ELLSWORTH – By May 1, Ellsworth High School faculty and students will know if they met their collective building leadership goal of improving literacy thanks to a colorful mural designed and painted by three freshmen.

How does a mural tie into literacy? It all began with Principal Oran Nehls reading the book “The Four Disciplines of Execution.” Reading it was like a lightbulb turning on, he said. The book details a simple, repeatable and proven formula for executing strategic priorities. Sounds like a business plan, right? Well, it can work for any goal.

Every student in grades 9-12 recently took the reading portion of the ACT exam. The average score was 16.4. On Jan. 18, Nehls made a proposal to students: Making improved literacy a building goal. If they can improve the average score to 17.25 by May 1, they will win an incentive (which they still have to decide upon). But how can they tackle such a big goal? Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither is improved literacy.

That is where the four principles that “4DX” teaches come in.

1. Setting a goal (focus)
2. Identifying and acting on the activities with the highest leverage
3. Building a scoreboard (engagement)
4. Analyze successes and failures of meeting weekly commitments (accountability)

“It’s important that we teach students how to set and achieve goals, because it’s a lifelong skill,” Nehls said. “This book was the first one that laid it out like a recipe. Many industries use it. A lot of times when we set goals, we don’t truly commit to them.”

Each week, each student identifies an individual goal. This could vary from reading an entire book to reading subtitles on a movie to reading for five minutes a day.

“It started off a bit slow,” said teacher Marcia Jahnke, who has an advisory filled with sophomores. “They didn’t know what to set for goals.”

Each week, students commit to a goal and if they meet that goal, a butterfly goes up on Jahnke’s scoreboard, posted on her door. Completing goals leads to rewards like Caribou gift cards or Monster energy drinks.

“That little nugget gives them that extra push,” Jahnke said.

“We’re not forcing them to read, but they have to commit to something,” Nehls said. “Each student has the opportunity to make their own commitments and it’s on their honor.”

The process of setting small goals and achieving them within their advisories as part of the larger building goal of improving the ACT reading score builds rapport. Completing individual goals leads to completing advisory goals, which leads to completing the building goal.

However, since each advisory has their own scoreboard, the building needed a way to keep track of progress (what percentage of students each week across the building are meeting their goals?)

Building leadership team member and science teacher Kayla Klecker spearheaded the building scoreboard project. She was looking for students who hadn’t had a lot of leadership opportunities, so she turned to art teacher Olivia Bonlander for ideas. She thought of freshmen Sarah Farrell, Emma Eagan and Dakota Moldenhauer, three friends with a knack for creativity.

“I had given them leadership opportunities in class, but choosing three freshmen girls to represent the entire school … it was a daunting task for them,” Bonlander said. “But knowing it was mostly an art task made it very easy for them.”

During their Excel periods, the three brainstormed ideas out of their sketchbooks. No teachers helped them.

“We bounced around several ideas and thought about the ocean,” said Eagan.

The mural is an ocean, with the percentage of students meeting goals on the side (in increments of 10%) and the bottom is lined with dates leading to May 1. Each week, the girls place a new creature in the ocean that represents the percentage of students who met their goals that week. The creatures include seagulls, starfish, angelfish, seahorses, and even mahi mahi. By May 1, the hope is that 100% of students will be meeting their goals, which in turn should lead to a higher ACT reading exam score.

Moldenhauer said she chose reading 200 pages of “Crime and Punishment” as one of her goals.

“We get candy every week if we meet our goal,” she said.

“The process we’re going through is just as important as the goal,” Nehls said.

Bonlander, whose advisory period is comprised of seniors, said she makes sure students choose goals that are achievable. Each week, her advisory’s collective goal is 80% of students meeting their individual goals.

“The kids understand why we’re doing it,” she said. “They’re definitely buying in now.”

Time will tell. Stay tuned for May 1.