October Board Report
Turnstone and Meyers
Laura Regan and Trisha Smith
Our new school year is filled with excitement as we welcome old and new students! Classes are settling in and there is evidence of teamwork between students, families and staff. Both schools held their Back to School Nights where each site hosted a face-to-face Principal Welcome. Families were excited to meet their child’s teacher and spend time hearing about the many opportunities for learning and social growth that will be offered this school year! Each PSP hosted a Back to School event to welcome families and build a positive partnership within our school community. We are all very excited to dive into a new school year!
Last month both the Rocklin Academy Turnstone and Meyers sites received a notification from Niche that our schools were ranked #1 (Turnstone) and # 10(Meyers) for the Best Charter Elementary School in the Sacramento Area! This news was uplifting news for all our stakeholders and it really valued the hard work that impacts our students’ learning and growth!
NWEA MAP Assessment
Our k-6 grade students completed the Fall administration of NWEA MAP assessments. The assessments will be taken three times over the course of the year in the area of math, reading and language usage. As part of our professional learning, we were able to spend time analyzing the data and identify trends. We are excited to see how our kindergarteners and first graders grow as well, as this is the first time we will continue to monitor their growth over a year. Results of our Fall testing will be shared with parents by October, along with individual student goals.
Leadership Team
Our Leadership team met with enthusiasm as we identified our professional learning needs for the first trimester. The team was able to schedule time for teams to continue work with ELA essential standards, as well as professional development on technology standards and implementation, GATE identification and instruction, and NGSS strategies for implementation. We are thrilled that this team will continue to drive professional learning opportunities for our staff! It will be a great year!
Professional Learning:
NGSS Kickoff:
On Tuesday, September 4, we had our first full day of professional learning. Science Instructional Coach Beth Dixon kicked off our learning by introducing our elementary school staff to NGSS and leading staff members in an inquiry based activity. This demonstration helped teachers to shift traditional ideology of presenting scientific facts to a more balanced approach of having student engage in their learning by asking questions and creating hypothesis with information given. Teachers were then given time to use tools provided to plan into their Core Knowledge science curriculum. A survey was given to staff to provide feedback that will help drive further professional learning and identify areas of continued support.
Later that day, staff were able review the Danielson Framework process for this year. Teachers were encouraged to begin work on Form A in order to identify individual goals for professional learning. Compelling Conversations will be scheduled in September and October where staff will have a chance to establish their professional learning goal on instruction and reflect upon their teaching using the continuum for learning. This year our district goal will be 2b, Establishing a Culture of Learning.
In grade level teams, the staff used recent data to identify the grade level’s first Collaborative Inquiry goal for the year. There were many great discussions and work done to create fabulous instruction for our diverse student population. All goals reflected foundational skills needed to be successful in grade level essential standards.
Essential Standards Work
On Monday, October 9th our elementary school sites were able to meet at Gateway to continue their work on essential standards. In June staff worked to identify their essential standards for ELA and Math. The work for this past Monday’s professional learning day grew out of that initial work completed in June. On this day, staff were able to identify exemplars that tied to the essential standards for writing (W.1) and identify learning targets to provide clarity on what essential skills students need to master the grade level standard. Many great conversations and growth came out of the discussions within grade levels and grade level bands. In the afternoon, grade level teams celebrated growth made on their last C.I. goals and identified new C.I. goals for the next collaborative inquiry cycle.
CI Goal Setting - September
Our grade level teams were excited to share with their students and family the growth made during this Collaborative Inquiry cycle!
Grade Level / Collaborative Inquiry Goal / Beginning Proficiency / Ending ProficiencyKindergarten / By October 9th, 100% of Kindergarten students will recognize and name all upper and lower case letters of the alphabet as measured by Core Phonics assessment. / 21% / 52%
First Grade / By October 9th, 100% of first graders will know the spelling-sound correspondences for common consonant digraphs(sh, ch, th, wh) within a word, as measured by Words Their Way Spelling Inventory. / 46% / 64%
Second Grade / By October 9, 2017, 100% of second graders will be able to restate the question in their answer when writing their response to a text evidence based question from a text as measured by a teacher created rubric. / 19% / 61%
Third Grade / By October 9th, 100% of third grade students will begin to fluently multiply within 100 by mastering their 2s,5s, and 10s facts as measured by multiplication timed tests. / 28% / 71%
Fourth Grade / By October 9th, 100% of third grade students will begin to fluently multiply within 100 by mastering their 2s,5s, and 10s facts as measured by multiplication timed tests. / 15% / 75%
Fifth Grade / 100% of 5th graders will score an 80% or above on a 5 minute timed multiplication assessment of 100 multiplication facts. / 40% / 77%
Sixth Grade / By October 9th, 2017, 100% of 6th grade students will be proficient at dividing fractions as measured by a teacher created assessment. / 10% / 84%
CI Goal Setting - October
Grade Level / Collaborative Inquiry Goal / Beginning ProficiencyKindergarten / By November 3rd, 2017, 100% of Kindergarten students will know all letter sounds of the alphabet as measured by Core Phonics assessment. / .01%
First Grade / By November 3rd, 100% of students will be able to write two sentences using correct writing conventions as measured by teacher created assessment and rubric. / Data being calibrated
Second Grade / By November 3rd, 2017, 100% of second graders, when given a writing prompt related to a Core Knowledge topic being studied, will be able to write a topic-related introduction sentence for an informative paragraph. / 18%
Third Grade / By November 3rd, 100% of third grade students will be able to use correct capitalization and punctuation when appropriate as measured using a teacher created assessment. / 13%
Fourth Grade / By November 3rd, 2017, 100% of Rocklin Academy 4th graders will be proficient at 2 digit by 2 digit multiplication equations as demonstrated on teacher created assessment. (4.NBT.5) / 5%
Fifth Grade / By November 3rd, 2017 100% of 5th grade students will be proficient in identifying the main idea of a text that is read aloud as measured by teacher created assessment. / 27%
Sixth Grade / By November 3rd, 2017, 100% of 6th grade students will be proficient at spelling CKLA commonly confused words as measured by teacher assessment. / 8%