School Improvement Plan Costner Elementary has created a school improvement plan that gives each staff member

goals that they strive to meet to improve their school. The school improvement plan begins by listing each team member that was involved in creating the plan. The team is made up of the principle, assistant principle, one teacher from every grade level, a teacher assistant, an EC teacher, and three parents. Each member of the team worked together to come up with a plan that would help improve their school. The next section of the school improvement plan focuses on the purpose, direction, and belief statement of the school, the school system, and goals from the state. Costner believes that every one of their students will experience success and strive to be excellent. The school believes in a caring and compassionate learning environment where high expectations are communicated to all. Each teacher will strive to make learning fun and create a safe learning environment for their students. One of the biggest beliefs that Costner has is collaboration. I can see this in my first grade team members. Every day after school we meet to create a basic lesson plan. This allows each teacher to have a basic idea of what they need to teach their students that week. This collaboration will help the teachers as well as the students. The character action plan of the school is the next subject covered in the school improvement plan. The character action plan has been created with Gaston County Schools Goal 5. This goal is that students will learn in a safe environment. Costner uses a Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support (PBIS) system in kindergarten through fifth grade. The school will monitor the success of PBIS throughout the 2013-2014 school year. They will use discipline data from the year to determine the success of PBIS. Costner will also implement CHAMPS throughout the entire school. Each classroom will post the CHAMPS expectations. They will

also be posted throughout the school to help remind every student of what they need to be doing in each area of the school. The success of CHAMPS will be determined by assessing discipline data. The next section of the plan discusses technology integration in the school. The second goal of Gaston County Schools is that all students will demonstrate technology competencies. The plan states that the media coordinator, computer lab specialist, and classroom teachers will collaborate to integrate technology throughout the curriculum. The team decided that this goal would be worked on during the whole school year. Monthly focus walls will be used throughout the school to help improve awareness of technology. These focus walls will be used to monitor the achievement of the goal. The last part of the school improvement plan focuses on the achievement levels of the school. Costners goal for reading is to increase the number of students reading at grade level by 10%. At the beginning of the school year the baseline score for reading was 47%. The team decided that fourth and fifth grade teachers would use STAR reading data to track their students progress in reading. The team also decided that reading workshop would continue to be implemented from kindergarten to fifth grade. They decided that reading workshop would allow each teacher to complete anecdotal notes to inform their instruction in their classrooms. To assess the progress of the goals STAR data, lesson plans, student response journals, and anecdotal notes will be analyzed throughout the school year. In November, an evaluation was completed to see how much progress was being made through the use of the goals. It was determined that every grade level had an increase in test scores. This means that the strategies being used have been successful.

Costners goal for math is to increase the number of mathematically proficient students by 10%. At the beginning of the year the baseline score for math was 52.7%. The team decided that STAR math would be used to inform instruction and assist students in analyzing their progress and help them set learning goals. The team also decided that differentiated math groups would be implemented in every grade level. This will allow for better anecdotal notes for remediation and acceleration of math skills. Anecdotal notes, common assessment data, and STAR math data will all be checked to see how successful these techniques are throughout the year. In November an evaluation was completed to see how the techniques were working. Every grade level besides fifth grade made improvements on their percentages. Fifth grade dropped by 6.1%. To fix this problem the team decided that fifth grade teachers should begin to incorporate math vocabulary anchor charts in the classroom to help students learn math vocabulary. As a student teacher I believe that it is very important to know about my schools improvement plan. After reading the plan I now know the things that I need to focus on to help improve the school. Now that I know that Costners goal is to increase their reading and math proficiency by 10% I will be able to focus on helping my students grow stronger in both subjects.