January 2012 School Improvement and Professional Development Newsletter

Word of the Month:

Collaboration – Teams of professionals engaging in collective-inquiry to analyze student data as a means of examining best practices to improve student achievement. Effective collaboration is the engine that runs a learning organization.

Congratulations to Kindergarten: After a great deal of effort, discussion, and review, the Kindergarten team has completed their language arts assessments for implementation next year. Outstanding job! We have several other teams well on their way to completing the necessary pre- and post-assessments for the upcoming year.

Core Practices

High performing organizations must continually reflect on their core beliefs and practices to maintain focus for future success. As we continue our journey this school year, it is critical that we reflect on the foundations of reflective and collaborative practice in our school system. As a refresher (and as each of you have been exposed to on countless occasions), please review the following four questions based on the work of Dufour, Dufour, and Eaker and reflect on the level at which your collaborative team is addressing these questions during our professional collaboration early release:

1.       What do we want students to know?

a.       Power standards

b.      Other essential outcomes

2.       How will we know if they “know” it?

a.       Common assessment (power standard and collaborative team)

b.      Summative assessment (MAP)

c.       Benchmark assessment (Acuity, Benchmark (pre, mid, post exams)

d.      Teacher developed assessment

3.       What will we do if they do not “know” it?

a.       Collaborative lesson design based on the input of the entire collaborative team

b.      Peer observation into colleague best practices

c.       Action research when overall performance is low

4.       What will we do if they already “know” it?

a.       Differentiated activities and assignments

b.      Utilizing gifted support in the elementary level

Having a feeling of being overwhelmed is not unnatural at this point of a school year; however, successful organizations reflect on the core practices of the organization and address these core practices throughout the year. A passionate and relentless belief that all students can learn and reliance on the ability of the collaborative team to address these learning needs in a strong collaborative context will lead to continued success.

Strategic Planning Update

The Camdenton R-III District Strategic Planning Team continues to meet and discuss revisions that will impact our district over the upcoming three school years. While recommendations for the Board of Education are not yet prepared, a continued emphasis on current initiatives will likely be part of the upcoming planning as will a strong emphasis on literacy, student engagement in learning, a focus on sub-groups, and the need to address our district’s dropout issues. As statements for the board are prepared, a copy will be sent to the faculty share and discuss.

Professional Development Notes and Summary

The Professional Development Committee met on Monday, January 30^th and discussed, primarily, the needs assessment submitted on January 2^nd as well as a process for soliciting greater input from faculty members. The needs assessment revealed many areas for improvement as well as several areas of celebration for the Camdenton R-III School District. While some areas were higher than others, all of our overall responses were in the positive range and no particular area was cited as being particularly negative or critical of the various processes needed to enhance a high performing district. From our discussion, the following areas were noted (Note- each building principal has a copy of the survey results and you should have been given or have access to those results):

Celebrates:

·         The building develops and utilizes various plans, structures, and systems to guide its overall efforts.

·         The staff’s work is guided by the 4 corollary questions of: What do we want students to learn? How will we know? What will we do if they don’t? What will we do if they already have?

·         In buildings where PBS or a consistent behavioral system has been implemented, several positive responses regarding overall understanding of behavioral support systems were noted.

·         The district has a defined mission and vision where “learning for all” is the focus.

·         Formative assessment is used as a tool to improve student learning and improve instruction.

·         State-level and district-level large scale assessments are administered according to specified guidelines and in a standardized manner.

·         Teachers have extensive knowledge of content, and it is evident in their instructional practices.

Concerns:

·         Staff members engages in principles of professional learning communities by regularly using the 7 norms of collaboration: pausing, paraphrasing, putting inquiry at the center, probing, placing ideas on the table, paying attention to self and others, presuming positive intentions.

·         A building-based leadership team has been established to develop a universal approach to the behavior system.

·         Staff identified and agreed to five or fewer broad behavioral expectations.

·         Active teaching of universal rules, processes, and routines occur throughout the year.

·         Behavioral violations are defined and a system of consistent response is implemented.

·         Collaborative teams use data form their essential learning outcome assessments to establish SMART goal data.

·         Data from SMART goals are routinely used by collaborative teams as they are examined by collaborative teams.

·         The PD Committee collects data related to the needs of the building, and arranges for PD related to their needs.

·         PD is of high quality.

·         The building leader tactfully engages in difficult conversations with all stakeholders.

·         The building leader attends teacher training sessions and actively participates.

·         School culture exhibits a high level of mutual respect, trust, and collegiality.

From this data, the committee will be organizing professional development discussions at the building level to determine the next steps to be taken in professional development and solicit greater input from faculty members. District sponsored professional development will need to be linked to the district and building level strategic plans and be linked to research on the effectiveness of the training requested. In addition, an emphasis has been placed on peer observation and the selection of master teachers to implement this process, therefore committee members will be soliciting input regarding the continuation of this project. Also, committee members will be soliciting faculty input on consistent behavioral systems, as this was an area of concern from the data received and is a precursor to learning and the creation of an effective educational environment.