learning.  

1. Monitoring student learning on a timely basis.

Hot Springs County High School is working to raise the bar and close the gap in student learning. 

A traditional high school often suffers from “cohort” achievements.  This means that some classes of students (a grade level cohort) perform well over time, they compete with each other for honors and tend to drive up scores as a group.  While another cohort may suffer from more than one year of ineffective instruction during their K-12 experience and become frustrated with learning, driving down overall scores. 

Our vision at Hot Springs County High School is to create a no opt out learning environment where every student is academically on track to achieve their individual best results each school year. 

Transitioning to this type of learning environment where teachers and students work together to achieve learning goals has not come without growing pains.  This type of learning culture requires students to turn in every assignment, attend academic interventions daily and retake assessments when needed until they can demonstrate proficiency. For the teacher this creates a cycle of teaching, re-teaching, and interventions to support students each week.  Students are taught responsibility by not being allowed to opt out of learning. The best way to learn to be responsible is to be required to be responsible. 

As a new administration took over at the high school in fall 2017, after six years and three principals, there was much work to do to provide immediate support for students that had fallen behind. The lower ACT composite score of 18.3 in spring 2018, 1.5% percent lower than the 19.8 average composite the previous year, was not a surprise for HSCSD1.  Student scores are tracked over time and several interventions such as 90 minute math and language arts periods were put into place during the 2017-18 school year to try to help students improve academically and achieve their personal best ACT score.  Students not scoring in the range they wanted to achieve were being offered ACT prep opportunities, as well as an ACT retake opportunity. 

High School students worked hard to attain their academic goals and had to invest additonal time in the cores to attain immediate gains. In 2017-18 only 5 courses were failed in the entire school year, impacting 2% of the students.  The prior year (2016-17) 86 classes were failed, impacting 11% of the students. It can be hard for students to overcome this type of academic failure. As we have hit the reset button at HSCHS our students have responded with a “can do” attitude and tremendous work ethic.   

As part of the reboot, from PLC lite to PLC right/tight ALL teachers and administrators at Hot Springs County High School attended a Professional Learning Community, Response to Intervention, Solution Tree Training August 20-22, 2018 as part of ongoing professional development around the Professional Learning Community model.  

One of the priority goals for 2018-19 at HSCHS was to “Close the Gap” between the lowest and highest performing students, by raising the academic bar for all students. The 2006 ACT College and Workforce Readiness Study concluded the math and reading skills needed to be an electrician/carpenter/plumber are the same needed to be a successful first year college student.  Career, College and Military Readiness must include high expectations for ALL students! This was measured by reducing the number of students with a composite ACT of 18 or below, while increasing the number of students with a composite ACT of 21+.

A second goal has been to create positive student engagement with a focus on Bobcat Pride.  This includes encouraging all students to be involved in an activity or club during the school year.  This was measured by increasing student participation from 81% in 2017-18 to 88% in 2018-19, with a goal of 90% participation in 2019-20.  Bobcat sports and activities had suffered a decline in competitiveness and overall participation in recent years. Our focus on school pride has improved the student learning climate. Students must be academically eligible to participate and by increasing the number of students involved in cheer, drama, robotics, speech and debate, FFA and sports we have also achieved record GPAs through the Wyoming High School Activities Association, with many of our student teams and clubs being recognized at the state level. 

Attached as PLC artifacts are three years of schoolwide SMART goals.  The SMART goals articulate the vision/mission of creating a No Opt Out learning environment for all students, a collaborative culture for teachers focused on the 4 essential PLC questions, and a system of monitoring results of effectiveness. 

2. Creating systems of intervention to provide students with additional time and support for learning.

The master schedule is built around the big idea of providing teachers time to collaborate, plan effectively and provide quality instruction to students. 

Hot Springs County High School (50-70 students per grade level)

• Six 60 minute periods (Creates an Academic Focus with Fewer Total Classes)

• Optional Zero Hour Electives

• 30 Minute Lunch

• 30 Minutes of WIN Time (RTI) on Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday

• Friday Advisory, Interventions & Careers: 40 Minutes of Advisory, followed by three 60  Minute Blocks: followed by early release if students are not requested for Friday afternoon school.  Friday Blocks A, B, C are built in a spreadsheet each week where teachers request students specific to interventions and accelerations.  Every teacher offers at least one intervention (A), one acceleration (B), and one career (C) focused presentation or guest speaker each Friday. Students not requested by a teacher can choose their own A, B, C schedule with their Advisor. 

Key Interventions: 

Lunch Time Intervention (LTI):  This intervention is for students who are missing 1 or 2 assignments.  This is not a punishment for students and teachers must communicate with students and parents on why the student is assigned LTI.  If you assign the student to LTI the previous day because they did not complete work in your classroom they are still required to attend LTI for refusal to complete work on time. Teacher must communicate with LTI supervisor on what assignment the student needs to complete during LTI time.  This will be done on ICU database. If a student does not complete the assignment, then they will be given LTI on the following day. If the assignment does not get done after 2 consecutive days of LTI then the student will be given WIN time and a referral for Refusal to Work (Group 1).  LTI may also be used for Work Experience students who do not turn in their hours and documentation.

Whatever I Need (WIN):  The last period of the school day is designated as WIN Time.  This can include students at all points on the learning spectrum: struggling students, proficient students, accelerating students.  Students who are missing multiple assignments and who are refusing to work during classroom time can also be given this intervention.  Teachers will assign students to WIN time using the shared WIN time document. If a teacher has assigned a student to all 4 days of WIN time in one week, then another teacher that needs to request them may assign them one of the days after speaking with the teacher who previously assigned them.  Students will be required to stay for the full 30 minutes if they are requested unless they have fully completed all work assigned by teacher. The teacher must check the work for completion and students will be able to leave. If a student will not work during WIN time they will be given a referral for Refusal to Work (Group 1).  

Friday School:  This intervention is used for students who have passed the 10 day absences covered in our student handbook.  For every class period they are over they will serve 1 hour of Friday school to make-up for their absences. Friday School will also be used for students who have been on the Warning List for more than 3 weeks without utilizing their daily intervention time (LTI and WIN).  Teachers will check each Friday morning for the students who are assigned to Friday School and will assign them work to complete during Friday School.  The teacher must communicate with the Friday School supervisor on what the assignment entails and what needs to be completed. Teachers may recommend students for Friday School by contacting the Principal prior to Friday morning of Friday School.  Students and parents must be notified by the referring teacher for the details on why the student is being given Friday School.If students skip their assigned Friday School, there will be a referral for  Missed Assigned Intervention (Group 2).

3. Building teacher capacity to work as members of high performing collaborative teams that focus efforts on improved learning for all students.

 The key to creating a Professional Learning Community at Hot Springs County High School has been assigning singleton teachers to teach one course in common with another teacher, even though logistically most small high schools focus on "fewer preps' for teachers.  Instead, at HSCHS ALL of the English teachers have a section of English 1; ALL of the Math teachers have a section of Math 3; the Science teachers each have a section of Chemistry; the social studies teachers each have a semester of world history and a semester of geography.

Common collaboration time is built into the schedule during the school day.  This time is protected to allow teachers to work through the entire process of establishing essential learnings, common pacing guides, collaboratively built common outcome assessments, data analysis and an opportunity within the schedule to share students for interventions and acceleration within period 2 for Math 3; period 3 for Chemistry; period 5 for English 1. 

A highlight of the schedule in the CTE pathway is the vocational ag teacher, art teacher and woods teacher sharing a common period to bring all of their skills together, Design & Build, to work on home construction and interior design projects during 5th hour in a common space with all of the required tools and staff with a variety of skill sets (example project: building a tiny house from start to finish). 

Budgetarily the high school master schedule has an emphasis on staffing in Math and English. Most small high schools, with 50-65 students per grade level, 200 students total, would operate with 1.5 to 2.0 FTE (Full-Time Equivalent) teachers in each of these cores. This would require a seven period day to allow for more sections and more students to be assigned to up to two teachers.  At Hot Springs County High School we invest in 3.0 FTE teachers for math and 3.0 FTE teachers for ELA.  

Instead the HSCHS schedule does four things differently: 1. It reduces the number of students per section in the cores of math and English, which are key ACT data points for students. 2. It reduces the number of classes each math and English teacher is preparing for and reduces overall student load in relation to grading work and providing a better system for giving quality feedback. 3. It reduces the number of courses students are keeping track of and managing during the school day. 4. Embedded Intervention and Enrichment time is embedded at the end of each school day in the form of “Whatever I Need” or “WIN” time.  On Mondays this time is required Advisory for grade checks and to plan WIN for the week with students; Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday is WIN time as assigned and early release for any student not requested or opting into an enrichment. 

This schedule is for a “Student Centered” high school, not a “Teacher Centered” high school.  The truth is that the English and math teachers carry the data burden to prepare students for essential college and career readiness skills and without an investment in those cores through budget and staffing it is hard to reach higher levels of learning for all students. Many secondary teachers would argue that they would prefer for one math teacher to teach all of the Math 1 classes, the second math teacher to teach all of the Math 2 classes and the third math teacher to teach all of the Math 3 classes - that is a typical high school format. Teachers say they want fewer “preps,” meaning they want to prepare one lesson and teach it four times during the day, and maybe one or two “other” courses that fit their certifications. This is the “SILO Effect” for small high schools, each teacher in their own classroom, teaching their own subject with no “real” need for collaboration because each teacher is doing their own thing, they are the only expert they know in that particular course.  Collaboration is never really necessary when teachers operate in silos because they are not interdependent, there is no data binding them together at the high school level, the one big test, ACT or SAT, happens once a year, the data is slow returning and is rarely broken apart to look at strengths and weaknesses within the curriculum, and all teachers can point to other grades and other courses as the problem - the data picture is too big and untimely to influence instructional practices. 

Hot Springs County High School through the Professional Learning Community model is creating a culture of mutual accountability schoolwide with the implementation of the ten CCM (career-tech, college, military) Launch Standards, vertical content collaboration and No Opt Out system of support and interventions. 

HSCHS also purchased online access to Aspire as part of the ACT package to better monitor student progress towards academic skills and standards in 9th and 10th grade.  This creates an important triangulation of data for small school teachers that do not have large district assessments to use as progress monitoring during the school year. 

The current reality is our high school has common courses and common assessment data in “short cycles” of three to four weeks within our current schedule. True collaboration around student data takes place binding these teachers together in a way they never have been before.  Student learning is a continuum of instruction grades 5-12 with all teachers invested in continual academic growth for each individual student. The high school has the opportunity to see all students achieve at high levels when it matters most, as they prepare for career-tech, college and military goals! 

Achievement Data Files

• wytopp-results-2021-2023--hschs-model-plc-data.pdf
• hschs-state-assessment-results-2021-2023--subgroup-data-2558.pdf
• hschs-2020-model-plc-data--essential-standards_-i-promise-skills.pdf
• plc-at-work-hschs-act-data-2013-2023--act-master-trend-data.pdf

Additional Achievement Data

In the spring of 2023 Hot Springs County High School celebrated student achievement results (state assessment is WyTOPP): 

English Language Arts: 9th Grade had 82% proficient/advanced (state averaged 52%) and ranked #2 out of the 48 districts in Wyoming. 10th Grade had 81%  proficient/advanced (state averaged 53%) and ranked #3 out of the 48 districts in Wyoming. 

Math: 9th Grade had 74% proficient/advanced (state averaged 41%) and ranked #1 out of the 48 districts in Wyoming. 10th Grade had 62%  proficient/advanced (state averaged 43%) and ranked #5 out of the 48 districts in Wyoming.

Science: 10th Grade had 71%  proficient/advanced (state averaged 46%) and ranked #5 out of the 48 districts in Wyoming.

State Assessment Subgroups (see HSCHS state assessment results 2021-2023 - subgroup data):

In the spring of 2023 less than 10 students in grades 9 and 10 at Hot Springs County High School were served with IEPs and we attribute this to our robust system of support and interventions in place for ALL students. We did not have enough students on IEPs to meet the threshold for subgroup reporting on the state assessment. 

Low Income (free/reduced lunch status) 2023 State Assessment Data. In ALL categories assessed HSCHS had more students with low income status score proficient/advanced than the state average for ALL students scoring proficient/advanced: 

9th Grade ELA = 77% proficient/advanced

10th Grade ELA = 89% proficient/advanced

9th Grade Math = 66% proficient/advanced

10th Grade Math = 63% proficient/advanced

10th Grade Science = 73% proficient/advanced

All (100%) Wyoming 11th graders participated in the 2023 spring ACT. Hot Springs County High School is proud to have the 3rd highest composite in the state of Wyoming with a 20.5, the national average is 19.5 and the state average composite was 18.8. 

ENGLISH ACT: HSCHS = 20; National 18.6; State Average 17.7

MATH ACT: HSCHS = 19.8; National 19; State Average 18.6

READING ACT: HSCHS = 21; National 20.1; State Average 19.5

SCIENCE ACT: HSCHS = 20.6; National 19.6; State Average 19.1 **1st in State

State Accountability Ratings:

2020-2021 No state assessments or accountability ratings due to Covid 19- see school collected data

2021-2022 Exceeding Expectations

Categories: Meeting Targets in Growth, Graduation and Post-Secondary Readiness. 

Exceeds Targets in Equity, Achievement and Grade 9 credits. 

2022-2023 Meeting Expectations

Categories: Meeting Targets in Equity and Graduation

Exceeds Targets in Growth, Achievement and Grade 9 credits.

In 2020, as we reflect back on Hot Springs County High School's journey as a Professional Learning Community, it is evident that a seismic cultural shift was necessary to break away from long standing traditions of rural singleton teachers working in silos. By forming collaborative teams across grade levels and within content areas it was possible to transform our school and ignite student learning. 

In 2017-18 a schoolwide data picture had emerged illustrating the need for immediate action to support student learning and pave the road to academic achievement.  Poor attendance, failing grades and lost credits were leading to a loss of hope among students and staff.  SMART Goals over the past four years have driven the work to improve the overall culture with a "No Opt Out" learning environment and our data picture is dramatically improved.  Examples of the immediate goals set to monitor and intervene in a basic "No Opt Out" school culture are illustrated below, notice our work focused on starting the school year successfully during the first semester (a whole school year seemed too long to wait to monitor results) and then sustaining that culture for the entire school year: 

Baseline Dated Calculated by ADM: 2016-17 = 229 Students; 2017-18 = 203 Students ; 2018-19 = 204 Students; 2019-20 = 201 Students

SMART Goal: Reduce Absenteeism by Mid-Year based on 14+ Absences:

Aug. - Dec. 2017 = 53 Students (23%)

Aug. - Dec. 2018 =  29 students (14%)

Aug. - Dec. 2019 =  12 students (6%)

End of Semester 1 Warning List Data:

SMART goals included ensuring student success through the RTI model. Failed Courses were carefully tracked grades 9-12: 

2016-17    86 Courses Failed   =   26 Students   =  11% of Students Failed a Class

2017-18     5 Courses Failed    =   4 Students   =    2% of Students Failed a Class

2018-19   10 Courses Failed     =   5 Students   =    2% of Students Failed a Class

2019-20    5 Courses Failed      =   5 Students   =    2% of Students Failed a Class

 A leading indicator of at-risk students and potential drop-outs is 9th grade credits earned.  Notice a dramatic improvement in 2017-2018 as an RTI system of support and interventions, within a No Opt Out culture, became a "tight" practice within our PLC. 

Drop Outs: 

2016-17: 11 Students dropped out 

2017-18: 9 Students dropped out (5 were sophomores that failed freshman classes)

2018-19: 10 Students dropped out

2019-20: 4 Students dropped out as of May 28, 2020 

Graduation rates were closely monitored, the graduation rate data is a lagging indicator because some of the malpractice around student learning did not become apparent in graduation rates for several years.  In other words freshmen and sophomores were failing classes and then dropping out in their junior and senior year, which did not impact graduation rates until the year they were supposed to graduate. HSCHS just began to recover in 2020. 

4 Year On Time Graduation Rates:

2013-14 = 78%

2014-15 = 81%

2015-16 = 79% 

2016-17 = 87%

2017-18 = 80%

2018-19 = 72% 

2019-20 = 83.6%

Wyoming has "Hathaway" college scholarships available to ALL Wyoming students based on basic course requirements tied to graduation and a minimum ACT score of 19 = $840 per semester; ACT score of 21 = $1260 per semester; ACT score of 25 = $1680 per semester.  One of our primary SMART goals at HSCHS as we implemented PLC "right" practices in 2017 was to focus on ALL students achieving high levels of learning, aligned to scoring a 21+ on the ACT and being eligible for the Wyoming Hathaway Scholarship. 

In Year Two of our collaborative work on content teams, and as we moved away from our singleton culture, we formalized our work as vertical collaborative teams and saw unprecedented results on our ACT:

One of the priority goals for 2018-19 at HSCHS was to “Close the Gap” between the lowest and highest performing students, by raising the academic bar for all students. The 2006 ACT College and Workforce Readiness Study concluded the math and reading skills needed to be an electrician/carpenter/plumber are the same needed to be a successful first year college student.  Career, College and Military Readiness must include high expectations for ALL students! This is measured by reducing the number of students with a composite ACT of 18 or below, while increasing the number of students with a composite ACT of 21+. 

Class of 2020 ACT Results

ACT 30+ = 4/49= 8%*  

ACT 21+ = 27/49 = 55%

ACT 19-20 = 9/49 = 18%

ACT 18 or below = 13/49 =  27%

**Represents Feb/April Best Score**

Attached are our Wyoming state assessment results (WyTOPP) indicating that the marked improvement in student achievement is not cohort specific, the upcoming classes of 9th, 10th and 11th graders are showing consistently high levels of of achievement across math, science and language arts. Our vertical alignment with Thermopolis Middle School has allowed Hot Springs County High School to create an academic bridge that scaffolds student learning from year to year. Hot Springs County High School has a completely new culture focused on by student, by skill academic growth and achievement. 

The other overarching SMART Goals at Hot Springs County High School during the shift to a "tight" PLC culture in 2017 was to improve the Wyoming Department of Education School Performance Rating status based on student academic growth, equity, achievement, graduation, and ninth grade credit completion. 

Hot Springs County High School had not had a "meeting expectations" rating since the new system of school accountability ratings was put in place several years prior. 

Hot Springs County High School School Performance Ratings based on Wyoming Department of Education Accountability System in Growth, Equity and Achievement over the past six years. 

As we implemented "tight" PLC practices in fall 2017 our Baselinbe Data showed Hot Springs County High School had earned a school performance rating of "Partially Meeting Expectations" for four consecutive years. 

After reviewing the baseline data picture Hot Springs County High School staff and administration implemented a "No Opt Out" learning culture that included a strong system of support and interventions for ALL students, as well as high expectations for student learning.  As our PLC culture took hold with staff and students Hot Springs County High School was able to improve the school performance rating in Year 1 (2017-18) of PLC "right" practices.  In 2019 HSCHS earned "exceeding expectations" ratings in equity and grade 9 credits. 

2023 Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Wyoming Teaching Finalist at HSCHS. 

2023 Wyoming Speech and Debate Coach of the Year at HSCHS

Thermopolis FFA Chapter was the 4th High Team at the 2023 American Royal Livestock Judging Competition in Kansas. 

State 2A Champion Girls Golf Team 2023

State 2A Champion Boys Golf Team 2019-2022

2021 Wrestling - 4 Individual State Champions 

2021 Girls Cross Country Conference Champions

2021 Speech and Debate Team - 5 National Qualifiers 

Hot Springs County High School is featured in a new book published by Solution Tree Press in July 2020: PLC at Work and Your Small School: Building, Deepening and Sustaining a Culture of Collaboration for Singletons. 

A 1st at HSCHS: Two QuestBridge four-year Scholarships to Vassar and Hamilton College by Class of 2020 Graduates valued at over $200,000 each.

An historic amount of over $380,000 awarded in cash scholarships to the 47 members of the Class of 2020 celebrating academic achievement by the Hot Springs County community and State of Wyoming!  A true community partnership celebrating academic excellence. 

3 National Qualifiers for the spring 2020 National Speech and Debate Tournament

Hot Springs County School District #1's Teacher of the Year is a HSCHS English Teacher

Wyoming Secondary Schools Principal of the Year 2019

Rebecca DuFour - Women in Educational Leadership - Scholarship Award to HSCHS Principal 2019

HSCSD#1 National Board Certified Teacher: London Jenks

Academic All American Speech and Debate Student Awards 2019

Wyoming High School Activities Association 3.5 GPA Recoginition 

Wyoming State 2A Drama Champions 2019

Wyoming Speech and Debate 2A Runner-Up 2019

Wyoming 2A State Boys Golf Champions 2019 & 2020

Wyoming 2A State Girls Cross Country Champions 2019

Wyoming 2A Cross Country Coach of the Year 2019

Wyoming 2A Golf Coach of the Year 2019 & 2020

Wyoming 2A Speech and Debate Coach of the Year 2018 & 2019

Robotics Western States Awards 

Google Educator Recognition

Teachers Earning a Masters Degree: Jocelyn Hatch: Curriculum and Instruction; Steven Soderstrom: Masters in Educational Leadership; Shane Corpening: Curriculum and Instruction, Social Studies; London Jenks: Masters of Science Education Leadership; Western Governors University

Images

Files

• hs-math-15-day-challenge-functions.pdf
• hschs-smart-goal-2023-2024.pdf
• hschs-smart-goal-2020-21.pdf
• hschs-master-schedule-2020-21.pdf
• hschs-_master-schedule-2019-20.pdf
• i-promise-statements-science-5-12--plc.pdf
• hschs-collective-commitments.pdf
• model-plc-artifact-hschs-academic-support--intervention.pdf
• hschs-smart-goals--plc.pdf
• hschs-smart-goal-data-updates.pdf