Mission DNA

Mission DNA: Deploying Numeracy Achievement
The Building Blocks of Mathematical Minds

El Paso County School District 49 will meet the goal of increasing military-connected student performance by providing professional development to elementary teachers. To achieve this, 12 district level, coordinated elementary schools will be invited to participate in a two-tier support training. This training will allow School District 49 elementary teachers to benefit from programs that will develop and cultivate a collective teacher efficacy for mathematics growth mindset, followed by a focus on developing teachers’ content knowledge with an emphasis on building student understanding.

District 49

District 49 spans 133 square miles of urban and rural areas in Colorado, covering northeast Colorado Springs and the falcon area of El Paso County. As the fastest growing school district in the Pikes Peak region, it's currently serving more than 30,000 students within its portfolio of schools. The targeted schools who will be invited to participate include our 13 district-operated elementary schools. Our military-connected students encompass about 20% of our students district-wide.

Unified collective teacher efficacy is born out of the development of teacher growth mindset in mathematics in order to transfer and teach a growth mindset towards mathematics in our students. Our military-connected elementary teachers will benefit from programs that will develop and cultivate a collective teacher efficacy for mathematics growth mindset, followed by many additional resources to identify and practise research-based strategies to build skills to close gaps in mathematics. With this strong foundation, our goal is that no matter how students have performed in the past, the percentage of students with typical or high growth in the area of mathematics will increase in District 49. Mission DNA has made this dream of teacher efficacy possible.