In high schools as large and complex as those in which you work, there are endless competing demands and issues, and when it comes to allocating resources, sometimes the loudest voice "wins".
For your first blog post, please examine a copy of your building's School Improvement Plan. In your post, please write the specific goals, followed by a brief paragraph that explains, in your opinion, what your school values, based on the SIP goals.
July 2012, the District Administration aligned the District goals to the Multiple Measures Index (http://www.isbe.net/news/2012/feb21.htm). School teams then write their goals related to the District goals as well as building specific programs. The District goals are available on the School Improvement Documentation site; however, the focus of the site is a tunnel view for the professional learning teams (PLTs).
ReplyDeleteThe District Academic Goals from 2012-2014 are:
Goal 1: Students will demonstrate academic growth in high school.
The goal values students receiving the best education and making individual gains. Determining individual student growth is based on students enrolling in more rigorous academic courses and decreased placement in developmental courses. Currently the EPAS assessment series is the only assessment system all students complete during their high school career. We expect students to achieve the expected levels of growth as measured by annual administration of exams within the EPAS assessment series. The final measurement for this goal is English language learners will demonstrate increased proficiency in the English language as measured by the annual administration of the ACCESS assessment. Goal one indicates a commitment to the individual student’s learning.
Goal 2: Students will demonstrate attainment of knowledge and skills defined within local, state and national high school standards.
Goal 2 is a commitment to teaching rigorous standards and preparing students for post high school opportunities. Courses will have defined Critical Learning Standards aligned to the Illinois State Learning Standards and the Common Core. Students will demonstrate attainment of the Critical Learning Standards for each course in which they are enrolled. PLTs’ progress monitors students’ achievement on course critical learning standards throughout the academic year.
Goal 3: Students will demonstrate on-time graduation from high school.
As simple as this goal sounds, it indicates a commitment to ensuring our students regardless of income or race, will graduate within 4 years of enrollment in high school. ISBE added an additional measurement of a students graduating within 5 years of enrollment in high school.
Goal 4: Students will demonstrate college and career readiness while in high school.
There are several indicators to measure this goal, the purpose is simple; students who graduate from our schools will be prepared to enter the work force or attend a college or university. The commitment to career technical education has been supported financially.
School Improvement Plans
In 2010, ISBE moved to a continuous school improvement reporting system known as Rising Star. Our District is required to use the Rising Star school improvement system for reporting progress toward designated performance indicators of effective practices in educator quality, learning environment, and teaching and learning. Each category is broken down into essential elements: professional development leadership; conditions for learning; community and family engagement; and curriculum, instruction, and assessment.
The continuous improvement process includes three steps: (1) assessing indicators identified by ISBE, (2) creating plans for implementation, and (3) monitoring progress. The five high schools within the District received access to the Rising Star E-plan site within the Illinois Interactive School Report Card site (iirc.niu.edu) within the last month. Therefore, the five schools will have school goals but not a copy of the state required Rising Star E-Plan. The last required school improvement plans the schools were required to complete were submitted to ISBE December, 2010. Training has not been completed on the school indicators.
In Spanish Goal number 1 and 2 have been used in the form of the different on going assessments at the start of each lesson and then at the end. We have changed them to meet the requirements that the district has aimed for. Most of the students that we teach in the World Language Department are college bound students. Many higher ed schools have requirements for prospective students and that has helped us keep many students all four years. Students now see where they are at when it comes to listening, reading, speaking and writting in the target language. The new grading program has allowed us to use the assessments we have created and provides us with data on each student. We have changed the way we look at each level and have created great assessments that have helped us change our curriculum just about every year. This is a good thing becuase we are alwways looking at change and how we can help students suceed in the World Language Classes. The schools goals have helped guide our curriculum and allows us to see how we fit in as a deparmtent in the goals of the school. I think that this is the best thing that has come out of the school improvement plan and one that allows all teachers to work toward a common goal.
ReplyDeleteHoffman Estates High School School Goals
ReplyDelete•Decrease discipline referrals and suspensions by 10%.
•Obtain an attendance rate of 94% or higher.
•90% of students will graduate within four years.
•Survey will indicate improvement in overall school culture.
•100% of freshman involved in at least one activity or sport.
•Students will demonstrate levels of growth commensurate with the recommended rate of growth per subject area on the EPAS system.
•Increase % of students in each sub-group taking courses ending in 8 or 9.
•Decrease % of students in each sub-group taking courses ending in 0, 1, or 4.
•All students meet CLS’s as measured by common assessments.
•Reduce failure rate within the school and each department to 3%.
•The % of students in each subgroup reaching the college readiness standard for English (18) and math (22), reading (21), science (24) on the ACT will increase compared to the % of the same students who had reached the benchmark for English (13), math (17), reading (15), science (20) on the Explore Test.
•Students will increase in their enrollment and completion of dual credit courses.
•Students will increase their participation in AP courses.
For the past two years, we have had the same over-arching school goal. Our goals all go into the top four areas: reinforcing the culture of involvement and high expectations, enhancing academic growth, increasing student achievement, and improving college and career readiness. All out these fall under the goal of Making Learning Visible. Based on these goals, first, I feel that what is most important is our school is looking at the improving the entire student, but wants to have to have proof of that improvement.
Christina,
DeleteWhere did you get those goals from specifically?
My involvement in school improvement goals is really at the district, and not the school level. As a member of the district's Instructional Team, we spend significant time considering the data related to the district academic goals, and how are we as a district addressing the deficit areas, and also considering new ways to address the gaps. I think the goals of all students demonstrating academic growth (of which have been specifically broken down), demonstrating attainment of knowledge and skills, and preparing students for post-high school opportunities are more heavily and openly focused on than the on-time graduation goal. I do believe the district is very much focused on improving opportunities for all students and learners-from the emphasis on more students being enrolled in college prep and higher courses to the expansion of dual-credit courses with Harper, leading to more "career ready" students. I truly believe the District values providing opportunities for ALL students, which encompasses both those going to a two-or four-year post-secondary institution, or those going to the world of work. Are there gaps to fill? Yes. But I do believe the district is working to find and fill those gaps in our learners.
ReplyDeleteAs a district-level administrator, I unfortunately have little direct involvement with the development of building-based SIP goals. However, as a district-level administrator, I am afforded the opportunity to serve on the District’s Instructional Team. The function of this team is to serve as an investigative team and recommendation making body, for overall student instruction, throughout the District. It is important to understand that while this team will look examine state and federal mandates, analyze student data district-wide, by building and by subgroups and make instructional recommendations in support of achieving the goals of the District, instructional decision making ultimately rests in the hands of building administrators and building-based leadership teams.
ReplyDeleteIn examining the District’s goals of 1) Students will demonstrate growth in high school; 2) Students will demonstrate attainment of knowledge and skills defined within local, state and national high school standards; 3) Students will demonstrate on-time graduation from high school; and 4) Students will demonstrate college and career readiness while in high school, it is evident, in my opinion, that the District aims to not only provide students with a quality education, but it is the District’s expectations that students will leave secondary school not only possessing the knowledge-base of the typical high school graduate, but that students will leave the District with knowledge and skills that will serve as a foundation as they enter the world of work and post-secondary training and education. More is expected of our teachers and students, than student ability to demonstrate the knowledge necessary for promotion from secondary school – our stakeholders expect our graduates to enter life after high school with the skills to advance.
The work being completed by building-based and district-wide PLTs, on the development of rigorous critical learning standards aligned to Common Core standards, District expectations and community expectations (CLSs), the development of formative assessments to inform instruction, the development of common summative assessments and the analysis of formative and summative assessment data, are reflective of the District’s commitment to ensuring that all students are ‘demonstrating growth in high school’ and ‘demonstrate attainment of knowledge and skills defined within local, state and national high school standards’. As our PLTs continue with their work, I anticipate that we will see growth in our EPAS scores, as a result. Additionally, I believe that with the work of the PLTs and the use of assessment not only to evaluate knowledge, but to inform instruction, there will be an increase in ‘on-time’ graduation as gaps in learning, which may result in failure to demonstrate proficiency. Really, the work of the PLTs has the potential to have SIGNIFICANT impact on instruction, student learning and future development of courses. I find the fourth goal of the District to be quite interesting: “students will demonstrate college and career readiness while in high school’. In the past, there was a considerable push and expectation for the District to produce graduates that continued their educations, either at the college or university levels. There was almost negligence on the part of stakeholders and the District, to realize that not all graduates have the desire to continue their educations, formally. Subsequently, there was a lack of curricular focus to prepare that population of students for the world of work. In recent years, the District has made significant strides to prepare our students for the world of work, through classes that are offered at the high school level, in collaboration with the local community college, as well as local trade schools and specialty programs. It is evident that the District has taken a step back to closely examine what is happening in our schools, to identify the impact on our students, and to take informed actions in addressing needing improvement.
Note: Towards the end of this post- I have included a summary of the District/Fremd Goals.
ReplyDeleteI believe that our District places a premium on giving students choices after their high school careers. These choices are often tied to their ACT score.
Each D211 school is tied to the District goals that are set with the District Administration and the Building Level Principals. In the era of high stakes testing and political cries for greater accountability you will notice that many of today's academic goals are tied to PSAE and AP indicators.
Even though all Districts are concerned with raising standardized test scores, I also believe that our District feels it is important to expose students to worthy curriculum. Even if some of the courses they take cannot be directly tied towards improving PSAE performance.
Department Chairs and the teachers work within Professional Learning Teams (PLTs) to improve upon teaching and ultimately the learning of our students.
With respect to building level school improvement- much of the focus has been upon teachers working collaboratively within their PLTs. The PLT members track student progress on the Critical Learning Standards (CLSs) within the course(s) that are within the PLT group's focus.
The core belief of the District is to continually working on answering the three questions:
• What should student know? Curriculum and CLS development.
• How do we know if they know it? PLTs review assessment data.
• What do we do if they don't know it? PLTs work to implement and share RtI strategies.
The difficulties that I see is how to engage all PLTs in helping students succeed with Math and Reading on PSAE. Years ago, as a district, we mandated that all departments develop SIPs that would address improving student reading and math achievement as measured by PSAE data. I felt that this led to some learning activities that were low level in nature and didn’t have a large impact upon student learning. It was just something that had to be done.
Our focus currently is to allow teachers focus upon the curriculum that they teach. It is my hope that this will lead towards PLTs focusing more upon improving critical thinking skills which students can apply across the curriculum and in various high stake tests.
Fremd High School Target Measures*
Goal 1: Students will demonstrate academic growth in high school.
Indicators:
Students will:
-demonstrate academic growth as measured by increased placement in more rigorous academic courses and decreased placement in developmental courses.
-demonstrate levels of growth commensurate with the national average as measured by annual administration of exams within the EPAS series.
-ELL students will demonstrate increased proficiency in the English language as measured by the annual administration of the ACCESS assessment.
Goal 2: Students will demonstrate attainment of knowledge and skills defined within local, state and national high school standards.
Indicators:
-Courses will have defined CLSs aligned to the Illinois State Learning Standards and the Common Core.
-Courses will have formative and benchmark assessments aligned to the course Critical Learning Standards.
-Students will demonstrate attainment of the Critical Learning Standards for each course in which they are enrolled.
Goal 3: Students will demonstrate on-time graduation from high school.
Indicators:
-Students, regardless of income-level, race or educational background, will meet all requirements to earn a District 211 diploma.
-Goal 4: Students will demonstrate college and career readiness while in high school.
Indicators:
Students will
-demonstrate college readiness as measured by increased participation in Advanced Placement courses.
-demonstrate college and career readiness as measured by enrollment and completion rates for dual-credit courses.
-meet or exceed the college-readiness benchmarks in English, mathematics, reading and science as measured by the Explore, Plan, ACT.
Because I have not been able to access the SIP goals, I contacted one of our administrators who briefly described the goals. Although he did not have them in front of him, he summarized the goals and focus of our school.
ReplyDeleteOutside of reading strategies to help students engage text, we have also been focusing on assessments that will evaluate the skills of the content area (like English) rather than particular items taught (like novels, short stories) .
We have also had a focus for the last few years on professional learning teams (PLTs). Within those teams, we have been trying to engage in the formative process cycle which includes identifying critical learning standards (CLS), designing lesson plans to teach and formatively evaluate the CLS, using the results to reteach the CLS, and preparing students for the district benchmark assessments.
Our school values reading and reading strategies, which is revealed indirectly in the SIP goals. We have reading strategies across the curriculum and across content areas. The belief is that if students repeatedly learn and hear the strategies, they will become engrained and use them like they are second nature. The underlying goal is that students be able to access text in any discipline. This aligns with the CLS’s because the students need to access all text in order to learn the material.
The District goals, which demonstrate our commitment to the importance of tracking evidence of student learning, include:
ReplyDelete• Students will demonstrate academic growth in high school
• Students will demonstrate attainment of knowledge and skills defined within local, state, and national high school standards
• Students will demonstrate on-time graduation from high school
• Students will demonstrate college and career readiness while in high school
District 211 Goals and School Improvement Plans for 2012-2013.(n.d) Superintendent’s Mini-Newsletter-Township
High School District 211. Retrieved from www.d211.org/pdf/continue/mini-newsletter.pdf on January 21, 2013
Our commitment to the academic growth of our students comes to the forefront of our goals in improving our school. This commitment is reflected in our desire to ensure that all students receive the same opportunities, quality instruction, curriculum and engagement from their teachers and administrators to make success after District 211 a possibility. These commitments underlie the goals set forth in our school improvement plan in which student learning and best practice instruction work in tandem. These goals reflect our commitment, as a staff, to working toward providing relevant evidence and necessary data to ensure that this is happening. As we collect the data, we must remain committed to honest, and sometimes painful realities, that emerge when inequities and a failure to thrive is revealed. We must always be vigilant that the systems we have in place may be working against certain populations within our school district and remedy those issues to the best of our ability when we are willing to see that they exist. While we may not have perfected this system of data collection, evaluation and remediation of where we are successful and where we fail, we are committed, as a district, to make sure that all students can have opportunities beyond their four years with us. Our school district values achievement, growth, development and readiness for that post-high school responsibility. A school improvement plan is just that – that, as a district, we are committed to improvement at all times and with a dedicated focus on our student’s academic and post-high school opportunities. This is the same continued desire to improve that we are asking of students as they work toward academic growth, opportunity awareness and personal maturation.
Christina has a great list and I have seen those, but cannot find them electronically (I feel they are on a handout in my files in my desk). But based on the electronic SIP I read through tonight, we also have two main objectives in our action plan:
ReplyDeleteIncrease student achievement in reading and connections made across the disciplines.
Increase student achievement in mathematics through mathematics connections across disciplines.
(Each has very specific action plan steps to achieve these.)
Taking all things into account (goals, the SIP, experiences), our school definitely values a rigorous education based on the core curriculum, specifically addressing math and reading across all disciplines. In the very detailed analysis provided throughout the document, minority and special group populations are heavily featured and analyzed. Thus, I feel our school values achievement by ALL students in these areas in recognizing, accepting, and planning for differences between the subgroups and developing success strategies. I believe our school values high levels of attainable achievement in an effort to prepare students for college. Additionally, I believe our school values professional development, collaboration, and professional learning communities to maximize student achievement.
Our district stresses that we are a “student centered” district and that everything we do in our classrooms and what we assign them outside of class need to focus on how it will best train our students for whatever they pursue post high-school; be it college, technical training, a skilled or unskilled position, that they leave us with a level of knowledge necessary to be a contributing member of society. While I believe that we should be preparing our students for higher education, not all will pursue that path. So we need to ask ourselves as they graduate from our schools, have we imparted to them all that they need to know in order to leave our buildings and join the ranks of the high school graduates? While we may have grown tired of the notion that our goal should be to create life-long learners, I am an advocate of this philosophy – the idea that we need to stress not necessarily the importance of whatever we teach but the idea that learning is a never ending process and that they, our students, are responsible to become life-long learners.
ReplyDeleteGiven that the D211 SIP goal is to assure that student learning involves improvement, then we as educators need to be preparing our students for continual growth as learners. The student that we have on day one should not be the same student at the end of the first quarter, the first semester, and most certainly not the same student at the end of the school year. The three questions that D211 has embraced that we the teacher should be constantly employing in our classroom falls into what I have used for several years now – KWL (what they already know, what they want to know, and ultimately what they will (should) learn to always press students to learn and add to their learning. The district uses “What do we want our students to know?” “How will we know if they know it?” “What will we do if students do not know it?” Given this scenario, we need to be asking ourselves what is important. What is so important in our course that they should learn? How will we know that the student has learned what we have deemed as important in our course and additionally, what do we do with that information in our course that the student has learned?
Much of this is data driven since one of the most common methods to determine student achievement is by comparing student testing. Part of the district’s commitment to our students is to use data to help determine as to what our students are learning and how that learning is helping accommodate their learning skills and to better accommodate them – whether they need remediation in a particular subject or how they demonstrate achievement in a particular subject. The data that represents student achievement should help us to determine what is working in our classrooms and consequently what needs to be adjusted to reflect student improvement. But, above all our students are people first and while the data behind them gives us a better sense of their achievement, our goal as teachers and administrators should be to work collaboratively to improve student learning and whatever means we can employ to reach that end should justify what we do in the classroom and in our offices. As long as the student remains the focus and the center of that focus we remain committed to their learning opportunities.
Similar to the District Improvement Plan, a well-articulated plan for academic achievement in the core areas of reading and mathematics exists at Palatine. Increasing student achievement in these curricular areas, while given a great deal of attention, has become somewhat commonplace for teachers. Our “values” on paper would indicate that we set high standards for academic achievement in areas that will benefit students for success in post-secondary settings (ie: college). These values are communicated through meetings in-which staff are inundated with the latest data results indicating the areas of deficiency. Discussions ensue, decisions are made, fingers are crossed…and the waiting game begins. What will the data tell us?
ReplyDeleteMy opinions on School Improvement Planning may come across as somewhat callous, and this is certainly not my intent. For the record, I strongly believe in the need for educational systems to set goals, and for a system of data analysis and reporting to take place. However, the current measurements of educational success are not reflective of what a successful education can, and should resemble. For example, our data for student achievement in English and mathematics for Hispanic learners is low, and the data is reflected through testing. What is not being measured however is whether a student that graduates from high school in our district becomes a productive member of society. We don’t have a plan for that. Instead, we assume that measuring data in math and English, and setting high standards of excellence in these areas, will naturally translate well into future success. There continues to be a national mindset that all students are college-bound, and therefore, the goal of a high school education should be to prepare students for such. The reality, nearly half of the students graduating from Palatine High School will either not attend, or not complete any form of higher education or career training. The responsibility for educating young adults to become productive members of our society has shifted from the vocational/trade and college settings, to the high school setting, and this ultimately needs to be what we narrate as the measures of success through a school improvement plan.
As I prepared for the mid-year progress update for the January institute day, I revisited the school goals and reintroduced them to the faculty this morning. On the surface they appear nebulous and amorphous, not exactly SMART. However, as they are unpacked, they represent more closely the values of the school that have guided our actions over the last couple years. For each stated goal, there are specific measures of success.
ReplyDelete• Reinforce Culture of Involvement and High Expectations
o Decrease discipline referrals and suspensions by 10%
o Obtain an attendance rate of 94% or higher
o 100% of freshmen involved in at least one sport or activity
o Survey will indicate improvement in overall school culture
• Enhance Academic Growth
o Increase % of students in each sub-group taking courses
ending in 8 or 9
o Decrease % of students in each sub-group taking courses
ending in 0, 1, or 4.
o Students will demonstrate levels of growth commensurate with
the recommended rate of growth per subject area on the EPAS
system.
• Increase Student Achievement
o All students meet CLS’s as measured by common assessments
o Reduce failure rate within the school and each department to
3% or less
• Improve College and Career Readiness
o Increase the % of students in each subgroup reaching the
college readiness standard for English (18) and math (22) on
the ACT compared to the % of the same students reaching the
benchmark for English (13) and math (17) on the Explore test.
o Students will increase in their enrollment and completion of
dual credit courses.
o Students will increase their participation in AP courses.
The goals are consistent with those established by the school district and demonstrate a subtle shift in the focus of school improvement in recent years. Moving away from the NCLB bar to which all students must achieve, the structure of school improvement efforts recognize the bar, those college and career readiness standards we want all to achieve, but also attend to those on the extremes of readiness, those students who surpass those standards or those who are far below them. While readiness is important, so too is the growth students demonstrate toward standards as measured by the state-endorsed EPAS system or those established as critical learning standards in our district.
What is the “SIP,” the state-submitted school improvement plan document, is too cumbersomely weighed down with bureaucratic requirements to truly guide a school or a process of growth toward a goal. The document is written to fulfill mandates, not to galvanize a school community around essential, core guideposts by which a school can navigate. Doug Reeves talks of a “laser-like focus” in describing the characteristics of 90/90/90 schools. Mike Schmoker describes the “focus” that schools must possess in advancing school improvement, including a focused and coherent curriculum (what we teach); clear, prioritized lessons (how we teach); and purposeful reading and writing, or authentic literacy. The current system of Rising Stars conflict with a sense that a school must allocate resources and energies to high-priority, high-leverage essentials, the two or three things that will advance student learning.
At Hoffman Estates, we have distilled the essential into one value statement, “Making Learning Visible.” The goals reflect a drive for outcomes that are measureable both for students and faculty. They reflect an emphasis on expectations and growth. We have focused as a school, leadership team, and professional learning teams in deciding what we want students to know or do (the process of identifying learning targets), assessing that skill and/or knowledge and presenting feedback for learning, and then responding as soon as possible to learning needs. All of these steps can and should occur within the process of the professional learning teams as they identify, assess, and respond to student learning through curriculum and instruction.
http://iirc.niu.edu/School.aspx?schoolid=050162110170001
ReplyDeleteThe above link will direct you to Conant’s state report card which directly impacts our school improvement plan. Our school improvement plan was directly developed to impact the Four Conditions for Making AYP. The content areas we as a school focus on for AYP is Math and Reading. To satisfy the SIP goals, which unfortunately I am not able to formally describe, we as a school developed several opportunities to satisfy federal/state AYP, SIP, and District goals. Conant’s “plan of attack” focuses on three main components to drive student achievement.
They are:
• Professional Learning Teams (PLT)
• Critical Learning Standards (CLT)
• Formative/Summative Assessment Measures
• Remedial Activities
A PLT is a collaborative approach to reviewing student data, creating instruction, adapting instruction and creating meaning assessments, both formative and summative. At Conant, teachers meet in the PLT usually on professional development days such as late start days. During this time they work within their content levels to determine how they can improve instruction to satisfy the needs of their students on all ends of the spectrum. To do this the team will work to create formative assessments. These assessments along with the summative all have a pre-determined benchmark. Benchmarks were determined by the PLT, Department and/or the District. The PLT will review and compare class-by-class their progress towards meeting their benchmarks in addition to CLT’s, which were developed by teachers at a District level. After analyzing the data the team will work to develop remedial activities for the students both instructionally and completed independently by the students. The ultimate goal of the PLT is give students opportunities to learn from their mistakes in addition it is a tool for teachers to adapt their instruction to meet the needs of the class, individual student and/or a group of students.
In addition to the above “plan of attack” we have gone one step further to impact AYP and student achievement and that is a school goal for all content areas: Our school goal for 2013, which has been constant for the past 6 years, is as follows:
1. All students at Conant will engage in focused, purposeful writing to increase their ability to think, reason, analyze, synthesize and communicate. As a result of purposeful writing their performance on standardized tests will improve over time.
2. All students at Conant will engage in difficult text and as a result their academic achievement will improve over time. Students will accomplish this through the use of literacy strategies such as;
• Building Background Knowledge
• Anticipatory Activities
• Vocabulary Development
• Think Aloud
• Read to Write
• Graphic Organizers
• Modeling
Both the above statements are what will drive our professional development activities, curriculum development and discussion in PLT’s. The success over the last five years has been significant. We have shown significant gains in college readiness, EPAS and student achievement. By having this common theme across the building we have been able to develop a common language and focus in on target groups of students who need additional remedial activities in literacy development and our teachers are affluent on exactly how to instruct these students or have the resources available to them when they aren’t sure.
For the purposes of this blog post, I first set out to analyze the Hoffman Estates High School School Improvement Plan. The most recent document that I could find is from October of 2010. The goals set forth in this plan, which were originally for the 2010-2011 school year, are
ReplyDeleteEach student should have options for college and career upon graduation
Each student should have the communication and mathematics knowledge and skill sets required for entry into college or vocational post-high school endeavors
Students must obtain 21st century skills such as the ability to think critically, solve problems, communicate and listen effectively, access and analyze information and then apply what is learned, become self-learners and collaborate and innovate to be competitive in a global economy.
These goals are somewhat vague and bear the mark of the bureaucratic language that is present in school mission statements and public district documents. It is difficult to determine the schools values based on outdated documents such as this. For a more accurate look at our school values, I reviewed our schools goals for the 2012-2013 school year. These goals are listed below.
Decrease discipline referrals by 10%
Obtain an attendance rate of 94% or higher
90% of students will graduate within 4 years
Survey will indicate improvement in overall school culture
100% of freshman involved in at least one activity or sport
Students will demonstrate growth commensurate with the recommended rate of growth per subject area on the EPAS system
Increase % of students in each sub-group taking courses ending in 8 or 9
Decrease % of students in each sub-group taking courses ending in 0, 1, or 4
All students meet CLS’s as measured by common assessments
Reduce failure rate within the school and each department to 3%
The % of students in each sub-group reading the college readiness standard for English (18), Math (22), Reading (21), Science (24) on the ACT will increase compared to the % of the same students who had reached the benchmark for English (13), Math (17), Reading (15), Science (20) on the Explore Test
Students will increase their enrollment and completion of dual credit courses
Students will increase their participation in AP courses
These goals truly represent the values of our school. We have one distinct value that we share with most other high schools is increasing academic success and the academic growth of our students. We also have three other values that we probably don’t share with other high schools in the area. The first is the establishment of a school climate and culture of respect, ownership of actions, and accepting differences. The push towards a more positive, accepting school climate is being accomplished through a multi-year, multi-faceted approach lead by students and staff working collaboratively. Other important values include a culture of student involvement in activities and sports. For the past two years we have encouraged a 100% involvement rate for our freshman students. This has helped increase the health of our school culture, while also raising student achievement through our athlete academic intervention program. We have also worked to establish a culture of high expectations for our students by encouraging students to enroll in higher level courses.
The following bullet points outline our district goals, which are also followed by our guiding questions for our late start mornings in working with Professional Learning Teams.
ReplyDeleteMajor District goals:
• Students will demonstrate academic growth in high school
• Students will demonstrate attainment of knowledge and skills defined within local, state, and national high school standards
• Students will demonstrate on-time graduation from high school
• Students will demonstrate college and career readiness while in high school
District 211 Goals and School Improvement Plans for 2012-2013.(n.d) Superintendent’s Mini-Newsletter-Township High School District 211. Retrieved from www.d211.org/pdf/continue/mini-newsletter.pdf on January 21, 2013
Guiding questions for Professional Learning Teams:
• What should students know?
• How do we know if they know it?
• What do we do if they don’t know it?
The District goals reflect a commitment to student learning and growth in order to create options for their future based on what our society and structure expect currently. Our goals have definitely changed in time, but we have been working on these particular goals for quite some time. In my experience in education, these goals have been the best communicated and defined. Shortly after NCLB became the focus of education, we began to focus on what was needed not just to meet the standards of NCLB, but what our students would need for the future. Our PLTs seem to work on different aspects of the goals at different times depending on the department. One aspect that I appreciate about our goals is that they are not solely focused on standardized testing. I know that many teachers feel very strongly about standardized testing and do not want a student’s education to be focused on a test. Standardized testing is a part of our reality and affects our students’ post-high school options. Our district has also focused on career options for students and has tried to create different opportunities/incentives to students through dual credit, career treks, etc. Overall, I feel that from our goals, our District values student growth, options for the future, meeting standards and being ready for whatever may be next. High school is a time to explore courses/activities/options and learn about oneself in order to determine the direction of one’s future. All of our initiatives and programs have focused on these goals. They may not all be perfect, but they have begun with the right intention.
Our school does not have a formal "school improvement plan." There are, however, district goals that reflect increasing student academic achievment, meeting national, state, and local standards, and preparing students for post-secondary options and success.
ReplyDeleteTo advance those goals the district has implemented a system of Professional Learning Teams (PLTs) that have in turn been charged with determining local standards, how to measure the achievement of those standards, and what to do when students have not met or exceeded expectations of standards mastery.
Reflecting on this leads me to believe that the district places a high value on the need for students to have multiple options for post-secondary success and the teachers' role in measuring and assessing that readiness. The district has allocated instructional time and funding to facilitate late-start dates providing PLTs with work time. While many argue that the time is not sufficient to meet expectations, it is arguable that for educators dedicated to their craft there would potentially never really be enough time. This de-centralization of school improvement does have some negatives. While we are all working on increasing student academic achievement and providing students with the tools necessary to find post-secondary success different PLTs are not always on the same page. Efforts to make more cross-curricular connections can sometimes be thwarted by this and while these connections may improve academic success the value the district places on the PLT system outweighs other obstacles.
While administrators in each building set personal goals (tied to student achievement) that are linked to their professional evaluation those goals are not publically available. It could perhaps benefit some in the future for their to be a clearer goal structure in place to help guide the work of the PLTs.
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