Minot Public School District #l Mr. Mike Fogarty, Principal 501 25th St NW Minot, ND 58703-1869 Document Generated On February 13, 2015
TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Description of the School 2 School's Purpose 3 Notable Achievements and Areas of Improvement 4 Additional Information 5
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
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? School is one of 12 elementary schools in the Minot Public School System. We are a K-5 school. It's located on the west side of Minot in the valley. The Bel Air community is composed mainly of single family dwellings. Prior to the flood of 2011 we were in a declining enrollment mode, slowly losing students from year to year. About 15 years ago there were about 425 students at Bel Air, although that number did include 6th grade students. The enrollment declined to around 284 in 2009. The oil in the area slowly brought in new families, but we were not experiencing the growth other districts farther west were experiencing. In 2011, the increase in oil activity and the flood occurred at about the same time. While we did have families leave during the flood, we had many more return shortly afterwards. Currently, we serve 383 students in 18 classrooms with three classrooms per grade. It's interesting to note that some of our families have left because it's too expensive to live here in Minot. The student demographics break down in the following way; White 90.8%, Asian 1.6%, Black or African American 2.1%, American Indian or Alaska Native 2.9%, Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander 0.3%, Limited English Proficiency.5%, Special Education 6.8%, economically disadvantaged 13.9%. This last number has risen slightly from a low of around 9% a few years ago as measured by free and reduced price lunches. The Instructional needs of our student population are met by the following highly qualified licensed staff members: 18 classroom teachers (three for each grade), 1 reading teacher, 1 speech/language pathologist, 1 LD teacher, a part time counselor, and a part time performance/instructional strategist, a PE teacher, 1 vocal music teacher, a part-time strings teacher and a part time band instructor. Students who qualify for the Minot Public School's gifted/talented program are also provided support from one of the districts three teachers for gifted and talented students. There are plans to expand the support for students in this category next year with the addition of staff in that program. One unique feature of Bel Air is that we do not qualify for or provide Reading and Math services under Title I. We do however provide reading support through our Early Reading Intervention program for children in grades K & 1. We also provide reading support through our reading specialist and a para-professional utilizing the Leveled Literacy Intervention program. Our main focus on this program is struggling readers in grades K-3, but we do serve children in grades 4 & 5 as well. In addition, we provide reading support to students who qualify, through a Read180 program run by our LD specialist. We have no additional math support outside of our regular math program except for those students who qualify for LD services. Page 2
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 statement for the members of school community is, "Learn-Grow-Lead". We believe all of us, both students and adults alike, need to continually learn, grow and lead. Our mission statement was developed to support Minot Public School's Mission statement: Empower all learners to succeed in a changing world, along with the vision of learning for life-long success. The following activities are aligned to the mission statement of. Bel Air staff and students learn, grow and lead. - Staff teach students to respect themselves, others, property and learning. - Expected behavior posters are taught, practiced and revisited throughout the year as needed. - Staff meetings provide a supportive team approach for working through staff, student and school issues and needs. - Professional Learning Communities (PLCs): Grade level teams meet weekly to collaborate on student needs, review data, discuss instructional practices and individual student needs. - Professional Development: Reciprocal Teaching, Daily Five, CAFE, District Training for My Math, ELA, Common Core, PLC training, RTI, Marzano Teacher Evaluation Model, Zones of Regulation, Love & Logic, Read 180, Professional Book Studies, and Non-fiction writing. - Collaborative planning, writing and implementation of RTI tiers in math. - Individual Education Plans (IEP) at a glance for classroom teachers at the beginning of each school year. It is a one page overview of critical information that include IEP goals, accommodations, and other critical information to set students up for success. - Student Assistant Process (SAP) is a team of specialists (counselor, teachers, speech therapist, reading and LD teacher) who work in conjunction with grade level teacher teams to identify and remediate student needs. - Staff evaluation: Each certified staff member is evaluated and provided with feedback on their professional and instructional development and growth. - Instructional Coach: as mandated by the state of ND, Bel Air has the support of an instructional coach for grades K-5. She provides support in training teachers in the use of reading strategies and analyzing student data - Reading Specialist: Bel Air has the support of a reading specialist for grades K-5. She provides individual and group instruction, interventions and support for students not proficient in reading. - Early Reading Interventionist (ERI): Bel Air has the support of an early reading interventionist for grades K-1. She provides intervention for students not proficient in reading. Page 3
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 December of this school year, we implemented a new schedule which provides each grade level with 90 minutes for teachers during the school day to participate in collaborative learning communities (PLCs) to improve instruction and student learning. The schedule change also allowed each classroom to have larger blocks of instructional time reducing the potential for interruptions. One area of weakness is our level of support for students in math. Classrooms will use the RTI process to ensure students are identified and strategic interventions are implemented consistently. Our next step is to establish a consistent documentation process for tracking student learning. Another goal is to continue to teach the students to respect themselves, others, property and learning. The expected behavior posters, video, and documentation will continue to provide an effective and positive learning environment for our students. We will begin to acknowledge positive behavior, arrange consistent consequences for problem behavior, and use the documentation to develop the Response to Intervention (RTI) model for behavior so we can make decisions and implement effective behavioral support, practices and interventions. Also, starting this spring we will be meeting as grade level groups to analyze data and track student progress, for data-driven instruction. These efforts will allow students and staff to "Learn, Grow, Lead" and empower all learners to succeed in a changing world. Page 4
Additional Information Provide any additional information you would like to share with the public and community that were not prompted in the previous sections. Parents in our school community provide the school with excellent support. One indicator of this was the fact that 60% of our parents completed the parent survey. This response rate was the highest in the district. Page 5