FBLA - EDL 273

Wallace School Improvement Plan

District Vision: ​Creating a culture of excellence where students come first.

District Mission:​ We commit all district resources to guide the learning of each
student, to graduate as confident learners with character, knowledge, and the
skills to excel in any endeavor they pursue.

Wallace School Goals

GOAL 1:
All students will be able to read and
comprehend grade level text or beyond,
and as a result show an ​increase in
number​ of students proficient in both
FAST and Benchmarking by May 2018. 431
students or 80% of K-5 students were
proficient Fall of 2017.
GOAL 2:
All students will demonstrate empathy
and build personal connections, and as a
result show a decrease in the number of
students feeling that they are not often
treated well at Wallace measured through
a student well-being survey.

We looked at Wallace’s continual improvement plan to identify goals that will

improve school efforts towards student achievement in reading. We focused on
Wallace’s first goal centered on reading data.

We selected this focus in order to make our current realities relevant to the work
and improvement that needs to be done school-wide to increase student
achievement in reading.
Measure Data What does the data
mean?
Fast Reading - 2017-2018 Since this is our first year
completing the FAST
Fluency Whole School assessment, it is hard to identify
a trend. We have previously
done the A-reader assessment
Fall: 80% proficient so we can not compare data
Winter: 77% proficient from previous years.

Due to our increase in student

enrollment at Wallace, as well
as an increase in proficiency
score from Fall to Winter, our
overall proficiency score has
decreased by 3%.

Benchmarking 2017-2018 Data evaluations from Fall 2017

to Winter 2018 per grade level
Whole School
Fall: 80% proficient ● Kindergarten made a
2% increase
Winter: 82% proficient
By grade level: % proficiency ● 1st grade made a 10%
increase

Grade Fall Winter ● 2nd grade made a 1%

increase
K 81% 83%
● 3rd grade made a 5%
1 82% 92% increase

79% 80% ● 4th grade proficiency

2 stayed the same

3 85% 90% ● 5th grade proficiency

decreased by 3%
4 81% 81%
This data collection point has
5 72% 69% been collected from Fall 2017 to
Winter 2018. There are not
enough data points to show year
to year trends. However, the
overall data is increasing only
slightly and is decreasing in 5th
grade in particular.
Wallace Data Wall: (Benchmarking)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MLo07jyPoPz2tFEZcmezphoLLv-
7voOGq1vkzudT7tE/edit?usp=sharing

Whole School Fast Assessment Data

1​. What does the data say about students’ current level of performance?

The students’ current level of performance is stagnant as measured

by the FAST Reading assessment (CBM-R) and Fountas & Pinnell
Benchmarking. This data was determined by averaging our whole school
proficiency with FAST Reading and Benchmarking, resulting in 80%
proficient in the fall for both and 79.5% proficient in the winter.

2. What might be causing the current results?

Possible causes of the current results could indicate that our current
instructional practices in reading are not increasing student achievement
due to lack of teacher knowledge and/or their responsiveness to student
needs. In addition, the lack in progress towards proficiency for our upper
elementary students (3-5) could be related to overall student beliefs and
attitudes towards reading.
As we have implemented a new reading curriculum this year, teacher
fatigue in the amount of time and stamina needed for each lesson takes
away from the time and efficiency of small group instruction that our staff
has been used to in the past.The expectations for time per session asks for
more accountability from students and teachers than other curriculum
previously used.
Another potential cause of the current results could be the significant
increase of independent reading time per day. According to the current
curriculum students should be able to identify, select, and read appropriate
text for 20-45 minutes, depending on the grade level. A majority of our
students do not have the stamina or mindset in order to meet the current
reality of our current curriculum expectations. Since this is our first year of
implementation of this curriculum, the hope is that data will increase from
year to year provided more time and experience with these expectations.

Part Ib: Plan – Define the Current Situation

1. What is the problem/opportunity for improvement and why are you

selecting it?

The opportunity for improvement is to increase the number of

students proficient on both the FAST Reading assessment and Fountas &
Pinnell Benchmarking assessment from 80% to 100% by May 2018. This
area of improvement was selected based due to the stagnant state of our
student achievement on both reading assessments.
2. How is this opportunity for improvement connected to the mission and
vision of the school?

This opportunity for improvement is taken directly from our Wallace’s

2017-2018 Continuous Improvement Plan. The first goal, centered on
reading achievement, directly correlates to our district’s mission of
commiting to a culture of excellence where all students come first. This
goal addresses the area of student learning.

3. What is currently being done to address the issue?

Currently, Wallace works within grade level PLCs, in which student

data is analyzed and monitored to track progress or to address instructional
practices in core instruction or small group support. Lead teachers and our
instructional coach facilitate this process and supports discussions in
student achievement.
Students are selected for additional support using data from formative
and summative assessments. The support is provided in small group
because less than 20% of the students are below the benchmark. Fluency
and accuracy is being addressed in the majority of the classrooms through
repeated readings in many different forms, depending on the grade level.
4. What SMART goal(s) will you set for improvement?

To increase the number of students proficient in both FAST reading

and Benchmarking assessments from 80% to 100% for the 2017-2018
school year for all Kindergarten through 5th grade students.

Part II: Do – Plan Improvement Strategies

1. What improvement (change) strategies will you implement in the next
45-60 days?

Since we are at the end of the school year, our goal is to start off on
the right foot to begin the 2018-19 school year. The strategies we will put in
place will hopefully provide staff with relevant, ongoing professional
development in the area of literacy and support of literacy-based
instructional strategies. While working within grade level teams PLCs,
teachers will also include input and support from EL, Special Education,
reading specialists, instructional coaches, and other support teachers to
create action plans to support all readers. Teachers will focus on
monitoring lower achieving readers, documenting interventions such as
Wilson and Leveled Literacy Intervention (also known as LLI), as well as
work with our reading recovery teachers for our 1st grade students in order
to triangulate data to be responsive to individual student needs. Within
PLCs, all stakeholders, will focus their attention to DuFour's questions of
how will we know students are learning and what will we do in response to
those not meeting the standard, as well as those who are proficient in the
standard. Student progress will be monitored by the PLC through data
teaming with formative and summative assessments.
As a school, we have also determined that teacher observations are
essential in building a toolbox of instructional strategies and classroom
community techniques. Therefore, teachers will be highly encouraged to
observe other classrooms to gain insight in the learning environments
around them and how it connects to our current learning and practices
within our school. These observations could be done as a team or with the
support of an instructional leader. Teachers will discuss their observations
using the given school-determined format and asked to focus on
observations alone, rather than judgement/opinion (for example, 2 things
observed that match the current practices and 1 question for the teacher
observed) at the next PLC meeting.

2. What has caused you to select those strategies?

As a school, we are focused on implementing a new reading

curriculum with fidelity, therefore ongoing PD in this area is crucial to the
development of instructional strategies to increase teachers knowledge,
confidence, and stamina.
Since we are working to build the whole child, when supporting them
in academically, we need to take in account the opinions, observations, and
expertise of all stakeholders involved. Therefore communication while
providing interventions is vital between all of these members to ensure
success and provide documentation of growth or to support areas of
need/further assistance through the STAT/IEP process.
Through observations, teachers are able to get see a different model
of current practices or could lead to critical conversations that are needed
in order to drive the team in making the decisions based on what is best for
kids.

3. How and what data will you gather to determine if the improvement
strategies are working?

Through observation, teammates should be able to see teachers

using/implementing current practices from our professional development
sessions. The learning implemented form PD should/would be discussed
when planning the next lessons as a team (team planning/PLC).
 Student data will determine if improvement strategies are working
based on benchmarking and FAST assessment scores. FAST progress
monitoring data will be gathered weekly, analyzed every four weeks and
documented on each team’s PLC log. This data will be tracked and
discussed to determine which students need additional support and
document any changes made during instruction with specific students.
The School Leadership team designates one school leader to sit in
with each PLC weekly to document work done and discussion had so that
all members can engage within the work without distraction. These leaders
will help teams, if needed, set the agenda for the upcoming weeks.