Executive Summary. Starr-Iva Middle School

Transcription

1 Anderson School District #3 Mr. Barry Jacks, Principal 1034 Rainey Road Starr, SC Document Generated On February 2, 2016

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Description of the School 2 School's Purpose 3 Notable Achievements and Areas of Improvement 5 Additional Information 7

3 Introduction Every school has its own story to tell. The context in which teaching and learning takes place influences the processes and procedures by which the school makes decisions around curriculum, instruction, and assessment. The context also impacts the way a school stays faithful to its vision. Many factors contribute to the overall narrative such as an identification of stakeholders, a description of stakeholder engagement, the trends and issues affecting the school, and the kinds of programs and services that a school implements to support student learning. The purpose of the Executive Summary (ES) is to provide a school with an opportunity to describe in narrative form the strengths and challenges it encounters. By doing so, the public and members of the school community will have a more complete picture of how the school perceives itself and the process of self-reflection for continuous improvement. This summary is structured for the school to reflect on how it provides teaching and learning on a day to day basis. Page 1

4 Description of the School Describe the school's size, community/communities, location, and changes it has experienced in the last three years. Include demographic information about the students, staff, and community at large. What unique features and challenges are associated with the community/communities the school serves? is located in rural Anderson County in the city of Starr, South Carolina. The population of Starr, South Carolina is less than two hundred and the town of Iva has a population of 1,156 according to the 2000 census information. The community in which the school is located is mainly agricultural. 573 students are enrolled at that includes grades six through eight. According to information found on Schooldigger website as of 2014, 84.8% of students identify themselves as White, 9.2% as African American, 3.2% Hispanic, 0.3% Pacific Islander, and 3.3% identify themselves as two or more races. Seventy-nine percent of students receive Medicaid, SNAP, TANF or are classified as homeless, foster, or migrant students. Students that are identified as disabled makeup 14.8% of the population. Twenty-nine percent of students in seventh and eighth grade are enrolled in high school credit courses. The percentage of students that are served by Gifted and Talented Programs is The school is comprised of forty teachers. Twenty of those teachers have advanced degrees, and twenty-six teachers are continuing contract teachers. 78.6% of teachers returned from the previous year. Two teachers are Nationally Board Certified. A challenge of this community is the lack of businesses and industries in the two small rural towns. Employment for most citizens in this area are located outside of these areas and most in the area drive twenty to thirty minutes to their employment. Within the last two decades, the only two industries within the district closed. This created an economic hardship for the people and the school district resulting in less tax revenue and a need for the citizens to find employment outside of the towns. Page 2

5 School's Purpose Provide the school's purpose statement and ancillary content such as mission, vision, values, and/or beliefs. Describe how the school embodies its purpose through its program offerings and expectations for students. At, our purpose and vision is guided by our belief that: Our students are challenged intellectually and are successful learners. Students and staff treat each other with respect in an atmosphere that is warm, caring, supportive and safe. Parents, families, and community members are involved and support the efforts of the school. The staff is committed to professional growth and development. Quality instruction is top priority. From our belief that our students are challenged intellectually and are successful learners, we strive to provide these students with ample opportunities to be challenged and successful. Our A.P.P.L.E. Art students are offered opportunities for success by a rigorous program that incorporates instruction and guidance through a Gifted and Talented Master Teacher. The Robotics program that is offered through an extracurricular program competes during the school year at various competitions located in the upstate of South Carolina. We have a Gifted and Talented Interdisciplinary Program that incorporates instruction and guidance for competitions that include The Glider Challenge with the Upstate STEM organization. Math Olympiads, a program taught by our National Board Teacher and Math Instructional Coach, boosts students that are already performing well in the math classes to achieve more success in the area of math. This international program allows students to compete with other schools and compete in five monthly competitions that test their problem solving skills. In an environment that is safe, supportive and caring, we have many faculty members that work to improve relationships and all teachers have daily interaction with a seventh period class in which the teachers monitor students' Accelerated Reader Goals and Points. Our guidance department works diligently to ensure that all students are supported and are cared for inside the classroom and outside the classroom. The guidance department is currently conducting a Character Education Program that will include all sixth grade classes and will emphasize the importance of treating others with respect and instilling good qualities of being a friend. Discussions on bullying will also be a focus of this program using the novel unit that addresses character education traits. Ensuring that Parents, families, and community members are involved and support the efforts of the school is a continuous effort of Starr-Iva Middle School. We want our parents and community members to feel involved and supported by this small, rural school. One of the ways in which our community and parents are involved in the school is the School Improvement Council. This council meets once a month and discusses all the important news of the school and welcomes suggestions and concerns brought forth from the community and parents. In December, the council sponsored a breakfast for the community and parents before the Starr-Iva Singer and Band Winter Concert. Parents and community members are kept informed by the School Messenger Program which is an automated program that sends out information to parents via a phone message. A commitment to Professional Growth and Development is a school goal, but is often implemented through district wide initiatives. A district wide conference day was held in conjunction with another district to promote professional development. Teachers were allowed to sign up for classes in which they were interested and that they felt would aid them in the classroom. Currently, our school has four instructional coaches that work with all teachers in the building. Two of these coaches work mostly with math instruction, one focuses mainly on ELA instruction, and one works with all teachers and maintains the data and testing for the school. All four of these coaches attend conferences and are responsible for teaching and presenting the information to the faculty of the school. One of our math coaches attends classes to Page 3

6 better aid our students in the area of math on a monthly basis that is taught specifically for math teachers. Our guidance counselors work to increase their knowledge and improve their craft by attending conferences to learn how to better serve our students. They attend conferences on RTI (Response to Intervention), dealing with students' various disabilities, and conferences concerning testing and testing procedures. We have regular content meetings, as well as grade level meetings during our planning period to address upcoming information and to remain current with the current topics that are presented in education. Mr. Lindley, our Assistant Principal for Instruction, regularly sends s with new testing information and articles that are interesting and informative for faculty members. A final belief of that is upheld to the highest extent is our belief that quality instruction is our top priority. This concept is fostered through our strategic schedule. We have seven class periods that include: four content area classes, one related arts class, lunch, and Accelerated Reading. Our schedule allows for quality instruction through fifty-five minute classes of instruction and one class designated for Accelerated Reading. Also, during Accelerated Reading, students may participate in Gifted and Talented Interdisciplinary Class, Math Olympiads, and we also offer a Reading Remediation program taught using istation. During content classes, Related Arts teachers, Computer Lab instructors, and Instructional Coaches assist teachers with the lowest readiness groups which is determined by state testing scores. Another concept of our schedule that allows for quality instruction is the belief in gender grouping. We offer the grouping of students according to their gender,and this allows for top quality instruction. Starr-Iva Middle is successful because we challenge our students, we continually strive for a caring and supportive environment,we welcome the parents and community input, we are committed to professional growth and development, and quality instruction is our top priority. Page 4

7 Notable Achievements and Areas of Improvement Describe the school's notable achievements and areas of improvement in the last three years. Additionally, describe areas for improvement that the school is striving to achieve in the next three years. Starr-Iva Middle has made many notable achievements within the last three years. We were given the distinction of being the Most Improved Middle School in South Carolina for the year This distinction was the result of our state tests results. We were given the distinct honor of being the Top Middle School in the Western Piedmont Consortium which includes the counties of Abbeville, Edgefield, Greenwood, Laurens, Lexington, McCormick,Newberry and Saluda. From the state report card, our Absolute rating for the year 2012 was Average, 2013 was Good, and in 2014 and 2015 we were defined as Excellent. Our growth rating for the past two years was Excellent. Our General Performance was in the category of Gold, and our ESEA Grade was an A. We have shown great improvement in the area of our state test scores. For three years in a row, we had 100% passage on the Algebra 1 End of Course Test, and we had an improvement in the area of our English 1 test scores. For the past three years, we have had above 95% passage of our English 1 test scores. From 2015 ASPIRE scores, in the area of English, Starr-Iva had 73.3 percent of students that scored Exceeding and Ready which is above the state average of 67.9%. In the area of Reading, SIMS had 50.6 percent of students scored Exceeding and Ready and the state average is 37.2%. In the area of Math, SIMS students scored 53.7% whereas the state average was 46.7% scoring Exceeding or Ready. We had 78.7% of our students score Exemplary or Met in the area of Science. The state average was 67.6% for students scoring Exemplary or Met in the area of Science. SIMS had 83.2% of students scoring Exemplary and Met on the Social Studies portion of the SCPASS test. The state average was 67.9% scoring Exemplary and Met. A continuous effort for improvement lies within improving our students' reading ability. A continuous goal is to ensure that all of our students are reading on grade level. We have placed several implentations that aid in this goal. A computer lab program that we initiated this year includes identifying students that could benefit from extra instruction using our computer program SuccessMaker. This will improve the students' reading comprehension and fluency. Another program that has been initiated to aid with students' reading ability is the daily instruction that is given to students through a Reading Remediation Program. Two reading teachers work with students using the istation program. The students were identified by their MAP Reading Test Scores. If not already assigned the Computer Lab or participate in the istation Program, all other students in the building participate in Accelerated Reader to increase their reading fluency and comprehension. Implementing and continuously improving technology and the use of technology within our building is a continuous focus for SIMS. This was a concern that was noted on the survey administered through the AdvancEd website. Parents, students, and faculty cited resources as a concern for our school. A way in which our school is working to improve technology and the opportunities afforded to our students is through our newly implemented program, Gateway to Technology. This program will allow students more advanced access and more advanced instruction on computer application through the Design and Modeling Class that is taught by our Gateway to Technology Teacher. This teacher has visited other schools including a Gateway to Technology Master Teacher to increase her knowledge with Gateway to Technology. With the plans implemented as a tri-district Career and Technology Center opening in the future, this will enable our students to remain abreast of the current technologies available and future career opportunities. Community, parental, and stakeholder involvement is important for the success of a school. An area that we believe that we could improve upon and would directly improve the school is in the area of increased participation and involvement with the stakeholders of our community. Page 5

8 Our school has been working to improve the relationships with all stakeholders within the last three years. According to our school report card, for the past two years 97.0% of parents attended conferences at our school. We are proud of this involvement, and would like to continue to improve in this area. We feel that our school is very welcoming and accepting of community involvement as we have local church personnel that visit and eat lunch with students. We have an annual Thanksgiving Meal in which past administrators, former faculty members and community members are invited. Efforts are being made to increase participation in the area of extra-curricular activities. Parents are often invited to our Book Fairs, participation for our Zombie Run was encouraged by our Physical Education Program, and we had a grandparents week to eat lunch with students. The School Improvement Council invited parents to a breakfast prior to attending the Winter Concert Performance by the Starr-Iva Singers and the Starr-Iva Band. Starr-Iva has greatly improved test scores and the environment of the school setting. Our belief that students are our top priority exemplifies this belief that we will continually improve and reevaluate our program and system in a systematic way and on a daily basis. Page 6

9 Additional Information Provide any additional information you would like to share with the public and community that were not prompted in the previous sections. Starr-Iva Middle has a newly implemented extra-curricular program that is vital for our community. Future Farmers of America was implemented in our school this year and has received much support from the community and much participation from our students. This program advocated leadership and provided students with an opportunity to show their leadership skills through competitions and instills skills that are vital inside and outside of the classroom. This program has the most membership of any extra-curricular program in our school and has brought about a significant interest in the area of farming as a career and general interest in the area of agriculture. For the past three years, Anderson School District Three has partnered with the Upstate Writing Project to incorporate writing skills in the classroom. This year, seventh and eighth grade ELA teachers and two of our instructional coaches have attended professional development that focused on Argumentative Writing. This allowed the teachers to use common planning time to better teach writing to our students. Students' writing instruction time has increased and students are presented with best practices for writing. A representative from the Upstate Writing Program also has spent time in the classroom teaching and working with students to model for the teachers best practices for teaching writing. A computer program, entitled Mastery Connect was purchased for the entire district. This program has allowed us to Benchmark test our students in the areas of Science and Social Studies. This program automatically records a student's score in the "tracker" which allows the teacher to see which question a student missed or answered correctly. Teachers can also use this program to create assessments using a test bank of questions found in SCORE21. These test questions are alligned with the State of South Carolina Standards. Teachers are able to choose DOK (Depth of Knowledge) and determine the difficulty of each test question. Every student is assigned a computer lab instruction time in which they work on math and reading questions. We have four computer labs that use the computer program, SuccessMaker. This program tracks students' progress, and varioius reports can be generated to track their progress. Each instructional coach, our three Resource teachers, our three administrators, and two guidance counselors are assigned two homerooms to monitor the progress of students's scores in math and reading. This group is given reports weekly, generated for their assigned homerooms. Each person visits these homerooms on a weekly basis to discuss student progress and to be motivators of this program. Two programs that we implemented last year to increase student reading skills were the Scholastic Programs, Read 180 and System 44. Our resource teacher utilizes the program to help students' reading comprehension and fluency. System 44 is a program that focuses on phonics. Read 180 is a program that focuses on the reading comprehension through a software portion and whole group discussion. Each student is given a goal at the beginning of the year to achieve by the end of the year. Periodic testing to ensure growth is administered to each student. Page 7

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