Executive Summary. Central Arizona Valley Institute of Technology. Mr. Mike Glover, Superintendent 1789 W Coolidge Ave Coolidge, AZ 85128

Transcription

1 Executive Summary Central Arizona Valley Institute of Technology Mr. Mike Glover, Superintendent 1789 W Coolidge Ave Coolidge, AZ 85128

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary Introduction 1 Executive Summary 2 Section 1: Introduction 2 Section 2: Student Performance 4 Section 3: Challenges and Opportunities 5 Section 4: Conclusion 6

3 Executive Summary Introduction Executive Summary Every school has its own story to tell. The context in which teaching and student 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 school leadership considers how to organize, maintain order, and stay faithful to the school's vision. A description of the level of stakeholder engagement, trends and issues affecting the school, and the kinds of programs and services that the school implements to support student learning also contributes to the overall narrative. The purpose of the Executive Summary (ES) is to give schools an opportunity to tell their story, to describe their context both strengths and challenges so that the public and members of the school community have a more complete picture of how the school perceives itself and what it is deliberating as it engages in the process of self-reflection for continuous improvement. This report is structured into 4 sections that give context about what the school faces on a day-to-day basis in providing teaching and learning in its community: Section 1: Introduction Describes the community in which the school is located. Identifies the unique features and special challenges of this school community. Provides brief demographic information with regards to both students and staff and the community at large. Section 2: Student Performance Gives a brief description of the school's vision about students and their performance. Provides a brief summary of student performance in this school. Identifies the school's goals and how the school will know they have achieved them. Describes the variety of the school's student performance assessments. Identifies how the staff engages in meaningful analysis of student work in order to modify instruction. Describes the school's student support programs and services. Identifies the ways in which the school ensures community/parent involvement in the life of the school. Section 3: Challenges and Opportunities Identifies the major challenges the school has faced in the last 3 years and how it has addressed those challenges. Section 4: Conclusion Identifies what the school is most proud of and why. Relates other information the school would like to share with the public and the school community. Page 1

4 Executive Summary Section 1: Introduction Provide the school's mission statement. What process was used to create the mission statement? Describe how the school engaged its stakeholders to parents and community members in the development and fulfillment of the mission statement. Describe the community in which your school is located. What are the unique features and special challenges of your school community? Briefly provide demographic information with regards to both students and staff and the community at large. Narrative: Section #1: Introduction Mission The Central Arizona Valley Institute of Technology provides Career and Technology Education opportunities for students to become members of a competitive workforce. Vision Education with a Purpose Goals 1. Establish a working environment conducive to innovative Career and Technology Education delivery systems and continuous quality improvement. 2. Develop a unique joint technology education system based on the true collaborative system of the five participating school districts. 3. Partner with business, industry and the community to establish responsive educational/training services to meet workforce needs. 4. Create effective curricula to guarantee student success at the highest level they choose to meet. 5. Recruit, support, and honor the very best Career and Technology Education teachers. 6. Maintain continuous communication with the public. CAVIT Background Central Arizona Valley Institute of Technology (CAVIT) is a Joint Technical Education District (JTED) school in Western Pinal County that serves Florence, Maricopa, Coolidge, Casa Grande and Eloy high school districts. CAVIT has a central campus located in the rural community of Coolidge where th grade students attend daily. Students from CAVIT s eight participating high schools attend one of CAVIT s eight career technical training programs. Established by voter approval in 2001, CAVIT held numerous community meetings to create our mission and vision statements. Our vision statement was reaffirmed with our February, 2011 community stakeholder meeting where we discussed employability skills. Partners from education, parents and industry groups have participated in CAVIT s mission and vision statement meetings. CAVIT partnered with the City of Coolidge to create a workforce training school in their community. The city provided CAVIT with 90 acres of land at a very reasonable fee so that we could bring workforce training to their high school students. CAVIT is 7 miles from our community college partner, Central Arizona College. CAVIT has a firm philosophy when it comes to providing training programs on its central campus; we will not duplicate any program that exists on our 8 participating high school campuses. This philosophy has served us well as we have excellent relations with our satellite school partners. Many of CAVIT s career technical programs are unique to Arizona high school campuses. Programs such as Massage Therapy, Medical Assisting, Emergency Medical Technician and Veterinary Assisting can only be found in a few schools. Four of our 8 training Page 2

5 programs have state agency approval permitting students to sit for Nursing Assistant, Cosmetology, Emergency Medical Technician and Firefighting certification examination. CAVIT Student Body Demographics Total number of students: (59%) 11th grade students and 161 (41%) 12th grade students 126 (32%) males and 264 (68%) females 109 (28%) Hispanic, 20 (5%) Black, 18 (5%) Asian, 1 (.5%) Native American, 2 (.5) Pacific Islander, 239 (61%) Caucasian 0% ELL/SEI 26 (7%) Special Education IEP students 53% qualify for free lunch Student-Teacher Ratio 18:1 Staff Demographics One superintendent/principal, one coordinator and 8.5 teachers 100% of teaching staff carry career technical education teaching certification 100% of eligible teaching staff are blessed by Central Arizona College to teach dual enrollment courses at CAVIT based on their education and related work experience 100% of eligible teaching staff carry industry certification in their career fields Page 3

6 Section 2: Student Performance Give a brief description of your school s vision about students and their performance. Provide a brief summary of student performance in your school. What are your goals and how will you know you have achieved them? Describe the variety of your school s student performance assessments. How does your staff engage in meaningful analysis of student work in order to modify instruction? Describe the school s student support programs and services. In what ways does your school ensure community/parent involvement in the life of the school? Narrative: Section #2: Student Performance The ADE CTE assessments are our primary method for assessing student achievement. For the programs that have industry certifications, our goal is to increase the number of students attaining licensure. Our nursing assistant program is a great example of this; in one year we went from eight students receiving licensure in 2010 to 29 students in Completing the rigorous process for CAVIT to become a testing site helped our efforts. We also review quarterly benchmark data, student certification results, practical assessments and CTSO (Career and Technical Student Organization) data to determine our progress. We have made significant strides in our ADE CTE assessments. Our goal is to continue to monitor pass rates along with growth in scores from year to year. We are striving to have all of our programs achieve a 100% program pass rate on the Spring, 2012 assessments. We have worked with our home schools to identify modifications for our special needs students. We have implemented those modifications and realized good results in improving student achievement among special education students. We are teaching our staff how to analyze their data and how to unwrap their standards. Data is available to our teachers and we are investigating a data system to store our assessment results. We have communicated our student achievement results with our stakeholders via our website and quarterly newsletters. Our recent status as #1 in the state for JTED assessment pass rates created positive newspaper articles written about CAVIT. As we move into dual enrollment for all of our programs next year, we have tested all of our current 11th grade students for Central Arizona College s COMPASS reading test. Students not meeting the test s minimum score have been identified and we are working on offering reading classes on our campus after school next semester and in the summer to get students eligible to take our advanced classes next year. Although our staff has been trained in reading strategies last school year, we will be revisiting that topic with continued training next semester to assist students with deficiencies in reading. Page 4

7 Section 3: Challenges and Opportunities What are the major challenges your school has faced in the last 3 years and how have you addressed those challenges? Narrative: Standard #3: Challenges and Opportunities CAVIT has identified the following three challenges: educating our stakeholders in five school districts about CAVIT; collaborating with five school district in the delivery of central campus services; and creating new programs that have few curricular resources. In order to educate all of our stakeholders in our five communities, CAVIT has created a quarterly newsletter sent to over 1,100 constituents. With six newspapers served within our boundaries, we work to include regular information about CAVIT in each newspaper. We also have included program videos on our website so the community can identify what is occurring at CAVIT. Presentations to chambers, schools and other agencies help to spread the word about CAVIT. It is always a challenge to work with five school districts that have different policies and procedures. Trying to develop a school calendar that fits all of our participating districts that are on alternative schedules is next to impossible. It is not uncommon that a principal will change the school's bell schedule right before CAVIT begins which causes havoc on our schedule. Last minute or no notice assemblies are also fun to work with on Fridays. These challenges are a work in progress and require us to be flexible in how we conduct business at CAVIT. As we create new instructional programs that are based on labor market demand and student interest, we find that we are somewhat alone in creating these offerings. It is a challenge to create curriculum when there are no state resources available. Such a program usually requires a teacher with specialized industry certification that is difficult to find. Research into other states assists us in planning our facilities and identifying program standards. Offering unique programs not commonly found in Arizona is a challenge but once planned out, gives CAVIT a tremendous advantage in attracting quality students and increasing our image among our stakeholders. Page 5

8 Section 4: Conclusion What is your school most proud of and why? Is there any other information you would like to share with the public and the school community? Narrative: Section 4: Conclusion With only three full years of history for our central campus, CAVIT is very proud of its student and program achievement. CAVIT ranks #1 in the state for our JTED pass scores on the Spring, 2011 assessments. Our growth in assessment pass scores from a 83.88% score in 2010 to a 92.5% score in 2011 provided us with a 8% growth in scores. Our students have earned state and national medals in their respective SkillsUSA and (HOSA) Health Occupations Students of America skill competitions. Further, CAVIT has earned Arizona s Outstanding SkillsUSA Chapter Award for the past two years and Arizona s Outstanding HOSA Chapter Award each year since Students received state certifications in record numbers last year. Our students were successful in earning between 9.5 to 24 college credits due to our effective collaboration with Central Arizona College. Our enrollment has steadily increased each year from 126 in 2008 to 391 currently. Our partnerships with business and industry have yielded ambulances, fire trucks, police cars, trucks and thousands of dollars of equipment. Our partnership with the Pinal County Sheriff s Office garnered them the ACTE (Arizona Career and Technology Education) Outstanding Business Partner Award this year. Finally, CAVIT students operate school-based clinics that are held monthly. Our community is invited on to our campus to receive free services given by students. Medical assisting students operate the Healthcare Clinic, where clients receive wellness screenings including blood pressure, glucose and cholesterol reads. In the Massage Spa, run by massage therapy students, clients receive free chair massages, foot scrubs, and an array of full body massages that include hot stone and mud wraps. The veterinary assistant students operate the Animal Spa, where pets receive examinations, grooming, worming and spay/neuter services. The clinics are infused into the curriculum and used for reflective self and instructor evaluation, as every clinic day, skills are practiced on real clients. Our work with our community yielded our school the Youth in Spirit Award in 2011 from the Coolidge Chamber of Commerce. Page 6