SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT MID-YEAR REFLECTION 2016
1. Has your school made progress towards achieving the goal?
We have a year-long master calendar that is given to teachers in August and updated monthly to reflect any changes. In addition, teachers are notified via weekly Ship-to-Shore email of the week ahead on the Friday before. Grade level, specials, and administration/support staff meet weekly for collaborative planning sessions. Our professional learning communities, monthly progress monitoring and data chats, and SAC Sub-Committee sessions are all aligned to our SIP goals.
In math, every student in 4th and 5th grade has a MAFS book as part of their curriculum,. Our main challenge is keeping up with the pacing of math in 4th and 5th grade (with the exception of our gifted/high achieving 4th and 5th split). As a result, the math scores on the BSA were not near our desired state. To address this concern, we have increased our math block time and every classroom is using FSA math dailies. Support has been added in math in 5th grade due to high class size numbers and students in need of remediation. Lessons and assessments have been combined to reflect Test Specs and we will have a problem of the week in grades 3-5 beginning in March where students earn raffle tickets to receive recognition and a prize on WHBD. The focus is reviewing the standards from Q1 and 2 while making sure the students are learning necessary skills in geometry, measurement, and fractions. Students who have mastered concepts are enriched with performance tasks, creating new strategies to solve problems and then teaching students in their class how to use it, real world multi-step problems to solve, creating models and explaining reasoning in writing, and accelerating the curriculum using the grade level standards ahead. In English Language Arts, every student in 2nd through 5th grade has a LAFS book as part of their curriculum. In addition, the DBQ and writing curriculum is helping students improve in Cluster 3 – Integration of Ideas. Our centers are being tweaked weekly to align to test specs and higher order DOK activities. Students are participating in book clubs, author studies, and meeting their goals to be in 100+ point club for AR to motivate and encourage a love of reading. Students who have mastered concepts are participating in literature circles with novels and research projects on topics of their choice aligned to standards and content areas. In Science, students are participating in hands-on activities and informational text is aligned to content standards and test specs. In 5th grade, we have started supplementing curriculum with FCAT 2.0 Coach to prepare students for the questioning they will see on the test. We also will conduct a mock test to help inform instruction and teachers will use the assessment as a teaching tool.
2. Have alterable barriers been eliminated or reduced? (Alterable barriers are in-house infrastructure mechanisms such as scheduling, class structures, teacher attendance, student attendance, staff development plan, etc.)
The data identified by the early warning system in BASIS 3.0 is used to identify intervention strategies to improve academic performance and decrease student disruptiveness that could lead to retention and later dropping out of school. Our daily social skills, character building, and conflict-resolution lessons infused in the curriculum with reminders from administration on morning announcements about the importance of regular school attendance and punctuality. Students who have patterns of non-attendance or tardies are worked with individually.To address bullying and discipline concerns, we have increased our lunch bunch and student relationship building sessions to give identified students additional practice of our Steps to Social Success in a small group Parents are informed of the Steps to Social Success focus of the week through our Dolphin Doings weekly email from Administration. Each classroom teacher also sends a weekly communication email home supporting our initiatives. Printed copies are issued to those families who do not have access to technology. We also have a multitude of curriculum, student showcase, and family events in collaboration with our Harbordale School Association to increase family engagement and create a climate where all students and families feel connected to the school community. Our streamlined, tiered color coded RTI differentiation and progress monitoring system, weekly student performance submissions to the leadership team, and google doc CARE plan data are all evidences that our plan is working. .
Push-in support has been provided in both intermediate and primary classes to increase opportunities for remediation. Teachers are developing their skills aligned to our school focus through professional learning communities, test-spec training, DBQ, lexile levels, and hands-on math instruction.
3. Are your strategies being implemented with fidelity?
Based on progress monitoring and data chats, google doc CARE plan data, student work samples, 85% of the teachers are implementing strategies with fidelity. Coaching and peer mentoring is provided to teachers who need additional support. In addition, we have found teacher leaders to facilitate PLCs and become our resident expert for specific initiatives. Weekly collaborative team planning sessions with documentation for the leadership team to review and Marzano observation data are another indicator that we are on the right track.
4. What are your benchmarks for success?
Our focus on Writing across the Curriculum and Science/Social Studies standards infused into the literacy block and specific writing plans geared towards opinion and informative writing for grades 2-5 led to us being #1 in our SES band in reading proficiency and lowest quintile for 3rd grade. We seek to maintain our #1 ELA status, improve our ranking from #4 in our SES band in math, and increase our proficiency in Science. Our teacher and student achievement data drives our PLCs and creates a framework for collaborating effectively in order to dissagregate data and share best practices using the CARE plans. Our CARE plans will improve to utilize a variety of resources to address standards, increase the number of Depths of Knowledge (DOK) 2 and 3 activities, and provide a specific activities aligned to the standards to remediate and enrich students, so that all students make learning gains and achieve their best.
Our goals are as follows: ELA: The percentage of students in grades 3-5 scoring proficient or higher in English Language Arts will increase from 69.8% to at least 71.8% proficiency (Level 3 and above) by June 2016 as measured by the English Language Arts Florida Standards Assessment. Math: The percentage of students in grades 3-5 scoring proficient or higher in Mathematics will increase from 73.3% to at least 75.3% proficiency (Level 3 and above) by June 2016 as measured by the Mathematics Florida Standards Assessment. Sci: The percentage of students in grades 3-5 scoring proficient or higher in Science will increase from 59% to at least 61% proficiency (Level 3 and above) by June 2016 as measured by the FCAT 2.0.