1. Coopertown PTO Donation
Thursday, February 16, 2017

2. Donated Funds PTO donation of $47,000 Enhance playground equipment
Benefits all students K-5th grades
Longstanding benefits for years to come
Expands the playground area for greater usage
Provides additional climbing structure
Offers additional sensory experiences

3. Existing Playground

4. Perimeter Adjustment

5. Scope of Project District General Recreation, Inc.
Remove the ball toss
Reposition a section of fencing
Prepare the area for installation
Carpet mulch at completion
General Recreation, Inc.
Installation of footers
Assembly of equipment
Installation of equipment

6. Equipment

7. Layout and Safety Zones
Meets PA recreation and Park Society Guidelines

8. Final Enhancement

10. English Language Arts & Reading Curriculum Audit
School District of Haverford Township
School Board of Directors Meeting
February 16, 2017

11. As you may remember, we’ve established a cycle to review our curriculum and resources to ensure we’re offering the best possible education to our students.
We are currently undertaking the ELA and Reading Curriuclum Audit. This means we are looking at our present programming, comparing it to what the standards require, what like-districts provide, and what the current literature recommends, and determinign what, if any, updates need to be made.
Although we planned to take an entire year for auditing our system and then another year to develop the new plan, we feel we can accelerate that process for our reading and parts of our elementary curriculum. We’ll go into more detail about this later in the presentation.

12. Common Vocabulary Anthology Scope & Sequence Reading Support
Scope: The depth and breadth of the content to be taught at a specific grade level and the development of the content across grade levels.
Sequence: The order in which the content should be taught for the best learning (building on past knowledge) within a grade level and across grade levels.
Anthology: A published collection of poems or other pieces of writing
Reading Support:
Elementary level-when a reading specialist works with students on specific skills they need to become stronger readers. This is not a repeat or continuation of what happens in general education ELA, but targets and moves through specific skills.
Middle School-reading specialist instruct the ELA curriculum providing reading comprehension supports, altering pacing, and scaffolding according to need

13. ELA Internal Findings -Elementary
Standards Gap Analysis
Covering, but not to the extent required by the standard and often with a supplemental text (ACT, Ready Common Core, Story Works, Read Works, etc.)
Teacher Input
Need strong phonics program; looking for a set of resources, but not a lock-step program
Performance Data
Standardized data is strong when compared with state and like-districts. Curriculum based assessments are also strong
Research
Close Reading, Guided Reading, Authentic Literacy
Teach the standard using many stories vs. Teach the story highlighting the applicable standards
We are almost finished with an analysis that compares what our standards ask us to do, and what we currently do. As you may know, our Pennsylvania standards changed in several years ago. The new standards are more rigorous, requiring more analysis and application than before.
The previous curriculum was written to align with the former standards. Conducting this analysis has allowed us to determine where the gaps are between what we are doing and what the newer standards require. We will use this to inform our decisions about what we need from any updated resources.

14. Elementary Increase preparation in writing Prioritize grammar
More than 70% feel that ELA classes are preparing students for the next level.
About 57% feel that the required reading is interesting. Many acknowledged that it’s difficult for all reading selections to interest all students. What they enjoyed and would like to see more of include---current novels, a variety of themes and perspectives, student choice in selecting the reading, and options that are set at appropriate levels.
Increase preparation in writing
Prioritize grammar
Teacher makes the difference
Increase current novels, variety, and choice
Ensure appropriate levels

15. Asked to rate level of challenge
Glad to see that most often picked option was “challenging”
Looks like we could even increase the challenge, and might want to consider building in more opportunities to present to an audience.

16. What part of ELA does your child enjoy most?
Writing
Books
Stories

17. Elementary-What would you like to see…?
More
Less
Writing
Reading
Research
Debates
Non-fiction
Nothing
Workbooks
What parents want to see more of, is what is required by PA core.
Great news to see many said there wasn’t anything they wanted to see us do less, unless it was the use of workbooks. In some cases, workbooks are the best way to organize student practice, but we’ll be looking at how they are used as part of any new set of resources.

18. ELA Internal Findings -Secondary
Standards Gap Analysis
Covering, but not to the extent required by the standard
Loose articulation within and across grade
Teacher Input
Want a scope and sequence, but not an anthology
Prefer to use novels, non-fiction, authentic text and writing
Performance Data
Standardized data is strong when compared with state and like-districts. Curriculum based assessments are also strong.
Enrollment Data
Need more analysis, but generally unbiased, with one indication that some groups might be overrepresented in academic level classes.
Research
Close reading is important, but not the only focus; motivation and are engagement required.
Authentic literacy--read, discuss, write
Loose articulation that could be tightened and be made more transparent.
This can be done with a scope and sequence development, rather than by purchasing one anthology that every teacher of that course teaches. Instead want to use novels, non-fiction, authentic literacy strategies and writing assignments.
MS:Current novels, writing, grammar, research, creativity
HS: Debates, writing, research current novels

19. Middle School Increase preparation in writing
Again we have over 70% of parents finding that elementary ELA prepared their children for middle school and the next level throughout middle school.
If any suggestions were made they included spending more time with writing and grammar.
It should be noted that in all of the surveys, the most overwhelmingly positive remarks were made about our teachers. Although we did our best to make the survey about curriculum, rather than instruction, our parents noted that the teachers make all the difference for their children.
Increase preparation in writing
Increase emphasis on grammar
Teacher makes the difference
Focus on writing
Increase challenge and emphasis on grammar
Teacher makes the difference

20. Middle School Update texts Increase diversity & choice
Ensure appropriate levels
Here we see that the required reading may is interesting to more than 40% and sometimes interesting for about 45% of students, according to those who responded. Those who had suggestions

21. Middle & High Schools
Again, we see that parents who responded find the classwork, reading material, writing assignments and tests to be challenging. An area of focus may be increasing the challenge, which will happen as we work to address each standard in its entirety.

22. What would you like to see…?
More
Less
Middle School
Reading (stamina,
current novels, critical thinking)
Debates
Research
Nothing
Projects
Group Work
High School
Writing
Reading
Current Novels
Current novels
Writing/Grammar

23. High School
Writing was the focus: daily, critical; research and debate
Increase emphasis on grammar
Teacher makes the difference
Focus on writing
Increase challenge and emphasis on grammar
Teacher makes the difference

24. High School Increase critical reading of longer texts
Increase writing and rigor
Continue and increase updated texts
Increase diversity and choice

25. High School Course Offerings
Want
Not Needed
More writing - creative, informational, technical, journalistic
Public Speaking
Communication
Nothing

26. SAT/ACT Prep Course Interest
High School
Middle School
Generally a good idea
Unsure how it will fit in the student’s schedule
Adequate interest; will focus on awareness

27. Next Steps Update all staff Continue board presentations
Review, select, recommend, and purchase resources
Develop curriculum
Plan and execute professional development
Implement in phases

28. Thank you!
Questions?