Clearmount Elementary school Equity audit Clearmount Elementary school By Josh Runner

Clearmount elementary school demographics Clearmount Elementary School is a K-2 building located in the North Canton City School district in North Canton, Ohio. When it was last rated in the 2010-2011 school year, they were rated Excellent with Distinction. It is generally thought of as a suburban school district with 42 staff members and 387 students of that 217 being boys and 170 girls. The school is made up of 95% White/Caucasian, 3% multi-racial, 1% Black/African American and 1% Asian/Pacific.

Student achievement data School assessment data that are consistent throughout the building are : DIBELS DRA Grade level assessment data that is consistent in building: Diagnostics Sight words Everyday Math checkpoints

Assessments DIBELS DRA A set of procedures and measures for assessing the acquisition of early literacy skills from kindergarten through sixth grade. They are designed to be short (one minute) fluency measures used to regularly monitor the development of early literacy and early reading skills. DRA  It not only gives teachers a rea ding level for each student, but it also lets the teacher know where the student's strengths and weaknesses are.

Subgroup analysis Clearmount Assessment Data School wide Boys receiving Tier II & III RTI is 27% Girls receiving Tier II & III RTI is 17% Concerning trend, but school has 214 boys and 173 girls in the school. Just by numbers, on average, there will be more boys receiving Title 1 services. Clearmount Assessment Data

Kindergarten subgroup 20 boys in Tier II & III 26% 8 girls in Tier II & III 15% No mid-year DIBELS or DRA available.

1st grade subgroup DIBELS Strength is only 6 of 58 children need strategic intervention for phoneme sound fluency 7 students need intensive and 8 for strategic intervention for oral reading fluency Students need more 1 on 1 instruction through Title 1, Daily 5 literacy time, or specials teachers first hour of day use them with their specialty. Ex. Have the gym teacher place sight words around gym and have student run and find each word. DRA Students in Title 1 raised score by 4.4 reading levels on average. 12 students raised 0 or 1 level at mid year. As soon as students have caught up to average, allow more time with lower students. Very little information was available because teachers did not input data

2nd grade subgroup DIBELS 7 of bottom 30 students are boys in all 2nd grade. 11% of students are at risk with 15% being boys. How are we specifically reaching out to the boys? Are we teaching the same that we always have or changing to make it more applicable? DRA Average gain of 6.3 reading levels. 3 student concerns: 1 Hispanic student knows very little English. Need to differentiate more lessons to his level. 2 other students have learning disabilities. Are our IEP goals helping them get better every day? We need to address these children instead of just including them for a couple of hours a day and then send them to an ISGI for more instruction.

Equity audit survey Survey Administered Group Policy Teacher Factor Student Factor Curriculum Community Assessment Teacher 7 8 Parent 5 6 Admin 9 Scored on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being does not agree and 10 being completely agree.

Survey Results Survey was sent in paper copy because I tried an electronic survey previously and did not receive a great response. Response rate was a little over 50%, which was actually more than I expected in my classroom. On average, the teachers were pretty positive overall and similar to the administrators, but the parents didn’t agree with the policy, teacher or student factor and curriculum as well. This is very interesting to see because we have a levy going to vote in two weeks and there doesn’t seem to be much support for it. Many of the concerns brought up by staff and parents related to the school addressing race and culture.

Interview Issue with number of boys receiving Title 1 services: We need to recruit positive male teachers and adjust our curriculum to be able to differentiate to the boys’ learning styles. Concern about ELL students and students with learning disabilities: The school district does not have the funds to bring more teachers on staff, we must adjust who we have to fit the need of the students. Teachers are not inputting data into appropriate places: The Building Leadership Team will address this and focus on keeping all teachers on the same page and going the same direction.

Interview-continued Addressing the low survey ratings related to school policy: We have an open door policy for community members to discuss their questions or concerns to any school related issues. Addressing the low survey ratings revolving around culture: We can’t force people to apply for our open positions. We can only open it up to the public to choose to apply to our schools. It’s the same issue with the demographics in our community. Addressing the topic of curriculum and the wide range of ratings from teachers and parents. Many parents are not aware of the developmental needs in their children, they only see immediate concerns, not the future growth. We have chosen our curriculum based on the data and future goals of meeting the new Common Core State Standards. The teachers all have their own idea of what will work, but administrators have the entire school/district in mind when making decisions.

Plan of action Administration needs to admit the changing demographics in the community and communicate with schools/parents how they plan to address the needs. Recruit/Hire staff members that are culturally different than current homogeneous staff. Actively recruit positive male prospects to teach in the school district to help relate to the struggling boys in the schools. Administrators need to work side by side with the teachers when deciding on curriculum and materials instead of leaving it up to people who have no experience in the field. The district will be making a change to AIMS Web next year because DIBELS is not the most accurate and reliable service. The district purchased the program because it was cost efficient years ago.

recommendations Students need longer than a 15 minute pull-out program for Title 1. Require teachers to have communication with parents often. We need to address the real needs of our district, instead of relying on what has worked in the past. Use a more effective and realistic assessment, rather than DIBELS for placement. Districts reach out to colleges and ask for highly qualified teachers of different cultures.