01-29-2014 Minutes_Special_Meeting-Work_Session

Home Browse Search

VI. School Improvement Plans - Scott Woolstenhulme Chairperson Winchester asked Mr. Woolstenhulme to present the School Improvement Plans, Mr. Woolstenhulme asked how familiar the new board members are with Star Ratings. He showed a presentation to help the Board understand the process. The 5 -Star schools are in top right quadrant, Most of our schools are 4 -Star schools. If only one school in the District needs an improvement plan, then the district needs to do an improvement plan as well. We have put the plans in the context of PLCs aligning curriculum, assessment, and instruction to Idaho Core Standards. We are creating a culture of collaboration, setting SMART goals, and achievement plans. There are four different kinds of plans. Lincoln High School and Telford have written Turn -a -round plans. These call for a significant restructure. The reality is that to turn around you need to change the clientele. The state is looking at only one indicator, graduation rate, for Lincoln. Telford is comprised of the kids who struggle the most in middle school. The criteria for alternative schools are being looked at but we must live with the current model. Bonneville On- Line is required to write a rapid improvement plan. The problem with this requirement is that the kids aren't in a class with a highly qualified teacher. They are not growing as well as those in the brick and mortar schools. We monitor these students' growth with the STAR assessment benchmarks three times a year as well as the state required standardized testing. Our 3 -Star schools are Rocky Mountain Middle School, Tiebreaker, and Rimrock. They missed the mark by only a few points but are still required to write an improvement plan. Our 4 and 5 Star schools are exempt from writing an improvement plan but are required to set SMART goals for their sub - groups that are not showing the required growth The plans are based on the WISE tool and focused on PLCs. The indicators fit with what the schools are doing. We have collaborative learning teams and JPAS Evaluation. We focus on putting these things in the plans and getting them implemented. We began working on the plans in October and they have been reviewed by District Leadership Team. The principals will briefly review their plans with the Board. Principal Gordon Howard stated that Lincoln High School has challenges because it is an Alternative school and the WISE Tool doesn't fit. They have been focusing on STAR testing three times a year. There is a problem with kids rotating in and out on the block system. They have 170 kids currently enrolled. Hopefully they can keep a base of 100 kids that are tested in all three benchmark windows. Then they can monitor growth. Their goal is to test 100% of the students in the school that are enrolled the whole year. They have a PLC team that meets together weekly. Their challenge is to get the essential information to students. The graduation rate was 49% two years ago. Dropouts are counted from Lincoln but not Hillcrest or Bonneville because students come to Lincoln from these two schools and then dropout from Lincoln. The current model just doesn't fit. There are also kids coming to Lincoln from out - of- district as well, They have looked at what they can do to help their students. They are implementing 15 minutes of cross curricular study every day and they are looking at a schedule change to a longer block that is 25 days long and allows students to take 2 classes at a time. They can get additional credits during the school year and it will help with the attention span. They will continue with a 5.5 hour day but they will have two hours and 45 minutes in each class period. That will give students a chance to work with the Technical Careers High School or the eCenter classes. The goal is to become more student friendly and provide them with more options. Principal Ty Salsbery has a unique situation with his students because they are sharing them with other schools. They just enrolled a student that will have gone to every school in the District, His school is like a round peg in square hole. They plan to share data with parents better. They will go through the STAR Assessment data with the parents. Hopefully the parents will become more accountable. The parents are starting to understand more about what is required. The problem often is that if a student is doing well, they are ok with testing, but if not they don't believe in testing. So it is hard to track how students are performing throughout the year. There is concern that students may not get enough support at home. Our teachers make weekly and monthly and calls to families to share data. They share resources that parents can use to help their kids with the curriculum. There was discussion regarding the use of PowerSchool to help with data. Parents get immediate feedback with the online curriculum so PowerSchool would probably not be useful. The schools is looking for a quality evaluation tool for their online teachers. They are trying to figure out how the teachers can better support their students. They offer weekly online classes per grade level. They have 50 -80 students who participate in activities at Campbell Gym on a weekly basis. With Harmony Education, there are around 135 students living outside the District. Principal Kent Patterson stated that Tiebreaker missed 4 -Star by one point. They went through appeals the process and took the SED kids out. They appealed three times but, the rating didn't change. They decided that they needed to make improvements. The STAR benchmarks are showing improvement. The new leadership team members have been good. Mr. Patterson has been doing walkthroughs. The teachers observe two colleagues for 20 minutes then report back to Mr. Patterson, That has started some good dialogue and discussion. They have spent PLC time focusing on English and Language Arts. Their Math scores have been good. They are looking at doing more writing using the NEOS. The students are starting to write a note to classmates about something nice. There was a question about whether the star rating system is a good thing. You feel like you are doing good but, then it says you are not doing so well. It causes you to look at where you actually dropped and then you begin to work with it and try to find ways to improve. The hope is that students will do better in May At 1:00 p.m. Jeff Bird was excused and left the meeting. Principal Jason Lords stated that his teachers are willing to try new things. They have been focusing on identifying essential leamings. That is what students need to know before they enter high school. They do as much as they can in the content teams during the two years the students are at Rocky Mountain to ensure they are doing the work. Students struggle turning their work in. The faculty is looking at failing grades and why students have these grades. They are focusing on getting the work turned in in a timely manner. Flex time has been a great help to the students and teachers. They need to know that students have been given the content to be successful in high school. The focus team leaders help guide the school improvement plan. Rocky Mountain has great teachers and they do great things. The focus team leaders did a book study on Collegial Learn Walks before Christmas where they discussed taking a group of teachers and an administrator into a classroom for 15 minutes to look at what is happening. They are looking at student engagement not the teacher. Then they debrief about what they can take away and use in their classroom the next day. They will start this month with rest of the faculty doing this type of visit in the focus team leader's classrooms. Eventually they hope they will be visiting other teacher's classrooms, This is something that will help improve instruction throughout this year. They will continue to look at failing grades and STAR assessment data. Flex days allow students to get extra help and to have the opportunity to retake a test they failed. On a typical day there are about 260 students who come back to their teacher for a re- teaching session because they have an Incomplete, D, or F on any of their grades. During the school year, almost every student will have to go back to a teacher at least one time. Flex time also helps absent students so they can take a test or get additional help. The goal is for the number of failing grades to decrease. They started with 230 failing grades. Now they are down to 21. These are from only 7 students and they will finish close to 18 failing grades.