School Improvement Plan

2013-14

Silas Deane Middle School

Steven J. Cook, PrincipalCynthia Fries, Assistant Principal

October 22, 2013Wethersfield Board of

Education

Student Learning Outcomes Goals

2 Goals - Performance and progress on the academic learning measures in the state’s accountability system for schools◦ School wide SPI Progress ◦ School wide SPI subgroup Progress

  3 Goals - Performance and growth on locally

determined measures◦ Non-tested subject or grades (high school must include

graduation goal)◦ Two more Student Learning Goals – indicators may focus on

student results from a subset of teachers, grade levels, or subjects

At this time the CSDE has not released School Performance Index data.

This data will be shared once available.

2 SPI Goals

Goal 1 The number of RTC (Responsible Thinking

Classroom) referrals will decrease by 5 percent from spring 2013 to spring 2014.

3 Locally Determined Goals

RTC is a positive behavioral support for students.

It allows students to reflect on their negative behaviors and not repeat them.

By intervening with students with high numbers of RTC visits, there will be more minutes spent in the classroom working towards the mastery of learning concepts.

Rationale

Administration will provide all staff with a bi-weekly update of all students who chose to attend the Responsible Thinking Classroom

Administration will meet with academic teams to discuss strategies designed to keep students in the classroom

At weekly data team/support staff meetings, administration and support staff will determine best strategies to support student making better decisions

Strategies

Support staff will meet with high frequency students bi-weekly to provide feedback and to design intervention strategies. They will also involve parents in the process

Teachers will develop alternative management strategies to re-engage students

Through the implementation of the Advisor/Advisee Program, students will establish positive relationships with staff which will support positive classroom environments

Strategies Continued

Goal 2 Silas Deane Middle School students will

show an average of 12% growth in writing during the 2013- 2014 school year as determined by the fall Writing to Sources Assessment compared to the spring.

3 Locally Determined Goals

Based on student performance on the 2012-2013 CMT, writing is a focus area.

If district-wide curriculum, Writer’s Workshop, and data team initiatives are implemented with fidelity across both grade levels students will show improvement in the Writing to Sources Assessment

Rationale

Utilize Columbia Teachers’ College writing rubric to monitor progress and assess student writing

Teacher evaluation goals for all staff centered on improving writing for all students, some with an emphasis on males

Implement Writing To Sources assessment to be administered and scored by ELA and Social Studies teachers

Strategies

Implement Common Core Standards through the use of the Writing Workshop model and provide ongoing support

Develop collaborative processes to analyze student work, monitor student progress and adjust curriculum and instruction to meet the diverse needs of all students (content teams and data teams)

Strategies Continued

Goal 3 Silas Deane Middle School students will

show an average of a 10 point increase in math during the 2013- 2014 school year as determined by the MCAP district assessment while addressing the Smarter Balanced Assessment Claims for Concepts and Procedures, Problem Solving, Communicating Reasoning and Modeling and Data Analysis.

3 Locally Determined Goals

As evidenced by the 2013-2014 CMT’s, math is a focus area.

If district and school-wide curriculum implementation and data team initiatives are implemented with fidelity across grades 7 and 8, students will show growth on the MCAP over the course of the 2013-2014 school year

Rationale

Implementation of the new common core based curriculums in both Pre-Algebra and Algebra

Utilizing the Math Workshop model

Creating Student Learning Objectives (SLO’s) focused around the Smarter Balanced Claims

Increasing the amount of writing in math with a focus on problem solving

Strategies

Implementation of data teams and the continued PLC content meetings to identify struggling learners and teaching strategies

Development of an extended day SRBI

initiative to support identified students in need of remediation

Strategies Continued

Organizational Capacity-building Goals

1 Goal - Teacher Practice ◦ What will be the building level focus to improve

classroom instruction? Consider the bottom lines, Framework for Teaching Evaluation Instrument (Danielson, 2013) and district focus areas.

1 Goal - Team Improvement Goal◦ Based on The Seven Stages of Professional

Learning. What is the goal related to data teams? 1 Goal - School Climate and Culture

◦ Consider stakeholder feedback survey data (parent and staff)

90% of teachers will effectively implement student feedback strategies as determined by the Danielson Rubric

Teacher Practice Goal

Domain #3 in the Danielson Rubric focuses directly on questioning techniques with relation to student feedback. In order to achieve this goal, consistent collaboration, professional discussion and reflection must take place across all content areas and grade levels with the focus of providing student feedback.

Rationale

Utilize content collaborative time to share best practices on providing student feedback

Implement standards based grading for the purpose of

discussion of concept mastery with students

SDMS staff will allow “Re-dos” for assessment and part of the process is to receive feedback from staff on how to improve their work and achieve content mastery

All staff will utilize Advisor/Advisee program to assist students in goal setting and providing feedback for success

Strategies

PowerSchool Parent Portal to be opened for both parents and students

Support staff will conduct student interviews to give students feedback on numerous categories such as academic growth, behavioral growth and social growth

SDMS staff will keep running logs of conferences with students and feedback given

Strategies Continued

By the end of the 2013-2014 school year, 100% of our grade level data teams will be working at or above stage 5 (Analyzing Student Learning) as described in the 7 Stages of Professional Learning Teams Rubric.

Team Improvement Goal

This goal directly relates to the Wethersfield School Improvement Plan of improving instruction across all content areas. This goal will emphasize using data to drive instruction, will require continuous reflection and collaboration, and will improve teaching and learning. This goal can help to improve learning for our subgroups, who historically perform poorly on the CMT

Rationale

Teachers will meet as professional learning teams to plan collaboratively and analyze data and identify students in need of support

Staff will view video clips of schools who have successful data teams and elicit ideas

Staff will participate in a minimum of two professional development opportunities focused on implementation of data teams

Teachers will differentiate their individual instruction to meet specific student needs

Strategies

The percentage of parents who know how their child is doing in school before they get their childs’ report card will increase from 76% to 81% from spring 2013 to spring 2014

School Climate and Culture

Based on parent feedback in the spring of 2013, SDMS staff determined to increase communication in order for parents to be more involved in the collaborative aspect of learning for students.

Rationale

Open the parent portal in PowerSchool, sending a letter home to parents with directions so they have access to their children's academic progress

Provide professional development for staff on how to use the parent portal

The use of WikiSpaces & Team Blogs – Development of a school blog: “The Lion’s Roar”

Email/call parents for positive reasons and for intervention purposes with logs to be kept by staff

“Positive Post Cards” to be sent home to update parents of students performing well

Strategies