Westmont High School Opening of 2018-19 School Year INTRO: Riverside Brookfield High School: 2001–2009 One of the most improved high schools in Illinois and the nation Top 100 – America’s Best High Schools – Newsweek Top Ten Most Improved Advanced Placement Programs – Washington Post Challenge Index “A+” (highest rating) – School Search, Inc. “Outperformer” (highest rating) – Standard & Poor’s 99% graduation rate (2004 and 2006) 98% 6-year graduation rate average 100% graduation rate for Hispanic and African American students (represents 20% of population) (2006) Rated “10 out of 10” – Great Schools WESTMONT HIGH SCHOOL Most Improved High School in Illinois (2013-18) 99% Graduation Rate 100% for African-American and Latino students Only 5 drop outs in last 6 years Most Improved and Inclusive A.P. Program Double digit increases in State test scores The Most Improved High School in Illinois, 2013–2018 One of the Most Improved and Top-Performing High Schools in the nation Jack Baldermann

Outcomes Supporting New Teachers - Lynn Howard Westmont as a model

Dr. Yasuyuki Oda (Japan) Selects Westmont High School to Study as a Model PLC School “Even as a stranger, I felt very welcomed at Westmont High School. The culture is one of warmth and intelligence. Westmont is an amazing school. One of the best I have ever seen.” Dr. Yasuyuki Oda. Dr. Yasuyuki Oda is a professor and researcher at MIE University in Japan. He is one of his country’s leading experts on Professional Learning Communities. Dr. Oda received funding to study effective PLC schools in America. After conducting research on school effectiveness, Dr. Oda selected Westmont High School as one of four schools in Illinois to learn about quality PLC practices. He spent the day talking to administrators, teachers and students to learn about the programs at Westmont High School.

Rick and Becky DuFour - leaders in PLCs

Books by the DuFours

Rick and Becky DuFour

Mike Mattos Learning By Doing Taking Action Simplifying Response to Intervention It’s About Time Uniting Academic Behavior Interventions Pyramid Response to Intervention Are We a Group or a Team?

Anthony Muhammad

Chris Jakicic Common Formative Assessment The Collaborative Teacher The RTI Toolkit Simplifying Common Assessment Collaborating for Success with the Common Core The Principal as Assessment Leader Assessment Leader Set The Teacher as Assessment Leader

Kim Bailey Common Formative Assessment: A Toolkit for Professional Learning Communities at Work Collaborating for Success with the Common Core Simplifying Common Assessment The RTI Toolkit

Indicator Weightings 2018-2020

WHS S.M.A.R.T Goals 2018-2019 99% Graduation Rate 58% Meets or Exceeds for both Math and English on the SAT/Standardized Exams 451 or more AP Exams taken, with 267 or more passed exams and 50 AP Scholars

Why PLCs? FRM MC:

John Hattie’s Work

John Hattie Collective Teacher Efficacy is the collective belief of teachers in their ability to positively affect students. With an effect size of d=1.57 Collective Teacher Efficacy is strongly correlated with student achievement.

Research-based Support “Professional communities motivate teachers to take collective responsibility for ensuring all students learn… these changes in culture lead to higher levels of student achievement” (Louis and Wahlstrom, 2011).

Research-based Support “High quality professional development in the context of a supportive professional community and where teachers are oriented toward improvement appears powerfully related to gains in academic productivity” (Bryk, Sebring, Allensworth, Luppescu, & Easton, 2010).

Proven Results – Graduation Rate 2018: 100% of students graduated on time, no students dropped out In the last 6 years, only FIVE students have dropped out 100% of African American and Latino students have graduated on time, five years in a row Top 1% in Illinois and in the Nation for regular high school graduation rate ~ since PLC implementation in 2013

Advanced Placement Performance Most improved Advanced Placement program in Illinois and top 1% for improvement in the country Top 1% for inclusion in Illinois and the United States

Advanced Placement Performance – Westmont High School Over a 1000% increase in the number of passed AP Exams 29 in 2013 → 303 in 2018 Advanced Placement Scholar increase 3 in 2013 → 65 in 2018 (same enrollment 2013 to 2018 –most inclusive and most improved)

Double digit increases in state testing performance since PLC implementation

2017 2016

Start with Norms Why norms?

Do our Norms help to drive action focused on student learning increases? We will bring “fresh and relevant data” to at least 50% or more of our meetings. We will bring student performance information in a format that is ready for collaborative analysis. We will examine data student by student and skill by skill. We will answer the question “How did this meeting improve student learning”

(Adapted from Lippitt, Enterprise Management, Ltd., 1987)

Vision The “why” and “what” we will be doing must be collaboratively developed and passionately agreed to by the team. Relentless – No excuses and no blame Meaningful Focused on learning for all

Skills Many to mention - priorities Formative assessment Relationships with students and teachers Positive and high expectations

Incentives People working together as a team to accomplish something amazing that will improve the lives of others Mastery Autonomy Purpose Dan Pink – Drive Autonomy Relatedness Competence Susan Fowler

Resources Time to collaborate with colleagues Time for additional learning for students Interventions

The Power of SMART Goals What gets measured gets done. Focus Mario Andretti / BHAGs Burn the boats

“Replace the voluminous strategic planning process with a few very specific goals.” —DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, & Many, Learning by Doing: A Handbook for Professional Learning Communities at Work, 2006 (p. 120)

Why Goals? The Power of Goals Provides focus Sense of accomplishment for teachers and students Pride

PLC/Data Team Process Establish collaborative teams. Create “I Can Statements” Provide fresh data/student performance information – ideally, from common formative assessments. Learn from each other. Implement / Re-teach / Develop interventions. Measure student learning growth.

Westmont High School MATH example of a model data team in action JUNE 2018

STRUGGLES (No excuses – Whatever it Takes) WE DID NOT TEACH COMMON CLASSES CCSS-M WERE TOO BROAD TO SHOW STUDENT AND CURRICULUM STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES WE WERE NOT VERTICALLY ALIGNED - THERE WERE GAPS AND WE DIDN’T EVEN KNOW IT WE LACKED FRESH AND USEFUL DATA WE NEEDED TIME OUTSIDE OF THE CLASSROOM FOR STUDENT INTERVENTION WE NEEDED A STRONGER CURRICULUM

SUMMER 2016 and 2017

Mastery Connect

We transferred MasteryConnect data to Google Spreadsheets to see student by student and target by target data. This is how we made decisions for Wednesday intervention.

How did we use the data? To show students how they were performing individually To identify weaknesses in curriculum (i.e. system of equation word problems) To identify students who needed intervention To identify weaknesses in skills covered in earlier courses

Where do we go from here? Creating test-like questions by topic. Focus on freshman and sophomores Revisit our intervention schedule

WHS Mission and Goals

This 2018-2019 School Year... We want you to use your wisdom and expertise to build relationships with our students and to create exciting learning experiences that allow our students to be successful

This 2018-2019 School Year... We want you to support the graduation rate goal - wherein 99% of our students complete graduation requirements in 4 years

This 2018-2019 School Year... We want you to support the school goal that 59% or more of our students will meet or exceed proficiency on our state exams, with the remaining students showing at least 1 or more years worth of growth

This 2018-2019 School Year... Support our AP program with a goal that we have the best Advanced Placement results in Illinois: Number of exams taken - 451 Number of exams passed - 267 Percentage of Seniors passing - 51 Percentage of Seniors taking - 68 Number of A.P. Scholars - 50 Number of underrepresented passed exams - 61

Let’s have a great year!