Gaffney Middle School SIP Review: Opportunities for Improvement, Exams of School management&administration

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SIP Review and Opportunity for Improvement Amy Dherit American College of Education EL5703: School Improvement Dr. Jacqueline O’Mara June 6, 2021

SIP Review and Opportunity for Improvement Gaffney Middle School is a Title I school that has a high poverty index of 82.75%. Gaffney Middle School has several areas in which improvements need to be made in order to help students reach achievement. The school was evaluated based on students' scores on the state assessment tests and data was aggregated from surveys that were sent out to parents, teachers, and students. The information shows that Gaffney Middle School is rank below average on the state's report card system. Therefore, Gaffney Middle School has analyzed the data from the State Report Card in order to construct a plan that will target the subgroups that are struggling, such as the Students in Poverty, Black, LED, Male, and Disabled subgroups. The School Improvement Plan (SIP) also includes ways to improve relationships between the school and the parents and student’s homes. The plan mentions the importance of building the relationships between students' homes and families with the school as well as building partnerships between the school and community. Provided all changes are made and the strategies are adhered to, then all Gaffney Middle School’s stakeholders will benefit. Gaffney Middle School’s SIP Analysis

School Name and District: Schafer Elementary School

Grades Served: Grades 6- 8

Vision, Mission, and Goals:

Does the school have a shared vision, mission, and goals? Yes The Literacy Vision of Gaffney Middle School is to provide leadership to ensure high quality literacy instruction so that all students develop the 21st century skills needed to become

college-readiness standards (ACT, 2021). The ACT Readiness scoring indicates “one of four levels: Exceeding, Ready, Close, or In Need of Support” (ACT, 2021, p.4). However well the student knows the standards, their score will reflect where they fall within those four levels.

Throughout the improvement plan, other assessments such as Benchmarks and MAP

tests are referenced in different areas of the action plans.

What are the assessment scores, and what do they tell you about this school’s weaknesses? ❖ State Standardized Language Arts Scores ➢ Disabled subgroup: SC Aspire ELA mean composite score was 414.1. ➢ Male subgroup: SC Aspire ELA mean composite score was 419.2. ➢ Black subgroup: SC Aspire ELA mean composite score was 419.3. ➢ Students in Poverty (SIP) subgroup: SC Aspire ELA mean composite score was 419.9. ❖ State Standardized Math Scores ➢ Disabled subgroup: SC Aspire Math mean score was 415.4. ➢ Black subgroup: SC Aspire Math mean score was 418. ➢ Students in Poverty (SIP) subgroup: SC Aspire Math mean score was 418.6. ❖ State Standardized Social Studies Scores ➢ Disabled subgroup: SC Aspire Social Studies mean score was 572.8. ➢ Black subgroup: SC Aspire Social Studies mean score was 587.8. ➢ LEP subgroup: SC Aspire Social Studies mean score was 591.2. ➢ Students in Poverty (SIP) subgroup: SC Aspire Social Studies mean score was 593.3. ❖ State Standardized Science Scores ➢ Disabled subgroup: SC Aspire Science mean score was 554.1. ➢ LEP subgroup: SC Aspire Science mean score was 577.2. ➢ Students in Poverty (SIP) subgroup: SC Aspire Science mean score was 581.8. The State Standard scores for ELA, Math, Science, and Social Studies are broken down by subgroups that show areas of weaknesses. Both the Disabled and the Students in Poverty subgroups appear to need improvement in all four subject areas. The scores for the Black subgroup shows there are weaknesses in ELA, math, and

social studies. The LED subgroup showed weaknesses in two of the four core areas, social studies and science. The Male subgroup showed a weakness in ELA only. Does the SIP clearly identify the areas of weakness reflected in local, district, state, or national assessments or other data? Yes

Objectives:

Are the objectives stated in the SIP directly related to low achievement? Yes Provide an objective indicating low achievement. ● Students in the following subgroups continue to meet standard on state standardized assessments in ELA, Math, Science and Social Studies at a significantly lower rate than other subgroups: Disabled students, Black students, SIP, and LEP students. ○ Based upon data analysis, we realize that we need to continue our focus on literacy and numeracy. ○ Based upon data analysis, we need to continue our focus on strengthening instruction through increased student engagement and differentiation for all groups. ● Our teachers are continuing to grow professionally and to seek advanced degrees. Those teachers lacking Highly Qualified status will either obtain it shortly or will return to a sixth grade teaching assignment for next school year. Administration will continue to encourage all teachers to seek Highly Qualified status, regardless of their grade level teaching assignments. ○ Based on data analysis, we realize the need to continue our focus on ensuring that all students are taught by Highly Qualified teachers. ● As a Title I school, there continues to be a focused effort on strengthening home- school relations. ○ Based upon data analysis, we realize the need to continue to improve parent, student, and teacher satisfaction with the Social/Physical Environment, Home-School Relations, and the Learning Environment. ● Based on analysis of summative and formative assessments our school has identified specific areas of literacy and content area reading needs by grade level. These needs are addressed throughout our school reading plan. The plan outlines ongoing professional development for all levels of instructional staff in order for the

systems (Johnston, 2020). In regards to the weaknesses the scores for the Disabled subgroup, Black subgroup, LED subgroup, and Male subgroup, may also partially contribute to the cross sectioning over into the Students in Poverty subgroups. The LED students only demonstrated weaknesses in social studies and science. This may indicate that these students who are still mastering the English language are struggling with the academic vocabulary in both of these core subjects. Do these key factors indicate what the school thinks has caused or contributed to low student achievement? The school focuses on continuing to strengthen instruction through increased student engagement and differentiation. The school also mentions increasing efforts to strengthen home-school relations. The school does not address any initiatives that acknowledge poverty being a contributing cause. The school plan does focus on vocabulary strategies that could be included to support the LED academic language barrier.

Strategies and Activities of the Action Plan:

Is there a strong relationship among the key factors, strategies, and activities? Yes Is technology integrated into the strategies and activities? Yes Are strategies and activities in the action plan clearly focused on what students, teachers, and parents will do to impact student achievement? Yes Are the measures of success toward achieving objectives clear? Yes Have all weaknesses been sufficiently addressed? No

Would the effect of implementing these strategies and activities most likely cause the school to attain its achievement goals? Yes

Overall Plan:

How do the shared vision, mission, and goals emphasize the expectation that all students will meet content and performance standards? The Literacy Vision mentioned in the Gaffney Middle School’s SIP focused on providing a high quality literacy instruction that supported the Profile of the SC Graduate, which centers around 21st Century skills. The plan states that teachers will attend professional development that focuses on common instructional planning and integrating the LFS-EngageED lesson plan template. Students will focus on vocabulary through an online Vocab-Ahead Word of the Day every morning during homeroom. Students scoring below proficiency will attend a reading class during academic enrichment time each day. Elective teachers will pull out students whose score is below proficiency for a SRA-program. Last of all, in order to support the Literacy Vision, the school will employ a Reading Interventionist part-time to work with the students scoring below proficiency. The Action Plan did not address anything about reading and writing being a part of all core classes. The plan mentions that by all of the school educators and students using literacy throughout the day, then students will gain knowledge by the submersion of literacy. The Vision did not include anything about math but there was a statement in regards to the mission of the school to engage parents regularly in the child's educational path. The actional plan did establish a goal to cultivate relationships between school and community and school and home. The SIP includes that administrators will contact community groups to ss if there is

student growth. I do not feel that the weaknesses were analyzed enough there for the plan lacks the potential it could have toi really help to really help the students achieve success. How is technology integrated into the plan? ● STAR 360 (Reading and Math) testing ● USA Test Prep ● Vocab-Ahead Word a Day ● Professional Development for Teachers in Technology Instruction ● One-to-One initiative for grade 6th, 7th, and 8th How is technology used to prepare, implement, and collect/analyze data used in the plan? ● The school integrates technology into professional development, curriculum development, and classroom instruction to improve teaching and learning. ● One-to-One initiative for grades 6th, 7th, and 8th. Selecting an Academic Improvement Area The academic improvement target I would choose differently is “we need to continue our focus on strengthening instruction through increased student engagement and differentiation for all groups (Gaffney Middle School, 2017). The reason is this objective is too broad and does not address the targeted subgroups that were identified to be struggling in achieving meeting or exceeding in the core areas in which they were lacking. The objective also signals that the school has already been focusing on these things and scores are still lacking. Instead, the objective needs to expand on the student engagement and differentiation by including specific ways and why that is included. For example, the improvement target could include the need to strengthen instruction through the use of formative assessments to increase students engagement and differentiation as well as guide classroom instruction. This target is purposeful, measurable, and pertains to meeting the specific needs of each of the targeted subgroups.

Formative assessment creates equitable opportunities for students of all levels and provides the necessary guidance to foster a meaningful instruction that is constantly being molded to the needs of the class. Research also provides evidence that students identified as particular subgroups that struggle in areas of math and literacy really do benefit from a teacher using formative assessment to gage students' understanding. One research study, by Same et al, discusses information derived from a study that consisted of “5,233 15-year-old students (635 of whom were Black) who participated in the Program for International Student Assessment (Same et al., 2018 p. 15)” and how the Black students showed a strong positive correlation between the teacher’s formative assessments and student’s scores on a reading test. “The evidence from this study was classified as promising because the study was correlational and controlled for selection bias” (Same et al., 2018 p. 15). Formative assessments offer teachers an opportunity to understand every student's level of understanding and the ability to address any misconceptions in real time. Teachers can have misconceptions about formative assessments too. Based on a conversation with some colleagues, I realized that teachers have differing opinions of when, how often, and for what purpose a formative should or could be used. This indicates that professional development on effective formative assessment, especially to improve classroom instruction for the subgroups identified in the SIP, provides a clear and distinct initiative that can have a positive impact on students' achievement and growth in literacy. Conclusion Gaffney Middle School, a Title I school, is faced with declining scores in specific subgroups that encompass the majority of the student body at the school. The Disabled subgroup and the Students in Poverty subgroup are struggling in all four core areas. The Black subgroup is struggling in all core areas except science. Although these are not the only subgroups that are considered not met in the majority of the subject areas, it does indicate a large percentage of

References ACT (Ed.). (2021). ACT Aspire - K12 Education Solutions. ACT. http://www.act.org/content/act/en/products-and-services/act-aspire.html. ACT Inc. (2021). Understanding Your ACT Aspire Summative Results. https://dpi.wi.gov/sites/default/files/imce/assessment/pdf/ACT_Aspire_- _Understanding_Your_ACT_Aspire_Summative_Results.pdf. Gaffney Middle School, School Improvement Plan1–54 (2017). Gaffney, SC; Cherokee County School District. Johnston, K. (2020, December 22). How Poverty and Education Are Related. MoneyWise. https://moneywise.com/borrowing/student-loans/ways-poverty-affects-education. Regional Educational Laboratory, Same, M. R., Guarino, N. I., Pardo, M., Benson, D., Fagan, K., & Lindsay, J., Evidence-supported interventions associated with Black students’ educational outcomes Findings from a systematic review of research1–53 (2018). Chicago, IL; REL Midwest.