At Batesland Elementary School in Batesland, where the student population is almost entirely Native American, teacher Connie Rous has helped her fifth graders consistently achieve more than a year's worth of academic growth each year, with some achieving as much as two years' growth. Ms. Rous fully includes and immerses special education students in her classroom, and students with individual education plans who were writing only a few sentences at the beginning of the year have become prolific writers under her tutelage. She has co-chaired the language arts curriculum, served on a committee that analyzed teacher incentive portfolios, and was selected to participate as a building representative in the Dakota STEP Reading Revision Process. As co-chair of the school improvement leadership team, Ms. Rous facilitated the compilation of Batesland's 2005 School Improvement Plan and participated in a statewide peer review of other schools' improvement plans. The improvements Connie Rous has helped bring to her school provide further proof of the wide-reaching power of high-quality teachers.
