Executive Summary. Academy of Saint Benedict the African Laflin Campus

Transcription

1 Academy of Saint Benedict the African Laflin Campus Archdiocese Of Chicago Patricia Murphy, Principal 6020 S Laflin St Chicago, IL Document Generated On March 7, 2015

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Description of the School 2 School's Purpose 3 Notable Achievements and Areas of Improvement 4 Additional Information 5

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? The Academy of St. Benedict the African - Laflin in Chicago, IL is an educational institution serving approximately 230 students in preschool through eighth grade, which represents significant enrollment growth in the last three years. Our students (approximately 5% of whom are Catholic and 95% of whom are non-catholic) come primarily from within a three-mile radius of the school, but also from as far away as Indiana; 98% of their families qualify for free/reduced lunch, and 81% are Title I eligible. Our school is located in the inner-city community of Englewood on Chicago's south side. Our young people are predominantly African-American, with a small number of biracial students. We benefit from a strong relationship with our local Chicago Police District, and we encourage a high level of involvement among our students' families in their children's lives at school, resulting in a "pocket" community of safety and support within the larger Englewood community. Our school and our families benefit from significant financial support from the Big Shoulders Fund, a nonprofit organization that supports inner-city Catholic schools in Chicago. Our students benefit from a rich curriculum that includes religion, reading and language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, physical education, and music, and incorporates state-of-the-art technology across all grade levels for the most engaging and relevant learning experience. Most of our students also benefit from at least one of a variety of student support services, including Title I small group pull-out support in reading and math, individual or group counseling, special education services, and speech therapy. Our teachers participate in regular, targeted professional development in partnership with Loyola University and St. Xavier University to better enable them to successfully differentiate their instruction and use effective strategies meet the needs of a wide variety of learning styles among the students in their classrooms. 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. The mission of the Academy of St. Benedict the African is to forge a partnership with families to foster the spiritual, social, intellectual, emotional, and physical development of our young people by providing a caring, but disciplined environment, which encourages the pursuit of excellence, enthusiasm for learning, pride of accomplishment, self-discipline, and consideration for others. This mission statement plays out through daily prayer and religion classes, and a biweekly liturgy. Social development is fostered at mealtimes, recess, and a rich Extended Day program. A rigorous curriculum founded on the Common Core State Standards lays the foundation for intellectual development while a fully certified teaching staff (many of whom have a Master's Degree) causes that intellect to blossom in a technology rich environment. Emotional growth is supported not only by a caring faculty and staff but also by an array of academic and psychosocial counselors assist students in need of more focused support. In addition to weekly physical education classes and daily recess, physical development is promoted through dance, both as a part of the regular curriculum and as an extracurricular activity. The Catholic identity of the school not only calls us to community, worship, and service, but it demands academic excellence. We are most proud of our commitment to differentiation in our instruction in order to make the curriculum accessible and appropriately challenging for our students with wide-ranging needs. In addition, we continually call ourselves to excellence. Our initiatives for academic improvement include engagement in a multi-year professional development grant through a partnership with the Big Shoulders Fund, Loyola University Chicago, and St. Xavier University that focuses on Response to Intervention and the implementation of the Common Core State Standards. In order to provide our students both support and challenge, we have designed our curriculum to be one that fosters respect for students' talents in keeping with our mission. Our faculty is especially focused on developing higher-order thinking skills in reading and math to enhance performance. The Academy of St. Benedict the African - Laflin's test scores on the Terra Nova reveal that although our students are not all performing at the high level at which we aim, they do make gains over their years with us. Our students enroll in a variety of high schools: Chicago Catholic high schools, local charter schools, and public high schools in the city and suburbs. Some of our students are awarded partial or full scholarships to attend Catholic High Schools. With high expectations for our students, we continue to devote much time and energy to developing our staff with regard to best practices in differentiation and effective teaching strategies. The faculty is energetic, committed, and embracing of new ideas. Page 3

6 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. We are proud to celebrate our successes. Our stakeholder surveys indicate great satisfaction with our school's learning environment and with the personal attention and care that students receive from school administrators, teachers, and staff. Survey results also point to the evidence of commonly-held high expectations for students. Additionally, our school was the recipient of the Polk Bros. Leadership Incentive Award for the fifth consecutive year in Our school improvement goals are focused on promoting achievement of all students at the ninetieth percentile in reading and math on our annual standardized tests. Although our students have reached proficiency at several grade levels in both reading and mathematics as measured by the Terra Nova from , their progress was not sustained. For example, the 1st grade class was nearing proficiency in 2012, achieved proficiency as a cohort in 2013, and then returned to nearing proficiency in Some of this may be due to the fact that our school has a relatively high transiency rate, mostly due to economic instability in our community. However, we must not accept this. Instead, we must strive to make all of our students consistently proficient was we work our way towards the 90th percentile in both reading and math. During the school year, we will work together as small learning communities to create a solid math curriculum framework, complete with assessments designed to measure our progress in this area. Meanwhile, we must also examine other sources of data, such as that produced by our Stakeholder Feedback. This data indicated that the depth of caring and support for our students was well evidenced and that we shared a uniform purpose. However, the feedback also indicated ambiguity about our mission statement, which we have since begun to clarify through whole staff reflection during the PD Days at the start of the school year. Another area for improvement during this school year is in terms of differentiated instruction and assessment, which will be another focal point for future professional development. ASBA employs consultants, who serve on our staff to provide on going instructional coaching. Page 4

7 Additional Information Provide any additional information you would like to share with the public and community that were not prompted in the previous sections. The Academy of St. Benedict the African - Laflin tends to the whole child, providing opportunities for creativity and enrichment every day. For working parents, before- and after-school care is provided daily, and students may elect to participate in a wide variety of after-school activities, including basketball, cheerleading, choir, art classes, and a multitude of dance classes. The whole community is invited to enjoy our students' many talents at our annual programs: the Christmas program and the Black History Program. In the last two years, our choir has been invited to perform at several large-scale events in Chicago. Perhaps one of our most notable achievements, however, is that the happiness of our students is palpable. Every time that a new person visits our school for the first time - whether a family member of a teacher, a Big Shoulders donor, or a prospective family - the individual comments on the warm and very apparent feeling of love and devotion in our building. This isn't something that is easily measured, but is something in which we take great pride, because we know that this feeling of joy does not exist everywhere. Our school community is, in many ways, a family, and we enjoy nurturing our children's growth. Page 5