CSI: Lincoln Continuous School Improvement

What is CSI? Continuous School Improvement (CSI) is a collaborative process of looking at student performance and selecting areas for focus which can be used to improve student learning.

During the School Year Lincoln hosted a QAR –Quality Assurance Review Visit for three days in April. The team was made up of Stateside AdvancED- NCA/CASI Team Chairs, Administrators, and Teachers.

During the School Year The Team examined the school thoroughly, including a review of documents, student performance data, and interviews with students, faculty members and parents. The visit was to ensure that the school adheres to the standards established by AdvancedEd, thus gaining official accreditation. Lincoln Elementary received full accreditation.

During the School Year The Quality Assurance Review team issued a report which serves as a resource to the school as it furthers its continuous improvement efforts. We celebrated and strengthened the successes and accomplishments noted in the team’s commendations. We are building on these accomplishments, enhancing their impact across the school.

During the School Year The team’s recommendations identified areas of needed action designed to enhance school effectiveness and improve student learning. The school is held accountable for making progress on each of the team’s recommendations. Next year, Lincoln will submit a report detailing the progress made on the recommendations.

And what were those recommendations you ask…

QAR Recommendation #1: Increase the communication and collaboration to include all stakeholders to improve their understanding of the school improvement process and goals for student achievement.

Our Stakeholders Military Staff Parents Students

QAR Recommendation #2: Refine systems for gathering, assembling, and analyzing data to ensure pertinent student performance data is in a format that is directly tied to the performance standards and school improvement goals.

During School Year To increase the communication and collaboration to include all stakeholders to improve their understanding of the school improvement process and goals for student achievement … Attention was focused on improving the understanding of staff members this year. Minutes were sent to every staff member after each CSI meeting. The CSI Chair speaks with each grade level to get opinions and offer clarification on issues impacting specific grade levels. Grade levels were asked to submit strategies they would use to increase oral and written communication skills in conjunction with our new ELA standards

During School Year To increase the communication and collaboration to include all stakeholders to improve their understanding of the school improvement process and goals for student achievement… Parents and students were key participants in the creation of our new vision statement. Parents were asked to write the qualities that they felt their children need to be successful later in life.

Students and staff voted. Students were responsible for surveying parents in November and December.

During School Year To increase the communication and collaboration to include all stakeholders to improve their understanding of the school improvement process and goals for student achievement… – Parent to Parent Workshops were held frequently, often targeting school improvement goals. – Announcements of programs supporting our goals offered off-campus were sent to parents. – Mrs. Meacham, our former principal, included notes in the Lion’s Roar newsletter about the CSI process.

QAR Recommendation #2: Refine systems for gathering, assembling, and analyzing data to ensure pertinent student performance data is in a format that is directly tied to the performance standards and school improvement goals. QAR Recommendation #2 has to do with our School Improvement Goals.

Goal One All Lincoln Elementary Students will show at least proficient oral and written communication skills as measured by our school-wide writing assessment by SY

Of course Lincoln students write all the time in a variety of ways…

To get the students excited about writing and to review the different ways that they use writing, Lincoln held our first annual Everybody Writes Week.

Everybody Writes Week

Everybody Writes Week May 3-7 The Lincoln community used their writing skills as we tried to solve the mystery of our missing mascot, Leo, the Lincoln Lion. It turns out Leo went to Broadway to audition for the Lion King. He left us a letter that was shredded (and then put back together). There were other clues, like lion fur, muddy paw prints, a plane itinerary, and map of NYC that helped the kids solve the mystery. The kids made Missing Lion posters, wrote letters and postcards, poems, comic strips and stories about Leo. Next year Everybody Writes Week will occur in the first semester.

Goal Two All Lincoln Elementary Students will show at least proficient math problem solving skills as measured by our school-wide problem solving assessment by SY

QAR Recommendation #2 Refine systems for gathering, assembling, and analyzing data to ensure pertinent student performance data is in a format that is directly tied to the performance standards and school improvement goals. Each student now has a spreadsheet with pertinent data that will track achievement through his/her years at Lincoln. This data supports our oral/written communication goal, our math problem solving goal as well as reading data (to be used to support a reading goal if needed in the future.) Each teacher has a class spreadsheet tracking average achievement of their students.

We needed ensure that the data collected was directly tied to our performance standards and school improvement goals. EVERY grade level is responsible for recording data in support of at least one of our goals. Grade LevelLanguage Screen Beginning Writer Screen DRATerra Nova School –Wide Writing School-Wide Problem Solving Pre-K Kindergarten 1 st 2 nd 3 rd 4 th 5 th

Local Assessments During SY K-5 students took a writing test in January and late April to create baseline data for our continuous school improvement goal. The were also evaluated in math problem solving. During SY K-5 students’ writing will be evaluated in August, December and March. Their math problem solving skills will be evaluated in August, December, and March.

We adopted a new way of reporting the results of our local assessments. Starting in Spring, 2010 student results will be reported as: Advanced Proficient Nearing Proficiency Limited Proficiency This should make it easier for parents to understand their child’s performance. The rubrics we use to evaluate student work will soon be available on our school website.

Local Assessment Results

Refine systems for gathering, assembling, and analyzing data to ensure pertinent student performance data is in a format that is directly tied to the performance standards and school improvement goals. End of year testing was scheduled for the last week of April so that teachers would have time to analyze results horizontally and share data vertically this school year. The results were used to make recommendations for instructional strategies for SY

In May, 2010 the Post QAR Visit Team, indicated that while we took some steps in right direction in meeting the QAR Recommendations, we needed to reevaluate “involvement” vs. “input”. Since the visit, the CSI Team has met and agreed on a new way of doing business for itself and the rest of the Lincoln stakeholders. Four committees will be formed in SY The committees will be chaired by CSI Team members. The committees will be comprised of staff members, parents, and students (as appropriate).

SY CSI Team Stakeholders Involvement Oral/Written Communication Goal Math Problem Solving Goal Profile Collaboratively develop and implement a detailed action plan for parent involvement Make strategies of action plan obvious in classroom routines and fully understood by all stakeholders Make strategies of action plan obvious in classroom routines and fully understood by all stakeholders Revise and maintain a current school profile

Parents, we NEED you! Please consider serving on a CSI Committee.

School Improvement Goal One: Oral and Written Communication Committee This committee will be responsible for: monitoring the strategies that ensure best practices are evident throughout the school maintaining the double blind scoring procedures set up during SY as well as writing and following school wide writing assessment scripts collecting data generated from the school wide writing assessment, analyzing it, and sharing with the staff so results can be used to inform instruction monitoring the effectiveness of instructional strategies creating an environmental scan for teachers to self-assess as well as peer-assess the writing environment in their room(s)

Stakeholders Involvement Committee This committee will be responsible for: keeping our stakeholders informed of CSI/school news investigating and promoting ways to get our parent stakeholders directly involved maintaining the Parent Resource Room (By stocking the room with materials supporting our CSI goals, parents will be better able to support our efforts at home.) scheduling and alerting parents to workshops spearheading a Perfect Attendance Initiative that acknowledges monthly perfect attendance as well as semester perfect attendance

School Improvement Goal Two: Math Problem Solving Committee This committee will be responsible for: monitoring the strategies that ensure best practices are evident throughout the school monitoring the implementation of the double blind scoring procedures currently used for the writing assessment investigating the adoption of a school-wide or K-1, 2-3, 4-5 grade level rubric monitoring the writing and following of school wide problem solving assessment scripts collecting data generated from the school wide problem solving assessment, analyzing it, and sharing with the staff so results can be used to inform instruction reevaluating instructional strategies for effectiveness creating an environmental scan for teachers to self-assess as well as peer-assess the problem solving environment in their room(s)

Profile Committee This committee will be responsible for: Revising current school profile Updating school profile throughout the year with current data as it becomes available

Committees meet the first Tuesday of every month from 2:30- 3:30 in the committee chair’s classroom. Oral/Written Language - Mrs. Tina Daigle Math Problem Solving - Mrs. Melissa Huber Stakeholder Involvement- Mrs. Eunice Sumbler Profile- Mr. Richard Epps

Our AdvanceEd Timeline SAR and QAR Visit Pre-QAR Visit No Report- No Visitors Accreditation Progress Report (APR)