End of the Year Report 2012

End of the Year Report 2012

Toll Gate High School

Stephen Chrabaszcz

This year has been an exceptionally busy year at Toll Gate High School. I would like to highlight three noteworthy undertakings that have been ongoing at the high school this year. I would then like to highlight the many accomplishments that were achieved in the various departments of the school.

The major focus in the district this year was the implementation of the Rhode Island Model Teacher Evaluation. While most districts in the state were gradually introducing this model to their staff, Warwick began full implementation of the process this year. This was a major undertaking for the district and for Toll Gate High School. The faculty and administration had to learn an entirely new system of evaluation. A number of training sessions were held during the summer and during the school year to help facilitate this learning. In addition, the department leaders were trained to act as observers as well, and they conducted evaluations for members of their department under the new model as well as under the traditional model this year. A great deal of credit should be given to the department leaders for their willingness to embrace this system and for helping the members of their department understand and become familiar with the process.

For the benefit of parents and members of the community who will be reading this report from the school’s web site, I would like to take a moment to explain the new process.

The teachers and the administrators had to establish professional growth goals at the start of the year. In addition, the teachers had to establish two or more student learning objectives that they planed to attain by the end of the school year. Each teacher then had to meet with an administrator for a period-long conference to discuss these goals.

The faculty was divided into three parts by departments, and each administrator received a number of teachers to evaluate. Each administrator had approximately thirty teachers to observe and evaluate under this system.

Following the initial conferences, period-long observations were conducted for each teacher. Subsequent to the observation, the administrator had to complete a long-form evaluation instrument outlining observations made during the visit. Another meeting was held with each teacher following the observation to discuss the findings.

A mid-year conference was then held with each teacher to discuss progress being made up to that point. Each conference took one entire period. Short observations (approximately ten minutes in length) were then held for each teacher. Following these observations, a short meeting was held to discuss the findings with the teacher.

At the end of the school year, another period-long meeting was held to provide the teacher with a rating relative to their teaching throughout the entire year.

As you can note, this was a very time consuming process. Furthermore, in the absence of Ms. Caluori two substitute administrators had to assume her duties and, thus, learn the entire process as well.

The good news about the evaluation system is that all of the administrators will agree that we got to observe some amazing teaching and learning taking place in the building. The staff at Toll Gate High School is a dedicated, professional, and caring group of educators. Completing this task next year should be much easier since we now seem to better understand the entire process

On August 1 of this year, I will be submitting a Special Progress Report to the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC). I have been required to submit a report to NEASC each year since they visited the school in 2007. This year the report will deal with the following areas:

§ confirm completion of the work to replace the roof on the B-wing

§ report further steps taken to fund and to add a wheel chair lift to provide access to rooms A102, A104, and A106.

§ report the impact of the budget reductions on technology improvements, including supplies and software

§ provide consistent and adequate funding to address educational technology, instructional materials, and library materials.

§ submit the FY12 media services budget

§ report district’s long-range plan, including funding sources and a preliminary timeline, to address the on-going maintenance and facility concerns

§ detail progress made by the long-term facilities planning committee to address school facilities concerns in the City of Warwick.

When this report is completed, I will post the entire document on the Toll Gate High School web-site.

Finally, I would like to report to you about the progress of the Best Buddies program at the high school. As you will recall, last year I detailed a report concerning the formation of the program at the high school. As I explained last year, “Best Buddies” is a nationally recognized program that pairs students with disabilities in one-to-one friendships with high school students. In today's high schools, students with disabilities often enter the same building and walk the same hallways as their peers; but they are left out of social activities.

On March 24, 2012 Best Buddies held its annual Friendship Ball. At that time two awards were given. One award was given for the Most Outstanding College Chapter and another for the Most Outstanding High School Chapter. I am pleased to announce that Toll Gate High School was the recipient of the high school award. This is truly a testament to the hard work and dedication of the advisor Ms. Carol Allen and her many participants. If you would like to read an additional story about the Best Buddies program at the high school, please access the site rhodybeat.com/stories/Toll-Gate-Best-Buddies-earn-top-state-honors.

At this point in the report I would like to highlight the accomplishments of each department this school year. Department leaders were asked to submit reports to me at the end of the year. The following are an edited version of those reports.

Guidance Department

Achievements

Special Activities:

· Financial Aid Night for District—December 2011

· Coordinated SATs at Toll Gate—May 2012

· Coordinated AP testing—including exams for students where content classes were not offered—May 2012

· Delivery of ILP curriculum to Toll Gate student population

· Conducted several informative assemblies—including college planning assemblies for juniors and seniors

Guest Speakers:

· Invited Johnson & Wales Admissions Representative to conduct admissions interviews so that students could receive immediate feedback regarding college acceptance

· Hosted approximately 40 college admissions representatives for informational sessions (and recruited students to attend)

· College Planning Center representative spoke at Financial Aid Night

Department’s Achievements of this Year’s Goals.

· An ongoing achievement in the transformation of the guidance department into a place where students, parents, and teachers feel welcomed and know they will receive assistance.

· Creation of a senior handbook to aid students in the college selection/preparation process

· Improved collaboration between counselors and teachers to promote student success

· Improved communication to parents through emails and attending parent organizations (SIT, PTSA).

· Compiled and explained data for reporting purposes (Toll Gate profile)

· Developed a credit tracking sheet for counselors to monitor student acheivement

Department Objectives and Goals for 2012- 2013 School Year

· Develop a guidance webpage to improve communication to parents

· Continue to foster cohesiveness within the department

· Implement RtI initiatives to improve student success

· Increase SAT testing dates at Toll Gate

· Streamline ILP process to make it more effective and meaningful

Business Department

Course offerings:

Digital Tools/ E-Portfolio

Personal Finance

Computer Applications I

Sports & Entertainment Marketing

Number of Pupils Enrolled:

Fall Semester: 433

Spring Semester: 418

Total 2011-2012 enrollment: 851

Highlights/Special Activities:

1. The Mayor of Warwick, Scott Avedesian presented Toll Gate High School and its business education department with a proclamation certificate naming Wednesday, March 21, 2012 as TOLL GATE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT FINANCIAL LITERACY DAY in the city of Warwick.

2. TG Business and Personal Finance students attended the 1st Annual CU4 Reality Financial Education Fair on March 21st at the Radisson Airport Hotel

3. Wave Federal Credit Union is pleased to announce the selection of the winners of the 2012 Business Scholarship Program at Toll Gate High School. The Business Scholarship Program was established by the credit union in 2011 to recognize graduating seniors pursuing a business degree at an accredited college or university, and the Business Scholarship Awards Ceremony took place at a ceremony at Toll Gate High School on Tuesday, May 29, 2012, at 7:30 a.m.

The first $1,000 scholarship was awarded to Colin Joseph Stamps of Warwick, Rhode Island, who participated this year in the 1st Annual CU4 Reality Financial Literacy Program and Fair that was sponsored by Wave Federal Credit Union during the 2011-2012 academic school year in partnership with Toll Gate High School. The second $1,000 scholarship was awarded to Kayla Lopes of Warwick, Rhode Island, who was recognized this year by Toll Gate High School as an outstanding student in business. These scholarship recipients worked hard this year in their personal finances classes; and their teachers, Laurie Mocker and William Aquilante, are pleased that Colin and Kayla were selected to receive these year’s 2012 Business Scholarship Awards.

WAVE worked in conjunction with administrators, business education teachers and the guidance department at Toll Gate High School to facilitate this year’s scholarship program. Applications were received by several qualified students, and the selection process was considered by financial need, grades, a personal essay plus extracurricular/community service activities.

4. TG Business Education department’s second and oldest working community partner is Pawtucket Credit Union. TG Personal Finance/Business classes have been working with them on a regular weekly basis since 2005. Pawtucket Credit Union has been a corporate sponsor and Community Relations Director Kristin Rojas was invited to be a recurring guest speaker throughout the school year.

Ms. Rojas discussed all aspects of finance including budgeting, credit, identity theft, saving, and investing. Pawtucket Credit Union also sponsored “Real World Day” on April 24, 2012 where about forty TG students got to experience real world financial problems and solutions. Each student was given a career that matched their interest along with an annual salary, credit score, and marital/family situation. They were asked to make a monthly budget including food, clothing, rent, utilities, spending money, transportation, and other expenses. Students learned that budgeting and planning was not as easy as they had previously thought it to be.

5 Junior Achievement was also once again a partner of the Personal Finance program during the fall semester with volunteers from the business community lending their expertise on various Personal Finance topics. This year’s presenters were: Bob Maigret, Peter Dorsey, Nancy Tsonas, and Ray Davis.

6. Bank of America sponsored and presented an assembly on Banking and Credit in the auditorium for all the Personal Finance students back in October.

7 Each year, the Personal Finance courses conclude with the annual stock market game, provided by Virtual Stock Exchange, which is part of The Wall Street Journal Digital Network.

8 Personal Finance Classes: The course Personal Finance continues to be the cornerstone of the business department. The Personal Finance course covered checkbook balancing and reconciliation, banking, consumer purchasing, home buying, credit, identity theft, saving and investing, and stocks. Simulations using Quicken software were used to replicate real life financial situations. Using the Quicken software, students were asked to complete checkbook transactions of simulated situations.

As an Applied Learning and Math plus One Subject, our business education students have culminating budgeting and planning projects for assessments. These Applied Learning tasks and assessments ask students to find a career, purchase a home or rent an apartment, purchase vehicles for each adult in the household, and purchase insurance. Once the budget was completed, each student was asked to prepare and present a Power Point slide show to discuss and reveal their finding and experiences.

9 Digital/ Portfolio Class: This class helps 9th grade students with the entire “how to” process of the GBP requirements. This is another Applied Learning class where our students actually do their first login to the E-Portfolio/ Richer Picture and First Class Email systems. They learn the process of selecting a teacher portfolio task, doing the assignment and reflection properly, and finding all the resources such as the District Academic Expectations, A/E Rubrics and Reflection writing prompt. In this respect alone, this course is as important to helping students graduate as Tech Gateway if not more so.

Students must also write Senior Project Proposal letters in business style, do PowerPoint/ digital and oral presentations, as well as have the opportunity to do Photo Story and Movie Maker projects as well. Some of the topics are computer ethics, cyber bullying, and round table journal entry selections from personal internet research topics.

10 Computer Applications: Computer applications class learned how to use the tools in Word as well as how to use the Excel program. Most of the students did not know how to use many of the functions of the Word program. This was a surprise to them. When it came to Excel, they learned how to set up a budget which will be useful in the future when they have their own paycheck.

11. Sports Marketing Class: In April, we had Mr. Augusto Rojas from the Pawtucket Red Sox talk to the class about marketing strategies used by a professional sports team and the PAWSOX.

During the second half of this Marketing course, Mr. Castellone’s students started their culminating final project called, The Dream Team. This challenging project involves brainstorming and developing a team brand, logo and look, then making all the pieces to create marketing materials to promote the new team. As part of the Applied Learning strategies employed in most Business Education courses, Mr. Castellone’s students made actual cereal boxes, T-shirts, and media kits emblazoned with their own, original brands, logos and designs.

Guest Speakers

Augusto Rajos, Marketing Director PawSox,

Bob Maigret, Peter Dorsey, Nancy Tsonas, and Ray Davis of Junior Achievement

Community Relations Director Kristin Rojas. Pawtucket Credit Union

President and CEO of Wave Federal Credit Union, Paul Archambault

WAVE Branch Managers Gail Tattersall and Carol Felingiere

Laurie Robbinson, WAVE Community Relations Officer

Business Department Achievement of 2012 Goals

Results of Goal One: A goal mentioned in last year’s report, “Continue building a strong Personal Financial Literacy program for Toll Gate students by supportingt my teachers and maintaining a strong community based business network” was extremely successful and can be objectively quantified as documented in the highlights, above, in this document resulting in a Mayoral Award to Toll Gate High School and two $1000 scholarships to Toll Gate Students.