Mrs. Hildenbran'ds Report

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