AdvancED School Executive Summary Learning Lab of Green Hills Ms. Wendy Bergman, Director 3815 Cleghorn Ave Nashville, TN 37215
TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 AdvancED School Executive Summary 2 Section 1: Introduction 2 Section 2: Student Performance 4 Section 3: Challenges and Opportunities 6 Section 4: Conclusion 7
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. The Executive Summary contains four sections with prompts to guide the school to write its unique story; these are suggested prompts and all do not need responses. It might be helpful to write first the narrative offline before entering the ES into the web-enabled system. Page 1
AdvancED School 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. The Learning Lab Mission Statement Learning Lab is an educational services provider that is customer focused and directed toward educational solutions for life-long learning. Comprehensive and personalized services are provided to students during their formative years by a team of professionals using a multi-disciplinary approach. We provide a full spectrum of tutoring, testing and consulting services for children, parents and professionals. Our business is connecting learning with success. Learning Lab Brentwood was founded 27 years ago by two individuals with a mission to make a difference in the community by supporting families educationally. As the business grew, the mission statement was revisited by Mr. Ron Sohr, Mrs. Pat Elkins, and Dr. David Elkins, the owners and primary stakeholders of the business. At that time, they discussed the following questions: What is our business? What do we want to do with our business? Since that time, the organization has added Learning Lab Green Hills and Learning Lab Cool Springs, and the three centers share the website www.mylearnlab.com. The stakeholders for Learning Lab Green Hills include public and private schools, parents and family members of our students, home school umbrella organizations, other non-profit organizations, doctors, therapists, and learning specialists. We collaborate and communicate with administrators, classroom teachers, and learning specialists who work within public and private schools to establish a team approach to supporting students. Regular and specific communication with umbrella program leadership is required in order to establish plans which abide by State of Tennessee laws and graduation standards. We also organize events and co-present at seminars with non-profit organizations such as the Center for Dyslexia at MTSU and the Autism Society of Middle Tennessee because of our shared mission for students and families in common. Our Beliefs WE BELIEVE IN PERSONALIZED LEARNING. Every student is unique with individual needs that can be best addressed with a customized learning plan and personalized instruction. WE BELIEVE IN COLLABORATION AND COMMUNICATION. A successful learning program must be collaborative and based on students, parents and educators agreeing on goals and working together towards them. WE BELIEVE IN ACHIEVING GOALS. Our programs are designed to be more than a quick fix and are designed to help a wide range of learners from those on the fast track who want to stay ahead to those who need support to obtain their educational goals. We help our students to build the foundation of future success. WE BELIEVE IN STRENGTHENING SKILLS AND SELF-ESTEEM. We strive to strengthen our students' learning skills and selfesteem to support their growth as independent life-long learners. WE BELIEVE IN BEING INNOVATIVE. We practice an integrative approach to learning combined with innovative solutions that prepare students to be active, creative, knowledgeable, and ethical participants in our globally networked society. Our values are posted on our website and can be found at the following URL: http://www.mylearnlab.com/about-us/the-learning-labdifference/our-mission-and-values/ Page 2
Our Services Provided At Learning Lab Green Hills, we provide after school tutoring and coaching, home school support, test preparation, and assessment and consultation services that are personalized for the needs of our students. These services include remediation, skill-based instruction, enrichment, and plans for achieving goals. After an initial thirty-minute consultation, we craft a plan for the appropriate service or services needed. Our Community Learning Lab Green Hills is now located in the heart of Green Hills, surrounded by a diverse community with students from private and public schools. After acquiring the Bowie Center, our learning center was moved from Hillsboro Village to Green Hills in an effort to better serve our customers. Most of our students come from middle to upper class family backgrounds. While most live in homes with the same 37215 zip code, some of our students drive up to an hour or more for assessments, tutoring, and home school support services. During the past years, our students' ages ranged from four year-old reading students to a woman in her sixties who came for computer instruction. Most of our students are currently in elementary, middle, or high school. There are some adults and college students who come to Learning Lab to prepare for high stakes tests or need assistance with masters programs. We are also an approved test proctoring site for online universities and professional level assessments. Our students are diverse because of the variety of reasons they seek learning support at Learning Lab and the lengths of time they require our services. Recommendations from 2007 Accreditation 1. A strong promotional program is needed to recruit potential clients. 2. Actively seek a Director for the Nashville (Green Hills) office. 3. Benchmarks for reaching both long-term and short-term goals should be developed and documented. Since our last accreditation, we added a new website, began regular email blasts to our email mailing lists, appointed a new marketing coordinator, and designed new promotional materials to establish a stronger brand. We also acquired a modular booth that can be taken to special education events such as the recent Annual Special Education Conference at Opryland Hotel in February. Our marketing coordinator ensures that requests for new materials are coordinated between centers and that priorities are established. During the past 2 years, Rebecca Rosenblatt and Wendy Bergman were hired as Director and Director of Educational Services. The two share the responsibility for running the learning center, utilizing their individual gifts and expertise. Benchmarks for student and staff performance will be addressed within the the self-assessment Page 3
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? "Our business is connecting learning with success" is the final line of our mission statement. The Learning Lab does not provide cookie cutter approaches to solving student learning challenges. We believe in the principles of identifying our students' learning styles, current strengths and weaknesses and matching each student with the instructor most suited to guide the student to academic success. Given the variety of the students and families we serve, our student performance narrative is best divided into two segments. After School Programs The after school students at Learning Lab Green Hills usually have specific goals they bring with them to our first meeting. A student preparing for the ISEE, ACT, SAT or GRE high stakes test usually comes to us with goals for private school or college admission. Sometimes they are unaware of the requirements or their current aptitude for the various content areas that are included within the tests. We provide practice tests that give students experience with the types of questions and help them to know their strengths and weaknesses within the test subject areas. Our diagnostic tools and expertise of the staff explaining results to parents and students give them confidence and reassurance as we create a plan for future success. We have our own ACT/SAT test preparation curriculum books that include separate books for students and teachers in order to promote achievement. Similarly, when a student signs up for a driver's education class in the summer, we have a practice test made up of questions we use to facilitate discussion and gather information on the first day of class. We can modify the reading and study plan for individuals based on their specific questions and confidence levels regarding the content within the driver's education manual. Other after school students come with subject specific needs, and usually these necessitate one-on-one instruction because of the need for remediation, an extended absence, or a lower grade on a report card. Often, the parents bring some or all of the following to our first meeting: TCAP, ERB, or other standardized test scores, a recent psychoeducational assessment given by a school psychologist, comments from the student's teacher, and/or samples of the student's recent work in the subject. Occasionally, our Director of Educational Services visits with school administrators, teachers, parents, and learning specialists in an IEP or conference setting in order to collaborate and gather information about how we can best work together to support the student. After these meetings, we offer our own Notes Home system for which all parties can voluntarily register. Notes Home helps all collaborators to stay informed regarding student progress. All of these methods provide our tutors and academic coaches with information they need in order to help students build confidence and realize increased success. Home School Support Our home school support students come to us for personalized instruction in a non-traditional setting with unique goals and for a variety of reasons. Similar to our after school students, some parents of home school students bring standardized test results, comments from teachers, and any psychoeducational or other health related assessment results. Unique to home school support students is their need for registration within an umbrella program, a current transcript from the school from which they have transferred, and our first priority to establish a semester long, weekly plan for instruction. Some students choose to come for all of their subjects for an entire school year, some enroll for a portion of a semester, and others register for only several core subjects. Depending upon the time of year, we request the syllabi, applicable textbook information, and comments from previous teachers. We also assess what the student knows at point of enrollment through interview, math content assessment, and the information supplied by the previous school. Each home school student is taught by a qualified teacher who abides by our grading and teaching policies and is qualified in that subject. Student work is displayed when possible on walls, via presentations to staff, fellow students, and family members, and within weekly Notes Home to parents. Page 4
Parent involvement is encouraged at Learning Lab Green Hills, yet we do not have an official volunteer program at this point due to our size. Each semester we host student-led conferences that allow students to facilitate a discussion of their achievement and goals to parents, administration, and teachers. We also offer opportunities for occasional field trips when applicable, and parents are called upon to provide transportation and invited to attend. With specific classes such as the FIE program, parents are invited to observe if they choose. Throughout the course of the semester, most parents communicate on a weekly basis to discuss student achievement, scheduling, or various questions. They all receive Notes Home by end of day Friday for the week in order to stay current on the accomplishments and comments regarding instruction of their child. At the conclusion of the semester, each home school support student is given final exams and the parents and the umbrella program leadership receive the final semester grades. Our report card must specify the student's grade level, the semester, and the class title in order for the transcript to be properly updated and dispersed to a future school or for high school graduation according to standards set by the State of Tennessee. Page 5
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? Since we were accredited in June 2007, our learning center has experienced the following challenges: 1. Our move to a new location in August 2011 (Green Hills address and the new name Learning Lab of Green Hills) 2. Constantly changing technology and the need to upgrade and re-evaluate the services we provide. 3. Tutor/Staff turnover and retention The new Green Hills location has been well received by members of our community, yet the move required tremendous initial expense, efforts and hard work of our staff and owners, and continual marketing efforts to spread the word. After 1+ years of establishment at our current 3815 Cleghorn Avenue location, we are growing steadily and parents of local schools regularly express their appreciation of our proximity. In order to get the word out, during the past year we completely refurbished our website, created new marketing materials, and visited local businesses and schools. Technology plays an ever increasing role within education, and we are constantly challenged to consider how to best spend a portion of our marketing resources in order to best serve our customers. Our staff members meet with our technology director and management in order to discuss goals and support for our technology. We own and support desktop and laptop computers, servers, high-speed internet, and printer resources in order to serve the tutors and students working at our center. Learning Lab has licensed specific keyboarding and speed reading software in order to enrich student learning. We also provide consults and instruction to students and parents who benefit from assistive technology so they may become more successful and independent with reading and writing because of the benefits these tools and software provide. This year, we invested greatly in our Notes Home program because of the communication and collaboration it provides and will continue to provide to our stakeholders. Our tutors and teachers use Notes Home to check schedules online and for communicating their students' progress and accomplishments. We also continue to research new tools, software, and online resources that will assist our teachers and increase student engagement. At Learning Lab, another challenge we face is instructor turnover and retention issues, primarily because of the nature of our business. Our teachers and academic coaches come to work part-time for varying reasons and lengths of time. Some of our tutors and teachers are masters level students from Vanderbilt or Belmont. Parents of after school students often request a younger, motivated teacher who has lots of energy and also has experience with research-based methods used for reading and math remediation. Sometimes our younger staff come to work for us for a time while they look for full-time employment, and when we experience turnover the transfer of knowledge and transition of their students requires much effort. Retired teachers are more experienced, are often are not looking for a full-time job, and have more flexible schedules, but we are not always able to find enough of these teachers to fill the variety of requested subjects and services. We continually interview and meet with potential tutors and educational coaches in order to meet the needs of our students. Page 6
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? At Learning Lab we change lives every day. Learning Lab Green Hills is a positive, colorful setting in which students feel comfortable sharing their strengths and challenges so we can create a personalized plan for them. Our students, young and old, walk through our doors seeking support and encouragement for a variety of reasons. While each of these students experience academic success after meeting with our academic coaches and instructors, we also witness growth in their confidence and hope for the future. There is nothing more exciting than a student who has regained his confidence and excitement for learning! We are proud of our contacts within the community, at both public and private institutions, and we strive to communicate and collaborate regularly with them in order to best support the students. Evidence of success and confidence include the following: - Parent/tutor communication - Test prep success - Positive feedback/quotes from parents - Referrals to new students from community leaders, doctors, parents, and even current students - Our ongoing School Improvement Plan and efforts to grow our Home School Programs and After School Programs within our stakeholder schools. Specific Success Stories Ben's father called our office frantically on a late summer Saturday afternoon with the goal of reading support. Ben was to begin the 2nd grade, but his school was concerned that he wasn't reading on grade level. We assessed him using the WADE assessment for the Wilson Reading Program and began Level 1 remediation. Using a hands-on approach, his tutor worked with him in the weeks preceding school and throughout the first semester. By November, she was proud to report that he was now reading. We continue to provide regular support to this young man and his brother on the same evening each week, for each providing a continually updated plan and by collaborating with their parents, grandparents, and school. John and David are brothers who learned about the Learning Lab Green Hills a few months before taking the Independent Schools Entrance Exam (ISEE) in late January. Both had goals to apply for some of the highest rated schools in our city. John's practice test scores were all at the 95th percentile or higher for his age group and David's were above the 95th in two areas and at the 50th and 45th in both of the math areas. Both boys were presented with a plan, including practice for the thirty-minute essay that is part of the ISEE assessment. Recently, the boys sent handwritten notes to their academic coach and our director expressing their thanks for the preparation they received. Their scores went up in all areas, and David's scores were all above the 90th percentile for his age. Both boys were accepted to all of the schools to which they applied. Angela is a 5th grader who came to the Learning Lab for a consult four weeks ago for math support. That week she earned a D on a test, and she was nervous about fractions and everyday addition when under time constraints. The following week, we met with her teacher and counselor at school, and a plan was made for weekly Thursday afternoon sessions with an academic coach in math at Learning Lab. The teacher agreed to send her math packet from the previous week so that the Learning Lab instructor could identify problems for which she needed more practice. Her quiz grade the next week was a B, followed by an A- the next week. This past week, Angela earned an A+ on her math quiz and said she now enjoys math! Page 7