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David Reese Elementary School: 2002-2003 Year: 2002-2003 Post on: SchoolsMovingUp - Public Image:  Headline: Instructional leadership, alignment to standards, and high expectations Introduction Staff and administrators at David Reese Elementary School identify the teaching staff, instructional leadership, and alignment to standards as key contributions to the academic success of their students. In addition, Elk Grove Unified School District personnel who interact with staff at Reese note that high expectations permeate the school. If students are having difficulty meeting those expectations, teachers, administrators, and support staff identify modifications, interventions, and resources necessary to ensure academic progress for those struggling students. Professional Development Elk Grove Unified School District believes that, in order to support students, teachers need the best tools and training possible. Therefore, the district has developed an extensive professional development program. In fact, teachers comment that the course listings resemble a college of education's course catalog. The district's professional development program specifically focuses on standards and differentiated instruction. Teachers remark that this professional development program helps them implement new and sometimes difficult strategies in their classrooms. When Elk Grove adopts a new curriculum, there is often a mandatory all-day professional development session for all teachers, followed by a longer series of trainings attended by a team from each school. This team of school trainers brings the training back to the school site, where teachers implement the new curriculum in their classrooms. District math and literacy coaches are available to the site two days a week to meet with teachers, observe lessons, and teach model lessons. Teachers at Reese take full advantage of the professional development and coaching opportunities that the district provides. In fact, both of the district coaches observe that the teachers at Reese are extremely open to the coaching model. This is not a "closed-door" school. Teachers want to continually improve their craft and know that professional development and collaboration are critical to furthering their expertise. In addition, teachers at Reese have begun to craft their own professional development program based on their site's needs. For example, data analysis revealed that reading comprehension was an area of improvement for the students at Reese. During her vacation, one teacher read a research-based book about reading comprehension strategies. She found it so valuable that she talked to the principal about turning it into a professional development series for her colleagues at Reese. As such, teachers met every week for 12 weeks to discuss strategies from the book and watch an accompanying video. Teachers were required to try the featured strategy in their class each week and then come back prepared to discuss it. The teachers found that this model improved their teaching practice. What's more, they also received salary credit from the district. The principal found the series so effective, he plans to replicate this model of built-in practice and accountability. In addition to reading and math coaches available to each school site approximately two days a week, each Title I school principal is provided with a coach to provide support on matters ranging from curricula to the bus schedule. These coaches then meet monthly with the associate superintendent to discuss emerging issues such as new adoptions or aligning assessments to standards. In addition to providing professional development to its existing teachers, Elk Grove administers the Teacher Education Institute for future teachers. In partnership with San Francisco State University, this institute enables participants to receive a full credential at the end of 11 months. Many of the instructors are Elk Grove's own personnel — from the associate superintendents to teachers, to curriculum specialists. Elk Grove hires about 90% of the graduates from this institute. Data and Assessment Every year, schools in the Elk Grove Unified School District must submit an assessment plan. Over the years, Reese Elementary's plan has become more and more refined. The plan begins with the state and district requirements, which administrators, teachers, and subject specialists then augment. Reese's plan includes a well-developed reading assessment piece. Data from the assessment plan enable staff to monitor the progress of individual students, classes, and grade levels, and to make programmatic decisions. The assessment plan at Reese includes three levels of data. First, the statewide assessment system enables administrators at Reese to meet with teachers and use these data to make general program decisions, look at the progress of the school and grade levels, and to determine broad goals. Second, Elk Grove Unified administers end-of-the-course standards-based exams every year. This helps teachers make instructional decisions for the upcoming year. Finally, classroom assessment results allow teachers and administrators to make placement decisions about individual students. All of these levels function together to give a complete picture of the academic progress of the students at Reese. At Reese Elementary, each teacher meets with an administrative team every trimester to discuss individual student data. These "co-op meetings" are tremendously effective in helping meet the needs of all students. The administrative team that helps monitor student needs includes Reese's principal, vice principal, school psychologist, special ed staff, speech therapist, Title I staff, and reading and math coaches. During "co-op meetings," each teacher meets with the administrative team to review every piece of assessment data on each child in the teacher's classroom. The team uses a matrix, which has the assessment results on one side and various interventions on the other. The teacher completes this matrix for every child in the class in advance of this meeting. The team then makes decisions about each child. Does this student need an intervention? Is the current intervention working for this student? Does this student need more challenge? If this student is an English Learner, what services are being provided? The team is able to complete one co-op meeting in 30 minutes and 12 co-op meetings a day. The school hires a rotating substitute for co-op meeting days to cover each class while the teacher meets with the administrative team. Those teachers who meet after school receive half-hour of release time on another day, if they so choose. While the focus is on academics, the team discusses other barriers to the child's success and available resources. The teachers appreciate these meetings because they lead to fast action rather than allowing children to slip through the cracks. The administrators value the meetings as an important accountability tool. These data-based meetings help ensure the needs of each child are being met, whether by intervention, enrichment or otherwise. Standards-Based Curriculum and Instruction Starting in 1996, the state and district emphasis on standards has helped the curriculum, instruction, and assessment at Reese become aligned. This clear link between the curriculum, instruction, and assessment had been missing in the past. The focus on alignment has also led to a continuity of instruction at Reese. Whenever there is a change in curriculum, both the district and school emphasize helping teachers understand and implement the changes. Curriculum changes become the focus of professional development and grade level meetings at Reese. The goal is to ensure that teachers understand and are implementing all aspects of the new curriculum. This way the level of instruction and content of curriculum are maintained at consistently high levels throughout the school. As with the student population at large, the services for English Learners begin with data analysis in the co-op meetings. Based on this information, English Learners at Reese are placed in various interventions, including an after-school language acquisition program. Twelve teachers at Reese are trained in this intensive language acquisition program. In addition, both certificated and classified staff are trained to handle the needs of English Learners in the regular classroom. The bilingual associates at Reese speak the four main languages spoken by students at Reese. These bilingual associates come into the classrooms to help children who are still very early on in the process of acquiring English language skills. Also, most of the teachers at Reese have their Crosscultural Language and Academic Development (CLAD) and Bilingual, Crosscultural, Language and Academic Development (BCLAD) credentials. A variety of support interventions are in place at Reese for students who need extra help. That support is given in class, during the school day, and/or when the children are out of school. According to the principal, the first and most important intervention should occur in the classroom, especially by using differentiated instruction. In addition to in-class intervention, Reese has an after-school program, a language acquisition program, an intersession program, a process called Neverstreaming in which students receive help from the special education staff for a specified period of time, and a series of specialized reading labs. The reading labs have had a significant impact on the reading scores at Reese. After the first round of co-op meetings, the reading specialist and the Title I staff look closely at the students who were identified for interventions based on beginning-of-the year assessment data. Students are then placed in the appropriate reading lab based on need. Students still struggling with fluency and decoding multi-syllabic words are placed in the intensive reading lab and given instruction in multi-syllabic decoding and fluency practice. The next group of students read fairly fluently but struggle with comprehension and vocabulary. These students participate in the strategic reading lab that focuses on comprehension and vocabulary. Rather than grouping all struggling readers together, Reese focuses on each child's most pressing need so that he or she can more quickly advance to the next level. The reading specialist and Title I staff use pre- and post-testing, teacher observation, communication with the classroom teacher, and the trimester assessment data to determine when a student is ready to move out of that program or to move up from the intensive level intervention to the strategic level intervention. Reese addresses the needs of each student, which, in turn, helps ensure that all its students are successful academically. This school is featured in the video series, "Closing the Gap: Meeting the Achievement Challenge in California." For more information go to Closing the Gap Video Series. This school profile was created in 2003. Achievement and demographic data through 2003 are included. State Web Page on API: http://api.cde.ca.gov/ State Web Page on AYP: http://ayp.cde.ca.gov/ Created by Heather Mattson Almanzan 2003-10-28 15:03:25 Created in SchoolsMovingUp - Admin community (11) Created for SchoolsMovingUp - Public (39) Live on SchoolsMovingUp - Public (39) « back to David Reese Elementary School |
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