Our school is located on Rice Street near the intersection of Grand River, Pontiac Trail and Milford Road, in New Hudson, Michigan.

Our school has undergone extensive remodeling over the years. We sport a separate gym and cafeteria, as well as a media center with a student computer lab. Each classroom has a teacher computer and three student computers that are Internet accessible, and provide instructional curricular software. The teacher computer is also hooked into a large screen television monitor, so that instructors may provide computer lessons to their whole class.

We have 450 students in grades K-5. We have library, physical education, music and art in addition to our regular classroom curriculum. We have numerous support services, including resource room teachers, speech and language, Reading Recovery, Adopt A Reader volunteers and other services. Our staff is dedicated to providing a quality education for their students. All are very caring individuals toward all of our students. Our staff is fully certified and meet federal and State qualifications for providing student instruction. Children’s academic and social education come first at Dolsen. Our staff use their expertise to creatively deliver the South Lyon Community School core curriculum.

Our school is North Central Accredited. We encourage you to become familiar with our progress and goals, by reading our school improvement (SIP) report and annual reports, available in our school office. Our core curriculum is aligned with the Michigan Department of Education’s Curriculum Framework. These standards and benchmarks are included in our South Lyon Community Schools curriculum guides, available in our school office.

Dolsen Elementary utilizes a variety of assessments to improve instructional delivery. Some of these are teacher generated, some are district generated, and others are State standardized tests. We administer the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) to our third, fourth and fifth graders in reading, math, writing and science.

Parents receive information about our school in numerous ways. Upcoming events and pertinent information are included in our weekly parent newsletter The Dolsen Discovery. Parents may also learn about our school through this website. Our Dolsen events phone line is accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Teachers at Dolsen also provide classroom newsletters, containing more specific information to their classroom.

Our parent groups, CHEERS and PTO are very active. They have revitalized our courtyard area into a working outdoor classroom, complete with picnic tables, plantings, bird feeders and planting beds for each classroom. Our students have planted approximately 4000 flower bulbs over the past years during Dolsen Pride Weeks each fall. Many are located in our courtyard and along the front bus circle.

Our parent volunteers organize and help out on Picture Day, produce the Dolsen Discovery, take digital photos, run our Student of the Week program, chaperone on field trips, make copies of lessons for teachers, organize Dolsen field day, support our assemblies, and promote many other activities and events.

Dolsen Vision Statement:
The vision of Dolsen Elementary is to create a quality learning community that promotes increased student learning.

School Improvement Goals:
Dolsen Elementary School has embraced the AdvancED transitions accreditation plan as the central focus of our school improvement plan. Student assessment data is analyzed, and specific best practice teacher strategies are implemented with students where needed. Our building shared involvement team serves as this plan's steering committee. Our building shared involvement team includes support staff, teachers, parents, and administration.

Our carefully written mission and its supporting belief statements guide our building plan. Our performance goals are: (same as on current page.)

The plan is a work in progress, which we modify to align with AdvancED and our student needs. We are scheduled for a Quality Assurance Review during the 2010-2011 school year.

Focus Area: Reading: Students will improve in reading comprehension in the content areas of social studies, science and math.

Focus Area: Math: All students demonstrate an improvement in exit level computation skill, and will be able to interpret written data for the purpose of grade level appropriate problem solving.

Focus Area: Writing: All students will improve their writing process by integrating their reading knowledge from different genres, and empowering their writing with: text-to-text, text-to-self, and text-to-world connections.

This plan is a work in progress, which we modify to align with NCA and our student needs. We have an NCA peer visiting team that provides feedback, and helps give us direction, for our school improvement.

Dolsen Belief Statements:
We believe…