COBB COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT

East Side Elementary

SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT PLAN 2006-2009

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Principal Signature

Revisions

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Area Assistant Superintendent Approval

SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT PLAN

Table of Contents

		Pages
PART 1	PROFILE
Executive Summary ……………………………………………………………………………		3
Significant Accomplishments…………………………………………………………………..		6
Significant Challenges………………………………………………………………………….		7
Organizational Characteristics…………………………………………………………………		8
Student Performance Data Analysis ……………………..…………………………………..		8-9
Stakeholder Perceptual Data Analysis …..…………………………………………………..		9-10
PART 2	SCHOOL MISSION AND BELIEFS………………………………………………...	11
PART 3	ACTION PLAN
Priorities………………………………………………………………………………………….		12
Student Performance Action Plan: Goals ……………………………………………………		13
Student Performance Action Plan: Resource Plan …………………………………………		14-15
School Performance Action Plan: Goals ……………………………………………………..		16
School Performance Action Plan: Resource Plan …………………………………………..		17-18
PART 4	RESULTS
Strategy Analysis ………………………………………………………………………………		19-20
Georgia Performance Standards Implementation …………………………………………		21
Benchmark Reporting ………………………………………………………………………..		22,23,24
Reflections on Lessons Learned ……………………………………………………………..		25
Next Steps ……………………………………………………………………………………...		25
APPENDIX ……………………………………………………………………………………….		26-37

PROFILE

Executive Summary

East Side Elementary School continuously analyzes informal and formal test data to develop our School Improvement Plan. Each spring test results from numerous assessments are analyzed to identify strengths and weaknesses in student performance. The information is used to redirect teaching strategies and guide instruction. Our school improvement data team disaggregates the data and shares results with the entire staff. Once the test data is thoroughly reviewed, the staff decides upon areas of focus based on the identified weaknesses.

Also included in the school improvement plan is East Side’s new mission statement that was developed during the 2005-2006 school year – “By addressing the needs of all children, East Side’s community is committed to empowering our children to excel academically and become respectful, productive members of a global society.” The administrative theme for our school this year is, “Refining the three “R’s”: Respect, Relationships, and Responsibility.” By embracing these three character traits, we are creating a risk-free community that scaffolds the learning environment.

Our staff is varied in the amount of teaching experience. We have a large number of veteran teachers and have added many young, beginning teachers to our staff. This change in staff has generated excitement to our school with an increase of instructional conversations and sharing of best practices. While this is a positive change, planning the support for these novice teachers is demanding. Because of the varying degrees of teaching experience we have made collaborative learning communities a pathway for staff development.

Our long-range school performance goal is: Collaboration among inter/intra-grade level teams guided by the Georgia Performance Standards. This goal was identified based upon the results of the Cobb County School District 2006 School Improvement Survey. Collaboration will consist of teams developing essential questions, enduring understandings, performance tasks, varied assessments, and a good understanding of the overall elements of the Georgia Performance Standards. Because our achievement goal relates to writing, we will begin to “unpack” the writing standards first. Grades 1-5 will also study and implement 6+1 Traits of Writing by Ruth Culham. Kindergarten students will become familiar with the language of the seven traits. This approach to writing will provide our school with a common approach to teach writing across all grade levels.

Our long-range achievement goal is: Students will write at or above grade level and improve their writing abilities by focusing upon grade level writing standards to write in a variety of genres. This objective was chosen based upon the third and fifth grade Georgia Writing Assessment scores and the GCA supplementary writing assessment scores for fourth grade. Also, when comparing our writing scores to similar schools within our area, we recognize that we should have higher percentages of students to score in the engaging and extending stages of writing. By focusing upon the Georgia Performance Standards for writing and 6+1 Traits of Writing, we hope to improve student writing related to the domains of writing that are formally assessed. Grade level teams will assess student writing using the Georgia/Cobb writing rubrics. Each grade level will create common writing prompts to give to students. Teachers will collaboratively score these writings in order to come to consensus regarding the levels of student writing.

Significant Accomplishments

For several years East Side has performed very well in the area of reading on the Georgia CRCT and the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. The spring 2006 CRCT indicated that 96% of our students met or exceeded the reading standards. Our grade level percentage scores on the ITBS in reading exceeded our projected ability based upon the average percent of our grade level CogAT scores. We received the Gold Award from the Georgia Department of Education for Highest Percentage of students who met or exceeded the standards on the CRCT.

Our 2005-2006 spring CRCT results test results show improvement in math scores. Total math scores exceeded our total reading scores for the first time in several years. We attributed this improvement to a program that called Otter Creek that grades 1-5 piloted. The program required students to practice daily math drills. Students were held accountable for their accuracy in computation. This school year (2006-2007) we have added the problem-solving component of the Otter Creek program.

East Side established a school Foundation that finished its first complete year in May 2006. We raised over $40,000 in our first year. The Foundation along with PTA works extremely hard to support our school programs, resources, and facilities. Both of these groups have provided our students with up-to-date technological resources, purchased instructional materials that support our school academic goals, and have assisted the school monetarily in upgrades to our playground and classrooms.

The administrative team at East Side provided the staff with a survey (November 1, 2005) to evaluate the climate and culture of our school. The survey revealed areas that needed to be refined related to our vision/mission, staff relationships, and methods of communication. The administrative team asked for volunteers to serve as representatives on a “Morale Team.” This team created a plan to use for the 2006-2007 school year to improve the climate of the school. This was the foundation from which our school theme of Refining the 3 R’s evolved.

The local school tax referendum, SPLOST, has significantly improved East Side’s school facility by painting and repairing exterior wood and improving other outdoor fixtures. The interior of the school received fresh paint to the walls in the hallways, classrooms, cafeteria, and restrooms. These improvements created a heightened awareness regarding the impact that school appearance can have upon a school’s climate and culture. Due to this heightened awareness, many parents and community members donated time and monetary resources to help a fifty-four year old school to have a fresh look but maintain it’s character. Through the school council and foundation’s concerted efforts needs for the future have been prioritized.

Significant Challenges

East Side faces many challenges in meeting our School Improvement goal. Two of our greatest challenges are our changing demographics and our emphasis on moving average achieving students to above average achieving students in the areas of language and mathematics. Because our ESOL population is predominantly Asian, we will ensure that these students receive extra support to help them become more proficient in the English language through Extended Day Tutoring and volunteer PTA / high school mentors. As we focus upon moving average achieving students to above average in the areas of language and mathematics, we will emphasize data analysis. Students’ test scores will be studied to determine individual progress in those areas. Based upon student test scores, teachers will hold students accountable for maximizing their potential. Teachers will hold themselves accountable by differentiating instruction to meet the needs of all learners. We believe that the majority of our students’ cognitive abilities are high average to above average based upon the CogAT tests in third and fifth grades. Therefore, the assumption is that their ITBS and CRCT scores should fall within the above average range. Teachers will be encouraged to learn and research instructional strategies and effective programs that will enable us to extend the learning of our students. Varying the modalities of instruction to meet the needs of all of our learners necessitates our staying abreast of all technology applications. Therefore, staff development will be integral to our success.

During the school years 2002-2006 our school has centered its staff development upon the book, Strategies that Work. Teachers learned to implement and teach such strategies as making connections, questioning, visualizing, inferring, and synthesizing information as well as how to asses these skills. These strategies will encourage our students to become independent readers by learning how to think critically. Because reading and writing are reciprocal these strategies will enhance student writing as they begin to write with purpose and for a particular audience. As teachers and students begin to use and understand the language and skills within 6+1 Traits of Writing and Performance Based Learning they will see the importance of these meta-cognitive strategies. Rebecca Simmons in 6+1 Traits of Writing states, “Assessment is not something that we tack on to learning; it is an essential ongoing component of instruction that guides the process of learning.” Students assessing what good readers and writers do is a reflective tool that is embedded in these programs.

Hence, another added challenge this school year involves training several new staff members on current East Side comprehension strategies that come from our book study. Also, Cobb County has mandated the use of state writing rubrics to score student writing in grade three, four, and five. Cobb County has created rubrics for grades K, one, and two. We will be providing training on how to use those rubrics to assess writing samples and how to use them to teach specific writing genres and skills. It is our expectation that each student will be able to write appropriate responses to grade level passages.

Collaboration among teachers has often been a challenge because of money, schedules, and the varying degrees of teacher commitment. This school year (2006-2007) the staff agreed that collaboration would be a priority and specials schedules were rewritten to provide extended time for common planning for each grade level.

Organizational Characteristics

East Side is located north of Atlanta and is 8 miles east of Marietta, Georgia. East Side serves a population of 950 regular education, special education, and kindergarten through fifth grade students. East Side’s enrollment has increased gradually over the past seven years. The community surrounding East Side has also experienced a great deal of residential and commercial growth. As East Cobb grows, so does East Side. There are ninety staff members including: 38 classroom teachers, 6 special education teachers, 2 gifted teachers, 3 speech teachers, 2 counselors, 5 specialists, 1 area lead teacher, 1 media specialist, 11.5 para educators, 1 registered nurse, 4 custodians, 6 food service staff, 1 secretary, 2 clerks, 1 bookkeeper, 2 cafeteria monitors, and 2 administrators.

Thirty-eight percent of the certified staff holds master’s degrees and 1% holds a specialist’s degree. This results in thirty-nine percent of the certified staff holding an advance degree. An additional eleven staff members are currently working on advance degrees.

All students live in single-family dwellings. East Side has experienced continual change in student demographics. We continue to increase in our Asian population. The racial composition of our school is predominantly white (69%), with our largest minority group being Asian at 20%. The African American population comprises 5% of our population; multi-racial consists of 3% and the Hispanic population makes up three percent of the school population. The percentage of low-income students (those eligible for free or reduced lunch) is 5.37 percent.

East Side's first School Council was created in August of 2003 in accordance with HB1187. The staff, parent, and business members are actively involved in advising the principal, reviewing school improvement data, and working to share school issues with the community. This has been an effective opportunity to promote increased communication between parents, teachers, and the community.

Student Performance Data Analysis

East Side Elementary School continuously analyzes informal and formal test data to develop our School Improvement Plan. Each spring test results from numerous assessments are analyzed to identify strengths and weaknesses in student performance. The information is used to redirect teaching strategies and guide instruction. Our school improvement data team disaggregates the data and shares results with the entire staff. Once the test data is thoroughly reviewed, the staff decides upon areas of focus based on the identified weaknesses.

Because of our continued success in improving our reading scores, we have identified language/writing as our areas of academic focus for the 2006-2007 school year. These goal areas were chosen based upon analysis of the following assessments:

The Georgia CRCT results for spring 2006 revealed that 92.5 percent of our first grade met or exceeded the standards for language, 96.6 percent of second grade, 94.5 percent of third grade, 93.3 percent of fourth grade, and 96.4 percent of fifth grade. From this data, we recognize that students need to be challenged from meeting standards to exceeding standards.

ITBS spring 2006 data from third and fifth grade results indicate relative weaknesses were noted within the language subtest as both grade levels scored lowest in spelling, capitalization, and punctuation. Furthermore, we compared our third and fifth grade CogAT results to third and fifth grade’s achievement scores and noted that our students were slightly below their cognitive ability in the areas of spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.

The spring 2006 Performance Assessment Series results yielded that 72 percent of our fourth grade students had mastered the grade level language arts curriculum.

The Georgia Writing Assessment results for grades three and five justify our new goal to improve writing abilities by focusing upon grade level writing standards and to write in a variety of genres. Spring 2006, Georgia Writing Assessment scores indicate 62 percent of East Side’s third graders scored in the Experimenting and Engaging categories as compared to 48.3 percent in Cobb, and 41.7 percent in the state. We had zero percent of our third graders in the Extending category while the state percentage was 2.8 percent and Cobb was 1.8 percent. Of fifth graders, 66.1 percent scored in the Engaging and Extending categories as compared to 60.2 percent in Cobb and 56.2 percent in the state. We have noted a decrease in our writing scores since 2003. (See appendices for third and fifth grade Georgia Writing Assessment results). An added concern is that there are other schools within our area that had a higher combined percentage in the extending and engaging categories and a higher percentage of students in the extending category alone. We believe that our students are capable of achieving the same performance. Based upon the results of the writing assessments, third and fifth grade teachers must focus upon increasing student proficiency in writing.

Our spring 2006 GKAP readiness scores for first grade have remained consistent for the past four years. This is evidence to support that our students are capable of much success in literacy and mathematics upon entering East Side.

Stakeholder Perceptual Data Analysis

Beginning in the spring of 2002, baseline data gathered from CCSD School Improvement Survey administered to the parents, students, and teachers was used to assist in determining the strengths and weaknesses of East Side Elementary School’s instructional and organizational effectiveness. The same survey is administered each year so that comparisons can be made.

The staff agreed most strongly on the following belief statements:

1. The school keeps parents informed about school programs and activities. (100%)

2. This school is open to input from parents. (96%)

3. This school makes parents feel welcome. (98%)

4. This school has an emergency preparedness plan. (100%)

5. This school had an effective program for Physical Education/Specials Connections Fine Arts. (96%)

6. I use a variety of ways to evaluate student performance and progress. (94%)

The parents agreed most strongly on the following belief statements:

1. My child’s teachers are enthusiastic about learning. (96%)

2. This school keeps parents informed about school programs and activities. (96%)

3. There is at least one adult in the school I can talk to. (95%)

The students agreed most strongly on the following belief statements:

1. My school has rules that I understand. (94%)

2. We practice safety drills at my school. (97%)

3. My teacher expects me to do my best. (98%)

4. My teacher believes that I can learn. (97%)

5. My teacher expects me to use time wisely. (97%)

6. Our school administrators want us to do our best in our schoolwork. (96%)

In reviewing the surveys to find weaknesses, we were pleased to note that none of our surveys (parent, teacher, or student) yielded any ratings of 2.5 or below in the domains that impact student learning. In the domain of auxiliary services 41 percent or our staff disagreed that our school facility is clean.

SCHOOL MISSION AND BELIEFS

INTRODUCTION

The mission was rewritten this past summer. The school-wide data team met with the entire staff to identify language that was important to include in the mission statement. The data team worked together to develop a new statement. The mission was give to the staff and to East Side parents for review and input. Revisions were made and the new mission statement was adopted. All school committees, PTA, Foundation, and School Council will work to make the mission statement a priority as decisions are made that impact the entire school.

MISSION

“By addressing the needs of all children, East Side’s community is committed to empowering our children to excel academically and become respectful, productive members of a global society.”

BELIEFS

We believe the following statements to be true about East Side and our mission as educators:

• Children are our greatest resource and the key to our future.
• All students can learn.
• Students have differing strengths and differing needs. Not all children learn at the same rate and in the same way.
• High expectations, along with sound teaching and motivated and responsible learners will yield optimal learning.
• All members of the school community should be respectful of others and accept individual responsibility for their own work and actions.
• Students need to be given many opportunities to apply learned knowledge.
• The core curriculum in the areas of reading, math, English, spelling, science, social studies, health, physical education, art, music and oral and written communication skills provide the backbone for what is taught and learned.
• Teachers, students, parents and the community must work together to provide the best learning experiences for our students, preparing them to become lifelong learners.
• Open communication among teachers, parents, students, administrators and the community is critical to maximize student growth and achievement.
• All students should be given access to current technology for learning.

ACTION PLAN

Priorities

The Action Plan is divided into two parts---one for student achievement and one for school performance. The first section of the plan looks at student achievement.

Our achievement goal in writing was chosen based upon the third and fifth grade Georgia Writing Assessment scores and the GCA supplementary writing assessment scores for fourth grade. Also, when comparing our writing scores to similar schools within our area, we recognize that we should have higher percentages of students to score in the engaging and extending stages of writing. Furthermore, our CRCT scores in the area of language (spelling, grammar, punctuation) have been a relative weakness across grade levels for the past three years. Reading and writing are reciprocal; therefore, we will emphasize writing across all content areas.

As we analyzed the data from the Cobb County School Improvement Opinion Survey, we identified for the third straight year that staff collaboration was a relative weakness. The staff agrees that in order for us to become a “performance-based” school we must make collaboration a priority. Collaboration is also a key factor in studying and implementing 6+1 Traits of Writing.

STUDENT LEARNING PRIORITY

Improve student achievement in written communication.