2011-09-24T09:55:00.000-07:00

SIP Progress, 2010-2011 school year: Preliminary data indicate that HMS showed solid gains in sixth through eighth grade reading and strong gains in fifth grade and seventh grade mathematics. In addition, certain data indicate that efforts to improve student engagement have paid dividends

The efficiency and focus of collaboration teams (“Professional Learning Community” or PLC teams) also appeared to be very significant. The district endeavor to provide ongoing training for teacher-leaders of the PLC teams, assisted with some grant support by the White Salmon Valley Education Foundation, appear to have paid off. End-of-year surveys submitted by PLC participants indicated that some significant and satisfying work was accomplished, while at the same time, future improvement goals were identified. Jill Shelley took the lead role in organizing coordination and communication among the Henkle PLC “facilitators,” and she deserves much credit. The other HMS PLC facilitators included Jennifer Graves (the arts), Steve Kingsford-Smith (social studies), Cleresse Sprague (mathematics), Amy Sacquety and Heather Whidden (language arts), Karen Strain (7th/8th grade), and Sally Wells (5th/6th grade). Besides taking the lead as a PLC organizer, Mrs. Shelley also facilitated the building’s “tech” PLC.

Because the PLC’s became the leading means for guiding school improvement, the building SIP team did not meet quite as frequently. However, its contributions to the overall building improvement remain quite important. SIP Team members in 2010-2011 were:

Susan Lovrin, District Representative
Heather Whidden, 5/6 Teacher Representative
Jill Shelley, 7/8 Teacher Representative
Michael Hanks, Parent Representative
Rick George, Administrator
Karynn Campbell, Paraeducator Representative
Karen Strain, 7/8 Teacher Representative
Donna Rockwell, Parent Representative
Sally Wells, 5/6 Teacher Representative

2010-2011 SIP Results

Supportive and Respectful School Climate
Henkle Middle School worked on its school climate goal through several means.
7th/8th Grade “Wing” PLC Team: At the close of the 2009-2010 school year, the seventh and eighth grade PLC team hypothesized that working to improve student motivation would lead an increasing number of students positively engaged with their school work. The team developed a “Grizzly Coin” incentive system that enabled staff to more easily give positive recognition to students for their accomplishments, and students responded well. In addition, the team continued to include “Navigation 101” activities, such as student goal-setting and reflecting about their work, into the Connections advisory as well as within their regular classes, an effort begun in 2009-2010. As the year progressed, teachers began to reflect about their own teaching and especially their assessment processes; a spirit of inquiry and sharing emerged, at about the same time that the district unveiled its Instructional Framework adoption, “Five Dimensions of Teaching and Learning.” Among those “dimensions,” the district has chosen to focus on “student engagement,” for which the framework cites numerous guiding questions and instructional practices to lead to improvement.
Results: There was a decline among 7th and 8th grade students in the total number of final “F” grades received for the overall year compared to 2009-2010. Tracking the same class—this year’s eighth graders compared to when they were seventh graders in 2009-2010—four less students received at least one F compared to their seventh grade performance, and the total number of F’s they received collectively declined 21 percent. Final “F” grades among seventh graders dropped dramatically. The table below provides specific numbers:
Connections/Virtues Curriculum (5/6 & 7/8 Grade-level Wings): Besides working on students’ engagement and motivation, various efforts took place school-wide to impact “climate” and behavior. In the 5/6 Wing, teachers used a program called “Virtues.” Each Monday a new virtue (such as tolerance, honor, and responsibility) was featured and taught during “Connections” time. Students did activities related to the theme of each week. Seventh and eighth grade continued to use its “Connections” Advisory time to discuss issues related to school climate, and once again, the eighth graders participated in a Challenge Day. (See http://www.challengeday.org/.)

Results: Henkle has been tracking discipline referrals for six years. Total discipline referrals September-April were much lower than 2009-2010 and lower than 2008-2009. Referrals that fit into the “HIB” category (Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying; but also including any kind of physical aggression fighting, threats of fighting, etc.) were much fewer compared to 2009-2010 but still higher than 2008-2009 and in prior years. The pattern of individual classes “getting better:” continued. In 2009-2010, the amount of HIB referrals for the classes of 2015 and 2016 were, respectively, 40 and 33. In 2010-2011, the number of referrals for those same classes (8th graders and 7th graders last year) were 30 and 15. We have results for the month of May only for the past two school years; this past school year had less overall and less HIB referrals in May compared to 2009-2010.

Connections/Virtues Curriculum (5/6 & 7/8 Grade-level Wings): Besides working on students’ engagement and motivation, various efforts took place school-wide to impact “climate” and behavior. In the 5/6 Wing, teachers used a program called “Virtues.” Each Monday a new virtue (such as tolerance, honor, and responsibility) was featured and taught during “Connections” time. Students did activities related to the theme of each week. Seventh and eighth grade continued to use its “Connections” Advisory time to discuss issues related to school climate, and once again, the eighth graders participated in a Challenge Day. (See http://www.challengeday.org/.)

Results: Henkle has been tracking discipline referrals for six years. Total discipline referrals September-April were much lower than 2009-2010 and lower than 2008-2009. Referrals that fit into the “HIB” category (Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying; but also including any kind of physical aggression fighting, threats of fighting, etc.) were much fewer compared to 2009-2010 but still higher than 2008-2009 and in prior years. The pattern of individual classes “getting better:” continued. In 2009-2010, the amount of HIB referrals for the classes of 2015 and 2016 were, respectively, 40 and 33. In 2010-2011, the number of referrals for those same classes (8th graders and 7th graders last year) were 30 and 15. We have results for the month of May only for the past two school years; this past school year had less overall and less HIB referrals in May compared to 2009-2010.

Question: Did the focus on Student Engagement and Student Motivation impact student behavior and school climate? Through December of this school year, there were actually 37 more discipline referrals among 7th and 8th graders compared to 2009-2010. But January through April, there were 92 less referrals among those students compared to 2009-2010. To a lesser degree, the same pattern occurred among fifth and sixth graders. Much educational research connects students’ feelings of self-efficacy and engagement to behavior.

Literacy
Historically, except for 2009-2010, the pattern for results has typically been mixed, with many students struggling in fifth grade, stabilizing in sixth grade, and then making gains compared to their statewide peers in seventh grade. Prior to budget cuts enacted for 2009-2010, non-program (non- Special Education) students in all grades who were performing below grade level received many hundreds of additional hours of reading instruction. During 2010-2011, Henkle managed to restore a small amount of additional reading instructional time, ranging from 20 to 40 hours for some seventh and eighth graders to about 40 hours for some fifth and sixth graders.

Teachers at Henkle have always strived to obtain and deliver the best learning experiences they can, despite not having one specific “core” curriculum resource. Fifth and sixth grade teachers designated seven specific reading instructional units to emphasize during the school year, but as in the past, exactly how to teach students those particular skills has largely been according to each teacher’s best individual efforts. The one text that the school has in common, Daybook, does not come with a yearly instructional “sequence” specifically aligned with state student learning standards. Thus, we’re very delighted that beginning in 2011-2012, we’ll have a common core literacy curriculum and a means through which we can continuously monitor our students’ learning. (More on changes for 2011-2012 later in this report)

Language Arts “PLC” team: The language arts PLC team members examined documents from several other school districts and by the end of the school year had developed grade level “frameworks” to identify student learning priorities.

On-line state assessment: All students this school year took the state reading assessment “on-line.” To prepare, all students did a tutorial and also a “practice” assessment. This state-provided practice assessment was not as lengthy or comprehensive as an actual state assessment. In addition, some fifth and sixth grade teachers shared and had their students practice some state “released” assessment items.

Results: The one means through which we can monitor students’ progress that Henkle has across grades is the use of the “Gates-MacGinnitie” standardized reading assessment. We lack common core assessments for measuring progress throughout the school year, but we’re very delighted that during the 2011-2012 school year, that will all change.

General Trends and Analysis:
• Our school continues the trend of a minority of students scoring within one year above or below grade level. Combining the results of fifth through seventh grade, 77 students scored more than one year below grade level, 42 scored within one year above or below grade level, and 92 scored more than one year above grade level. While these results would not graph to as dramatic an upside-down bell curve as in some past years, they nevertheless do profile into that upside-down bell curve, and significantly so.
• We continue to see less than one year’s growth according to this assessment among all fifth graders, despite the excellent teachers at that grade level. We are grateful that our local levy will provide us with the funding we need to purchase a “common core” curriculum that all fifth and sixth graders will be able to use in 2011-2012, a curriculum produced by the same publisher as the one Whitson uses. We need to do something different, and we’re optimistic that this new curriculum will be a big enhancement.
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Mathematics
Our multi-year district strategy focuses on a “problem of practice” related to underachieving student populations, particularly in mathematics. Our theory of action is that through the work of teacher collaboration teams (“Professional Learning Community” teams), combined with a common “instructional framework” to define effective teaching district-wide, we will see significant improvement among these categories of students. Specifically, at Henkle Middle School “non-low income” students perform better on state assessments compared to similar peers across the state, while our “low-income” students do not perform as well on state assessments compared to similar peers across the state.

Mathematics PLC: One of Henkle’s PLC teams was specifically focused upon mathematics, and this team met on eight of the early releases this school year. This team focused on the connection between brain research findings about middle-school-aged children and the instructional and learning implications. The team also noted strong research indicating that as a generality, low-income students lose ground to their non-low income peers particularly over the summer. The team developed summer learning packets with some very attractive prizes and incentives. We will see if it makes a difference in summer “learning loss” comparing students of similar profiles who did the packets with those who didn’t. We’ll also be able to measure the summer learning loss for students who attended Project Summer Fun with those who did not.

5th/6th Grade “Wing” PLC Team: Although the 5th/6th grade level team collaborated about numerous student learning concerns, including social studies and science, it concentrated its Early Release time on mathematics, particularly during the first two-thirds of the school year. Teachers continued the same focus as in 2009-2010, learning the new curriculum, discussing and refining instructional strategies, and striving for greater alignment with state standards. Teachers also provided a practice state assessment for students in April so that students would be more accustomed to the “format” of the assessment.

Results: The one means we have with which to measure student progress is the nationally-normed “STAR” mathematics assessment published by Renaissance Corporation. Whether or not this assessment is well-aligned with the state assessment is a bit questionable, but it is the best that we have right now.

General Trends and Analysis:
• The comparison of GLE growth during the 2009-2010 school year to the 2010-2011 school year are as follows: 5th graders 1.0 GLE growth in 2009-2010 to 1.6 GLE growth in 2010-2011; 6th graders 0.8 GLE growth in 2009-2010 to 1.1 GLE growth in 2010-2011; 7th grade 1.9 GLE growth in 2009-2010 to 2.7 GLE growth in 2010-2011. (It should be noted that most 7th grade special education students took the STAR assessment two times in June, and most attained a higher score the second time they took it. The test items would not have been the same test items, however.) Overall, according to this assessment, HMS students grew more in their mathematics skills in 2010-2011 than they did in 2009-2010. This may be one result of having a specific curriculum for the second consecutive year that all teachers use and about which they collaborate.

• Fifth graders scored as an average at grade level by the end of the year after having started out more than half a year below grade level. Sixth graders started out nearly two years below grade level and, despite slightly more than a year’s growth, still ended seven months below grade level. Seventh graders started out almost 1.5 years below grade level and ended up three months above grade level.

Enhancements for 2011-2012
• 5th/6th grade “core” literacy curriculum: As referred to above, HMS will adopt a “core” literacy curriculum, Journeys, produced by the same publisher that Whitson uses. This adoption will enable HMS to more effectively build upon the successes that Whitson has attained.
• Purposeful & enhanced use of data: District-wide, PLC team teacher-leaders will receive specialized training in the use of data this August. In addition, PLC literature consistently advocates the use of SMART goals (Strategic, Measurable, Attainable, Results-Oriented, & Time-Bound) to guide and measure the work of PLC teams. Beyond these PLC-focused initiatives, HMS will use a middle-grades version of the DIBELS reading assessment to “progress-monitor” students, and Jennifer Graves will have one instructional class period to oversee building assessment work in reading and writing.

HMS "School Improvement Planning"