Spring Hill Elementary Quality School Improvement Plan

Part 6: Implementing the School Improvement Plan and Documenting Results

Introduction:

The Spring Hill Elementary School Improvement Plan of April 2000 laid the framework for where we wanted to focus our resources, time, and efforts. We identified three areas to work on: improve oral and written communication skills, improve reading skills, and improve problem solving, thinking and reasoning skills. These same areas were identified during the current improvement plan process.

Over the past five years, our school leadership team has monitored, annually assessed, and measured progress in the action steps. We have dedicated staff development programs in these areas and used curriculum monies to support the effective implementation of strategies. Some of the staff development offerings include: Dr. Max and Julia Thompson's Learning-Focused Schools Strategies, Open Court Phonics, Dr. Cindy Cupp Reading, Integrating Technology, Meeting the Needs of All Learners, and Second Step, a violence prevention program. Second Step teaches children the skills they need to change attitudes and behaviors, reduce impulsive and aggressive behavior, and increase their level of social competence.

Our school Leadership Team and Grade level teams meet monthly. Agenda items often ask what the teams are doing to make progress in the areas. For the past two years, we have provided quarterly release time for grade levels to meet during the school day to review test scores and plan instruction to meet student needs and improve student achievement.

Documentation of the Target Goals for Student Learning

1. Communication Skills

We established a Writing lab that is currently housed in one of our Commons Areas. Teachers sign up to use the lab for whole group writing and publishing activities.

Our students have actively engaged in a variety of activities to improve oral communication skills. They include classroom presentations, the annual Recitation Festival (classroom, school, and county levels) and our PTO sponsored annual talent show where students showcase their talents in poetry, monologues, skits, and singing. Students in fourth and fifth grade have had the opportunity to participate in Drama Club. These students performed short plays for the Spring Hill community. Also, our Sunsations choruses perform each year during our PTO meetings, and travel to perform at selected Partners in Education locations. During the spring of fourth grade, students sign up for and audition to be part of our Sun News Network (SNN) broadcast teams.

As part of our Staff Development, faculty members have been exposed to Power Writing, Handwriting Scope and Sequence, Guided Reading, Literacy Centers, using rubrics, and a book study, Lifetime Guarantees: Towards Ambitious Literacy Teaching, focusing on strategies to help teachers motivate student interest in reading and writing.

Student writing is displayed in our halls, at the Lafayette Education Center, and in student publications. Administrators periodically initial or leave notes celebrating student work. Student work has also been showcased on the back of school menus.

One of our parents, based on her student's desire to go beyond school requirements, initiated the idea for a Writing Club. The club, cosponsored by parent and teachers, has representatives from each homeroom. The students meet to plan, interview, write, and publish a periodic newspaper. The inaugural edition of The Super Sunny News was published in December 2004.

2. Improve Reading Skills

In October 2001, we formed a reading committee to guide and monitor the implementation of action steps. We acquired both fiction and nonfiction readers to make leveled libraries. Books are centrally located in our primary book room and media center.

We use the results from a variety of tests to assess student learning. These assessments include: norm and criterion-referenced standardized tests, the Fayette Country Reading Assessment (FCRA), Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA), Accelerated Reader (AR), and Standardized Tests for Achievement in Reading (STAR). Each student has a blue reading folder containing both formal and informal language arts (reading and writing) assessments. These folders follow students to the next grade level.

We participate in a variety of activities in which our students are rewarded for reading: Pizza Hut's Book It Program, the Six Flags 600 Minute Reading Club, and the school/county Battle of the Books, (now known as the Fayette County Reading Invitational) in which our fourth and fifth grade students compete on teams.

Based on research of programs to improve our students' processing skills, phonemic awareness, and guided reading, we began to incorporate aspects of various programs during our instructional day. These programs include Four Blocks, Open Court Phonics, and Cupp Phonics.

During the 2004-2005 school year, Fayette County introduced an initiative called 25-Books Reading Campaign for students in 4th through 8th grades. Research indicates that the quantity of material students read is important to their overall academic achievements and to the development of their identities as lifelong readers.

The Parent Teacher Organization purchased a 22-VHS tape series, Developing Minds. The videos offer ideas and strategies to address student learning difficulties. During the 2002-2003 school year, we hosted weekly viewings of the series. Tapes are now available for check-out in the professional and parent section of our media center.

3. Critical Thinking and Problem-solving Skills

We spent the 2003-2004 academic year training the entire faculty on learning-focused schools strategies to improve student thinking, organizational, and problem solving skills. Our teachers use: essential questions to guide instruction and focus students on the most important concepts of a lesson/unit; graphic organizers, which provide a visual device to aid students in note taking, guided reading and writing, and study guides; rubrics, which determine the focus for assessment and let learners know ahead of time what knowledge or skills they are expected to demonstrate. We have sponsored training in Effective Teaching Strategies that encourage teachers to go beyond knowledge and comprehension questions and move to higher order questions dealing with application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. We have also received training in teaching the almost gifted, which provided strategies for use in heterogeneous classrooms.

Problem solving is encouraged in day-to-day activities including the use of computer software, math word problems, and previewing written materials. We preview textbooks, use picture and context clues, predict the outcome of a story, and preview questions looking for key words.

Our staff was introduced to a visual system to help students better comprehend reading passages and select the "best answer" for a multiple choice question. The system, modeled on the stop light, provides strategies for students to be more successful. Red, or Stop, questions are those where the answer is readily available. Yellow, or Slow Down, questions indicate that the answer is there, but may require reading across the text. Green, or Move On With Your Thinking, questions are those where the answer is not actually in the text. Students must think about the question and apply prior knowledge or experiences to answer them. This strategy is used mainly in the upper grades.

The Choice Card system encourages students to follow procedures and rules. They learn that there are logical positive and negative consequences that result from their behavior choices. When students are referred to an administrator for discipline, we use the incident as a teaching and learning experience. We discuss the steps that lead to the problem and brainstorm alternative reactions. Students then begin to think about their behavior and create "tool chests" filled with alternatives from which to choose.

Reflections on Lessons Learned

Our school improvement plan provides the framework on which we base instructional, fiscal, and professional development decisions. It is important for all stakeholders to know the importance and relevance of continuous school improvement, the progress our school makes, and provide a forum for stakeholders to offer recommendations to improve the instructional and organizational effectiveness of our school.
We plan to be more consistent in using the formal "Desired Results for Student Learning" surveys to measure stakeholder satisfaction with progress and direction and to elicit comments and recommendations. We will make this part of our year-end review activities.

We are increasing faculty exposure to, and experience with, using student performance data. This school year, we have an ongoing professional learning course, "Looking at Data: Looking at Student Achievement". Grade level teams meet quarterly to examine student achievement data, and employ these results to plan instruction and assessments. County-level Content Coordinators have assisted us in examining student data. Our objective is to develop measurable goals, collaborate with colleagues, and use instructional strategies which will lead to optimal student achievement.

We have expanded professional learning opportunities beyond those available at the system level. Over the past five years we have offered a variety of training opportunities facilitated by both internal and external trainers. Some of the classes we offered, not previously mentioned in this report, include: Classrooms That Work; Lexicons for a Lifetime; Discipline: A Total Approach (DATA); Learning to Listen, Listening to Learn; Sign Language; Time Management; True Colors; CPR Training; Living/Learning in a World of Difference; Parent Conferences; Organizational Skills; Resources When Working With Children of Poverty; and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

For the past two years, we have budgeted time and resources for grade levels to formally meet on a quarterly basis for common planning and reflection. We will continue to apply professional learning resources to improving instructional practices.

Where do we go from here?

As the African proverb (and our principal) states, "It takes a whole village to raise a child." The stakeholders of Spring Hill are honored to be a small part of the "village." Just as the sun infuses life into our world, our mascot, the sun, adds life to our school. Our sunny spirit of learning and involvement prevails throughout the building. The staff works very hard to keep the feeling of a "warm fire burning" inside the building to facilitate learning and the involvement of all students, parents, and community stakeholders. Spring Hill Elementary School stakeholders are committed to providing the best possible venue where students learn to appreciate a love of learning, the importance of being part of a larger community, along with being prepared to be successful in the future. These children are our future! We know that we have done our part in shaping them to be valuable contributors to our community and the world. We can take pride in knowing we have made a difference in the lives of our children.