State of the School Meeting The FAIR School State of the School Meeting September 28, 2018 PLEASE READ BEFORE PRESENTING: All red text in brackets signifies an item that needs to be customized based on your school. Before you present this to parents, please make sure you've customized all red text and that the text color is changed back to black/white (whatever color the rest of the text around it is) Accountability, Innovation, and Research
Agenda The FAIR School Mission and vision Strengths Challenges OUR SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT PLAN Goals and strategies Sharing student progress TITLE I Overview of Title I How we’re using our Title I funds Title I and Family Engagement 1 min
The FAIR School: Who We Are
Who We Are School Stats Mission [The FAIR School is the Downtown Minneapolis premier community school. Rooted in arts, equity, innovation and creativity, The FAIR School provides rich programming, relevant instruction, and fosters high achievement, cultural understanding, global citizenship, and a robust network of partnerships that help engage and empower students in personalizing their learning experience. The FAIR School provides a safe, integrated, equitable, and multi-generational learning community where rigorous study combined with real world experiences and opportunities allow every student to understand who they are. Students get to know their strengths, talents, and passions so they can engage and transform their world. School Stats 66% Students of Color, 34% White Students 60% of Students receive Free and Reduced Lunch 50% of Eligible Juniors and Seniors attend college classes while in High School in the Post Secondary Education Options Program FAIR has community partnerships with the Hennepin Theater Trust, The Y, MacPhail Music, Stages Theater Company and over 20 other partners that enhance our school community. 3-5 min
Our School Improvement Plan
What’s a School Improvement Plan? Our school improvement plan: Sets the goals that our school community is working to achieve Identifies the strategies or activities that will help us reach those goals together Every Minneapolis Public School is required to develop, implement, and monitor a school improvement plan. 2 min
Our School Improvement Plan Goal: Social-Emotional Learning goal: By 2019, the School Climate Survey average factor score: School Connectedness for All Students will increase from 46% to 60%. Strategy to achieve our goal: Description: "Social and emotional learning is the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions" (CASEL, 2016). Social Emotional Learning strategies promote the development of schools that are safe, welcoming, and inclusive learning communities for all stakeholders. We have selected this strategy for the following reasons: It is critically important for staff to model SEL strategies in the classroom and school environment to assist students in identifying and increasing SEL resiliency to improve connectedness and achievement. In addition, our School Social Worker attended the SEED workshop over the summer and will be guiding staff through 30 hours of SEED work (based on SEL work) over the course of the school year. Focus for 2018-19: This school year, we will focus on completing readiness activities, like establishing an SEL team and conducting an inventory of current SEL practices, to make sure our school is ready to then develop the SEL skills of our adults. 10 min total for all goal/strategy slides Complete one slide for each goal (you can copy and paste this slide if you have more than three goals)
Our School Improvement Plan Goal: Social-Emotional Learning By 2019, the School Climate Survey average factor score: Teacher-Student Relationships for All Students will increase from 57% to 70%. Strategy to achieve our goal: Description: "Social and emotional learning is the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions" (CASEL, 2016). Social Emotional Learning strategies promote the development of schools that are safe, welcoming, and inclusive learning communities for all stakeholders. We have selected this strategy for the following reasons: It is critically important for staff to model SEL strategies in the classroom and school environment to assist students in identifying and increasing SEL resiliency to improve connectedness and achievement. In addition, our School Social Worker attended the SEED workshop over the summer and will be guiding staff through 30 hours of SEED work (based on SEL work) over the course of the school year. Focus for 2018-19: This school year, we will focus on completing readiness activities, like establishing an SEL team and conducting an inventory of current SEL practices, to make sure our school is ready to then develop the SEL skills of our adults. Complete one slide for each goal (you can copy and paste this slide if you have more than three goals)
Our School Improvement Plan Goal: Writing Achievement goal: By 2020, the ACT Writing for All Students will increase from an average of 2 to an average of 4. Strategy to achieve our goal: Description: Balanced Literacy provides a structure and support that enables all students to acquire the knowledge, skills, habits, and dispositions needed to meet or exceed grade-level standards in reading, writing, listening, and speaking. The Balanced Literacy approach seeks to find an appropriate balanced of all components and elements of strong literacy instruction for students PK - 5 grade. We have selected this strategy for the following reasons: These critical elements have been selected for year one of implementation because they are the four essential elements for setting up rituals and routines in literacy. Each critical element is necessary to have a successful balanced literacy framework throughout the school year. Focus for 2018-19: This school year, we will focus on ensuring all teachers have established rituals & routines to support literacy instruction. That will be followed by work implementing or improving strong lesson planning and delivery, and the use of independent reading and writing. Complete one slide for each goal (you can copy and paste this slide if you have more than three goals)
Our School Improvement Plan Goal: Arts Integration/Equity goal: By 2019, the Completion and documentation of Arts Integration Projects for students in all classes for All Students will increase from 1 Arts Integration Project per Quarter to 4 Arts Integration projects by Quarter 4. Strategy to achieve our goal: Description: Educational equity means raising the achievement of all students while narrowing the gaps between the lowest and highest performing students, and eliminating the racial or cultural predictability and disproportionality of which student groups currently occupy the highest and lowest achievement categories across all measures. We have selected this strategy for the following reasons: Equity is central to promoting student achievement. The SIP Goals of school connectedness and school climate will be supported by the Equity Toolkit. Arts Integration is an essential component in students ability to demonstrate their learning through a variety of means such as projects. Focus for 2018-19: This school year, we will focus on completing readiness activities, like establishing an equity team and a common understanding of equity, before selecting one of three strategies to work through the rest of the year, either developing the self-awareness of our adults, sharing decision-making with families and students, or interrupting our implicit biases as adults. Complete one slide for each goal (you can copy and paste this slide if you have more than three goals)
How We Measure Student Progress We want to make sure our students are learning as much as possible, so we use state and district assessments to determine their strengths and areas for growth. The results of these assessments help us figure out how we can better support our students in the classroom. Assessments help us answer questions such as: Are we teaching what we think we are teaching? Are students learning what we intend for them to be learning? Are all students improving and being appropriately challenged? Some of the assessments our students will take this year are: Interim Assessments – Math MAP Testing (Fall, Spring) ACT – Juniors (Spring) MCA – Freshmen, Sophomores, Juniors (Spring) 5 min
How We’ll Share Student Progress with You Throughout the year, we’ll share information with you about how your student is doing in the classroom. We’ll do it in the following ways: Parent-Teacher conferences on September 28, 2019 Quarterly report cards: In School Messenger and on Website Facebook and Twitter Posts 3 min
Title I
What is Title I? Title I is a federal program that provides money to schools and districts to help them ensure all children have an equal opportunity to get a high-quality education and achieve proficiency on our state’s academic standards and assessments. 2 min Mention: Title I programs are available to schools with the greatest concentration of low-income families. If appropriate, you could reference the Application for Educational Benefits form and its role in this. Title I supports our School Improvement Plan, and the funding we receive helps us reach our goals.
The FAIR School is a schoolwide Title I program, which means all our students are able to benefit from the services we provide with our Title I funding. For the 2018-2019 school year, we received $81,991 in Title I funding, which makes up 3% of our school budget. We are required to use Title I funding to improve the academic achievement of all students and engage YOU, our families, in that process! 2 min
How We’re Using our Title I Funding Curriculum and Instruction Support For Social Work Support through a full time staff member, Kayci Rush Social Work Intern program serves all students at FAIR and is coordinated by Kayci Rush SEL supports are put in place to support students SEL needs and academic success Monitoring of student progress, attendance, OnTrack grades and curriculum support Family Engagement Conferences Open House evenings during the year Site Council support for child when requested Site Council support for food and materials Art Crawl, Community Meetings and College and Career events 5-10 min
As a family member in a Title I School, you have the right to… Request information from the district about whether your student’s teacher meets State licensing approval for the grade and subject being taught, is teaching with a waiver, and/or has certification for the field being taught Request information about the qualifications of any paraprofessional providing instruction Know how your child’s school is rated on its state test scores Expect regular communication with your school in a language that you can understand Work with other families and staff to develop a compact between our school and our families Help plan how money for family involvement should be spent Work with teachers, other families, and the school principal to develop a family involvement plan Ask for a meeting with your school principal or your child’s teacher at any time 5 min
Opportunities for Families to be Involved! We want your input on our: School Improvement Plan goals and strategies Family Involvement Plan School-Family Compact You can find all these documents on our school website! We’d love to see you at the following school events: Parent-Teacher Conferences on September 28, 2018 and Spring Conferences on December 21, 2018 – Art Crawl and Community Meeting 2:00pm January – Instrumental Music Concert January – Vocal Music Concert Graduation, Saturday, June 8, 2018 Participate in Site Council! Meetings once a month, Last Wednesday of the month from 6:00 – 7:00 pm. Parking paid for families. Visit your child’s classroom or volunteer at our school! Talk to your child’s teacher about events and issues that may affect your child’s work or behavior. 5 min Say that families can give input on the SIP, FIP, and Compact at site council meetings that will be advertised Talk about your school’s policy for families visiting and volunteering
School Staff Information Principal Mary Pat Cumming Additional Staff Joe Kane, Counselor Kayci Rush, School Social Worker Mychal Crowder, Dean Kalisha Wiggins, School Secretary Lisa Dornacker, College and Career Counselor 1 min It might be helpful here to describe the role of your family liaison and how they support families.
We appreciate you!