Cultivating Well-Being

“Students and staff of DMPS truly flourish when well-being is prioritized. Only in environments where individuals feel safe, supported, and valued can they unlock their fullest potential.”

 

– Anne Cross, DMEA President

This priority represents our commitment to creating environments where each member of our district feels included, valued, and supported.

We must ensure our schools serve the social and emotional needs of our staff and students through culturally responsive transformative practices. By creating environments centered on the student experience and well-being, our district will be an exemplary environment for our students and staff to thrive.

Strategic Objective #1

Strategic Actions

Provide culturally responsive and trauma informed differentiated professional learning for all staff on student behaviors and restorative practices and healing-centered engagement.

Key Results

100% of staff are trained on the same culturally responsive, trauma-informed, restorative practices.

Strategic Actions

Provide professional learning to all staff to identify implicit bias.

Key Results

100% of staff can identify their own implicit biases and are actively working to remove bias.

Strategic Actions

Continuation of training and practice of I Love U Guys (Standard Response Protocol).

Key Results

100% of students and staff have a collective understanding of the Standard Response Protocol.

Strategic Actions

Educate students around behavior monitoring through co-creation with students.

Key Results

  • 100% of students understand behavior expectations and
    behaviors that warrant a referral.
  • 100% of students have agency in behavior outcomes through
    restorative practices.

Strategic Objective #2

Strategic Actions

  • Increase student access to innovative programming, activities, and athletics beginning at a younger age.
  • Provide community partnerships for students to extend volunteering in the community.
  • Begin mentorship programs for older and younger students.
  • Ensure culturally responsive texts and inclusive curriculum remain present in instruction.
  • Implement a Tiered system of support for Transformative Social Emotional Learning through curriculum, instruction, resources, and supports.

Key Results

  • Attendance growth as measured by ISPP for all student groups will increase year over year.
  • Climate and culture (Panorama) data will show an increase in sense of belonging.
  • 100% of buildings have a tiered system of support for Transformative Social Emotional Learning.

Strategic Objective #3

Strategic Actions

  • Portrait of a Graduate competencies are developed and
    implemented with fidelity.
  • Professional learning for staff about POG competencies.
  • Develop TSEL professional learning communities (PLCs) to
    foster peer-to-peer learning among teachers and leaders.

Key Results

  • 100% of students and staff understand and implement the
    graduate profile and TSEL competencies.
  • 100% of schools have created peer to peer learning environments
    and track the data of the implementation.

Strategic Actions

Creation of a student-led task force for the district to share their reflections on the TSEL and POG and how students can embody it.

Key Results

Students will be able to speak to the resources needed to implement TSEL and POG.

Strategic Objective #4

Strategic Actions

  • Highlight the importance of attendance and barriers to overcome.
  • Identify the systemic root causes of absences.
  • Consult with transportation experts to identify different supports for families with difficult routes to school.
  • Continue current attendance protocols for students with low attendance.
  • Tier 1 Teams in buildings work towards improving sense of belonging and school climate and culture.

Key Results

  • Decrease the percent of chronically absent students from 38.66% to 15% as measured by the ISPP.
  • Attendance growth as measured by ISPP for all student groups will increase year over year.

Strategic Objective #5

Strategic Actions

Increase teacher efficacy

Key Results

Increased Teacher Self-Reflection and Educating All Students constructs from the 50th percentile to the 80th percentile as reported on Panorama.

Strategic Actions

“Seen, Heard, and Supported” committee

Key Results

100% of the building teams (SLT’s) are using the protocol.

Strategic Actions

  • Meaningful celebrations of staff instructional and job successes.
  • Open/trusting/collaborative building teams including all staff.
  • Implementation adult transformative TSEL.

Key Results

  • Maintain staff retention at 92% or higher.
  • Increased staff attendance to a rate of 97%.
  • Increase Gallup survey data on “my organization cares about my well-being” from the 54th percentile to the 80th percentile.

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ISPP

The Iowa School Performance Profile is created by the State of Iowa to identify school performance on a variety of criteria including academic performance in reading, math, and science; attendance metrics; post-secondary readiness indicators; and progress toward English Language Proficiency.