Executive Summary. Harrison Central High School

Transcription

1 Harrison County School District Mr. Averie Bush, Principal School Road Gulfport, MS Document Generated On January 7, 2016

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? is a public school located in the rural area of Harrison County on the outskirts of the growing and vibrant city of Gulfport, Mississippi. Harrison Central is one of the largest schools in the state consisting of approximately 1630 ninth through twelfth grade students. HCHS shares its campus with the Harrison County Vo-Tech Center, which provides services to HCHS students and students from the other two high schools in the district; D'Iberville High School and West Harrison High School. Harrison Central High is one of seven high schools located in Harrison County and one of three located in the Harrison County School District. The student population of HCHS comes from five surrounding communities. Three of these communities are located in the rural portion of the county and the other two are located in the city limits of Gulfport. North Gulfport 8th Grade School and West Wortham Elementary and Middle School are the two feeder schools for. The administration, teachers, counselors and staff live within these areas and the surrounding cities, towns and counties. According to U.S. Census Bureau data for 2015 the racial make-up of Harrison County is 69.8% Caucasian, 24% African American, 5.4% Hispanic, 3% Asian and 2.5% two or more races. The current student's racial make-up at HCHS is 51% Caucasian, 39.9% African American, 3.5% Hispanic, 2.4% Asian and 3.2% two or more races. The ratio of females to males on the HCHS campus is 51.3% to 48.7%. The median income for Harrison County is $40,765 and the average income is $56,632. With this said 71.6% of the student body receives free or reduced lunch. Being located on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Harrison Central was impacted by Hurricane Katrina in that much of the population shifted more to the northern part of Harrison county. This shift in population brought new students to HCHS, as well as, new business and industry to the area which supports the school. Although it has been ten years since Hurricane Katrina hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast, the shift in population and subsequent increased student enrollment is still evident at. When a new high school was opened in the fall of 2009, HCHS lost about one-third of the original student body. At the same time, the ninth grade students were placed on this campus after having been at a separate "ninth grade only" location for the previous thirty-two years. Since that time the school has seen steady population growth and we are beginning to see student population totals approaching those held by HCHS prior to the opening of the newest high school in the district. The staff is diverse in experience and certification. Of the one hundred fifteen teachers, counselors and administrators on staff today, sixty-six have endorsements in more than one area. HCHS has a faculty with 48% of the teachers having less than ten years, 31% of the faculty has between eleven and twenty years' experience and 20% having twenty-one or more years' experience. Many of the teachers are currently working on Masters degrees with 42% holding at least a AA certification. Four teachers and two counselors have earned their National Board Certifications. The teachers at HCHS have high expectations for their students and strive to see that each student reaches his or her potential. 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 faculty, staff and community that serve have embraced a culture of high expectations for student performance in academics and social behaviors at school, as well as, extra-curricular activities. Our beliefs and vision have resulted in an increase in student academic achievement on standardized assessments, a reduction in the amount of discipline referrals by 5% and an increase in the number of students deemed college and career ready. We have increased our percentage of students taking more rigorous college preparatory courses. We have also partnered with a local college and offer dual credit classes in English Composition I, World Civilizations and College Algebra. We have increased the percentage of our students who score three or higher on their AP exams from 27% to 29% and 85% of the students enrolled in AP World History scored a three or higher on their AP exams. Our graduation rate has increased from 66.7% to 73.5% and continues to rise with each graduating cohort. We had thirteen Scholar Athlete Teams (sport teams whose players maintain a composite GPA of 3.0 or higher) last year, and the graduating senior class was awarded over 7million dollars in scholarship monies. Seven of our students scored 30 or higher on the ACT with twenty-five others scoring We had 42 Mississippi Scholars and one National Achievement Scholar semi-finalist. was also recognized by U.S. News and World Report as one of the "Best High Schools in Mississippi" and awarded a bronze medal. Our efforts for continued improvements are driven through collaborative teacher meetings geared toward improving student achievement in all areas. These meetings focus on assessing current performance and practices for strengths and weaknesses. We also look to identify the resources needed and set timelines for feedback on improvement efforts. Collaborative efforts include weekly faculty meetings and monthly department meetings to share effective instructional practices. These trainings allow for more interaction and collaboration among teachers and help to foster a sense of community. In addition to our professional development opportunities focusing on teacher collaboration; we also provide students with numerous opportunities to improve their academic performance. We offer tutoring after school daily for students who are having difficulty in class. Tutoring is available in the four core academic areas Monday through Thursday. We have expanded our curricular offerings to assist students who may be having difficulty academically. Our guidance counselors review the prior academic performance of our students and assist them in choosing the correct classes. Those students who struggle academically are placed in year-long classes in Math and English. These students are also directed to pre-requisite classes before taking Biology and US History. We also offer state test remediation and credit recovery classes during the school day and after school every Monday through Thursday. Our district provides students with access to PLATO courseware, an online learning program that offers individual remediation and tutorials for necessary coursework and subject areas. Students use this program to recoup academic credits and improve their proficiency in areas of weakness based on previous assessment results. seeks to ensure stakeholder involvement through various methods. Our efforts include the creation of a school FaceBook page, regular updates to the school webpage, providing online access to parents for student academic progress and School Messenger; a mass callout program. There are two open house meetings in which parents have the opportunity to meet teachers and they receive an open invitation to come observe their students in class during the school day. 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. In the last three years we have faced several challenges that have made achieving our academic goals a bit more difficult than we would like. The major challenges have been adjusting to a new state-wide accountability model and the implementation of the Mississippi College and Career Readiness Standards (MCCRS) formerly the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), dealing with an increasing student population and dealing with an aging school facility with dated infrastructure. In the Harrison County School District we followed the suggested state model of transition to CCSS. This meant that we began with the elementary schools, followed by the middle schools and then transitioned to the high schools. This proved to be challenging, because at the high school level there seemed to be a bit of uneasiness with the faculty and staff regarding this transition. Part of this apprehension can be attributed to the faculty's lack of familiarity with the common core standards and not knowing exactly what was expected of them regarding this new curriculum. To address this apprehension we had to conduct intensive professional development to familiarize the teachers with the new standards. We used a combination of outside consultants and in-house personnel to conduct these trainings. Things got off to a slow start and were a bit rocky at times, but ultimately our staff, particularly in the state tested areas, became more comfortable with the new standards. One of the things that were noted during this time was that it was difficult for the teachers in the state tested areas to transition from what they considered to be time-tested and proven approaches to something they were less familiar with. Ultimately, they began to embrace a more student centered, project-based approach to instruction and assessment. Another challenge was the transition to a new statewide accountability model. During this time HCHS also acquired a new building principal. Along with getting to know a new principal, the faculty also had to adjust to a new accountability model that was more focused on student growth. Again, a lot of professional development and a lot of tough, accountable conversations had to be held in order to lay the foundation for the new expectations. As time went on and more information became available, regarding changing assessments at the state level, the faculty and staff at HCHS learned to be more flexible and ready to adapt in this time of such drastic change. During this time it was important that there was constant communication from the new principal and his leadership team to the faculty. This allowed everyone to be well informed about what changes were taking place and provided a bit more confidence as time went on. The next challenge was and is dealing with the size and the physical state of the facility itself. is a very old facility and has a design that is very open and contains multiple buildings. The technology infrastructure was poor and computer labs were not centrally located. School safety and security is always a concern with such an open campus. To address these concerns there were two new computer labs created in the library/media center. We were also able to secure a second school nurse and a second school resource officer. During this time we were able to create a nurse's station in the library as well. The second nurse was an important addition, because as the student population grew the student needs grew as well. Many of our students have medical concerns and take medications daily. Having a second nurse and SRO allowed us to accommodate more students in the case of regular medication disbursements or in any type of emergency situation. We have also undergone major renovations during the last three years with the addition of new drainage systems to several buildings, a new football field and stadium renovations and new entry doors and awnings to several of our buildings. The new drainage system eliminated a flooding problem we had with some of our buildings and did away with standing water around campus. The new entry doors helped with security concerns and the new awnings kept students out of the rain during bad weather. 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. We have accomplished several goals over the past three years that make us proud to be, Home of the Red Rebels. At the top of that list is our increase in academic achievement. We have increased our composite ACT score to 20.0 and we have also increased our ACT sub scores in mathematics, reading and science. We have more students scoring 30 and above on their ACT and have created a 30plus club to recognize these students and their accomplishments. Thirteen of our sports teams have been deemed Scholar Athlete Teams, because they maintain a composite GPA of 3.0 or higher. Forty-two of our students in last year's graduating class were Mississippi Scholars and we had a National Achievement Scholar semi-finalist. We have also increased the college readiness component of our students by offering more rigorous advanced placement classes and have also added dual credit courses to the curriculum. Along with these academic accomplishments our scholar athletes have been performing well in the classroom and on the playing field. We have had twenty-two students sign athletic scholarships in the last two years. Our fast-pitch softball team has won back to back state championships. Our boys track team has won its first ever state championship and our award winning band program has consistently been one of the top rated bands in the region. These are just a few of the many things that make us so proud of our school. Page 5