TGU Towner Elementary students and staff are focusing on finishing our 2024-2025 school year
with extra effort. The true North Dakota spring has brought excitement to our students and
staff. The students weren’t overly excited about the extra snow but are hopeful for warmer days
ahead! The students are looking forward to the spring weather and the activities that have
started along with it. Below are some of the exciting happenings with both the students and
staff at TGU Towner Elementary:
Student & Staff News:
The Towner K-12 students will host their spring music concert on Thursday May 1, 2025
at 6:30 pm. The elementary students will perform first and the 7-12 students will
perform after.
TGU Towner Honor Society is hosting our elementary book fair the week of April 7-11.
The high school students have the book fair open from 8:00-8:30am and 2-5:00pm every
day throughout the week.
Kindergarten visitation will be on Wednesday April 30th, 2025. This day the upcoming
kindergarteners and parents are encouraged to come to the school. This is an
opportunity to have a small orientation with the school.
• North Dakota State Assessment (NDA+) Testing: TGU Towner elementary school will
testing on Tuesday April 22, 2025 for the North Dakota State testing.
o North Dakota State Assessments (NDA+) are always administered in the spring
of the year. NDA+ is the statewide assessment that measures student
performance against the state’s content and achievement standards in the areas
of English language arts/literacy, mathematics and science. All students in
grades 3-8 and 10 participate in English and mathematics. Students in grades 4, 8,
and 10 participate in the science assessment.
o The students have been participating in the NDA+ Interim testing in the fall and
winter.
o Classroom teachers have been using Navvy as an extension of the NDA+ testing
to identify which North Dakota content standards the students are proficient in.
• The Cognia Conference that is typically led in April was canceled this spring. The
Cognia committee with have a meeting on Friday April 11, 2025 at the Towner site. The
committee rotates meetings between the two schools. The team will be working on
identifying current reality based off of parent, student and staff surveys. They will be
finalizing the current Strategic Plan and begin planning for the upcoming 2025-2026
school year.
• The Action Team Partnership (ATP) Color Run will be held at TGU Towner on Tuesday
May 6, 2025. Please come join the fun and comradery between our students, families and
staff.
• Paraeducator day was celebrated for our wonderful paraeducators. We appreciate all
their hard work and willingness to do whatever task at hand! It’s wonderful having such
a great staff to ensure that the students are successful.
• The 5th and 6th grade girls’ basketball teams have been working hard this season. It has
been beneficial to have the 4th grade athletes who come out to play and learn the
foundational skills of the sport to prep them for their 5th and 6th grade season. The
leadership of our 5th and 6th grade athletes practicing with our 4th graders have been
wonderful experience.
• Fun incentives were given to classrooms by teacher choice. The following is one example
of the fun incentives. Mrs. Vollmer challenged her students to a "March Madness" Math
Edition, where students were given a certain amount of IXL skills targeting certain math
skills to complete during the month of March. If a student took on the challenge and
completed it by the end of March, they got to choose between Mrs. Vollmer, Mrs.
Hildenbrand, or Mrs. Bethke to pie in the face!
• Special Thank You: Thank you to all of the TGU Towner Elementary staff. There is truly
something to be said about a crew of educators coming together for our students each
and every day. Our teachers are always greeted with smiles and laughter. It’s a
remarkable experience to get to be part of such an amazing team.
Kind regards,
Ms. Nicole Hildenbrand
TGU Towner Elementary Principal