Olsen Middle School
SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT MID-YEAR REFLECTION 2018
Directions for School Leadership Team: As part of the February School Improvement Training we will engage in collaborative conversation and share best practices based on each school’s Mid Year School Improvement Reflections. After input from the leadership team, each school is asked to bring this completed form to the training.
1. Has your school made progress towards achieving the goal?
A. How do the structures and systems in place at your school ensure all facets of the school culture create
predictableenvironmentsand a school climate that supports your SIP goal?
B. What are the gaps that exist between yourcurrent stateand your desired state?
C. How will you address them between now and the end of this school year?
Please see information detailed below for A, B and C
A. Weekly PLC s and school-based staff development enable teachers to work collaboratively to ensure curriculum is embedded with standards required for student mastery and specific instructional routines to foster student learning.
B. Student math and reading proficiency data reflects student performanceis below grade level. Although student growth is evident, the challenge is to remediate students when needed and maintain high expectations according to rigorous curriculum standards. Other gaps include technology access/digital divide and African-American non-proficiency in Reading and Math. Student access to technology is limited to school hours and in some cases the support for 24/7 learning is not continued at home. Students require increased time on task (on computers) to improve computer literacy, due to 21st Century technological requirements and computer-based FSA. Additionally, student attendance is another barrier as students cannot receive instruction or support if they are not present.
C. Our schoolwide digital 20technological homework plan (20 minutes per core content area) and our afterschool programs enable students to have 24 hours of extended learning opportunities. Our RTI program is working with various schoolwide and community support services to meet the unique needs of our African American students in a timely fashion to improve the social emotional learning environment. Intentional scheduling provides students with a social support cohort and extended time on task through technology use during the regular school day. Additionally, students receive instruction in math and literacy skills through the grade level content area teachers to provide students with the best possible advantage to ensure growth towards meeting and exceeding mastery of standards. We follow the district wide attendance counts initiative and encourage teachers, parents, and students to be aware of attendance issues and seek support. We also celebrate success of those with perfect attendance each quarter as well as at our annual awards night ceremony.The entire grade level receives the intervention of extended learning opportunities to meet or exceed student learning needs as evidenced by common assessment data. Students are scheduled into small group instruction based upon their strengths and weaknesses and not only receivebut are required to produce evidence of mastery through the project-based learning assignments and/or formative assessments.
2. Have alterablebarriers been eliminatedorreduced? (Alterable barriers are in-house infrastructure mechanisms such as scheduling, class structures, teacher attendance, student attendance, staff development plan, etc.)
A. What evidence do you see that a barrier has been reduced or eliminated?
B. What evidence do you have that the barriers are wide-reaching and will help you achieve your goal?
C. If progress towards eliminating the barrier is not sufficient, where or what is the breakdown?
D. Did you identify other barriers that could serve as effective re- entry points into the plan?
Please see information detailed below for A, B, C and D
A. The evidence of barrier reduction is demonstrated by students’improved outcomes on common assessments. Masteryof the standards is alsoevidenced through work product, quarterly immersion days, and BSA.
B. Last year’s FSA scores reveal the extent of the need.However, improvement was madeaccording to the BSA scores which reveals the interventions are yielding desired outcomes.Programs like iready (Math), usatestprep.com (an online assessment tool) and Achieve 3000 (differentiated reading program with lexile leveled activities that support student progress toward proficiency and even further to college and career readiness) provide reports and concrete data as evidence of improvement.
C. Progress toward eliminating the barrier is sufficient. However, students would benefit fromblock scheduling. The school provides creative scheduling to extend the content area time on task through use of targeted electives. The students simply require more time to achieve the identified goal and change years of self-defeating images and stereotypes that have been embedded in their identification of themselves. Our never-ending goal is to empower and encourage every student to believe that he/she is capable of excellence and is inherently exceptional. This is the real work that must occur before and during the process of learning the content knowledge.
D. An additional barrier is the lack of age appropriate social skills and exposure to real world examples of greatness for all students.At least 40 of our male students are in two programs (Branding a Man & Male mentoring). Additional mentoring programs and providers for those who are most in need could further extend support.
3. Are your strategies being implemented with fidelity?
A. Were decisions to continue, intensify, modify, or terminate strategies or action steps based on specific evidence?
Yes, strategies are implemented with fidelity as result of the data gathered from CFAs and BSA. Decisions to increase time on task, student grouping, after school standards remediation (tutoring in math, Reading, and Algebra after school, Saturday Scholar’s Camp, and two sessions of Friday Night Live), enrichment through school wide technology practice is made based on demonstration of student mastery of standards. The data is continually driving instruction and the intensity and specificity in which interventions are applied.
4. What are your benchmarks for success?
A. How will you progress towards your goal impact student achievement?
B. What is yourdesired state?
C. What gaps exist between your current state and yourdesired state?
Please see information detailed below for A, B, and C
A. Progression towards the goal is made through consistent application, interventions, and research-based instruction to meet or exceed the learner needs and requirements of the standard (ie. DOK levels as required by each of the FL standards)
B. The desired state is that 100% of our students will demonstrate growth (learning gains) and we will meet or exceed proficiency targets of 50% or more for each content area assessed.
C. Gaps that exist are student and teacher readiness. Students and teachers are continually being provided with support to empower them to meet or exceed learning goals.
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