Jennifer Berry NELA Cohort II Administrative Intern Nashville Elementary

DLP Session 1 Assignment

1.2 Applying the PDCA Cycle for Continuous Improvement
This past school year, Nashville Elementary achieved the distinction of becoming a Reward School and is performing in the top ten percent of elementary schools in the state. Based on a comprehensive review of EOG data over the past five years, Math has been identified as an area of strength for the school with an overall proficiency rate of 93.4%. For the past two years, fourth grade has even managed to achieve proficiency rates at greater than 95%. In fact even when looking at sub-group performance data, there is only a very small gap in performance (less than 10 percentage points) in math when comparing students by race, economically disadvantaged versus non-economically disadvantaged, and students with disabilities which are traditionally where much larger discrepancies are found in performance. In reading, overall proficiency was 81.2%. Although this is above the district average, there is still room for growth in this particular area. When looking at discrepancies in sub-group performance data, the two areas that stand out are the economically disadvantaged versus non-economically disadvantaged and students with disabilities subgroups. Here performance discrepancies are between 20 and 25 percentage points. Based on classroom observations and walk-throughs, teachers are utilizing a great deal of whole group instruction. Although students within a grade level may be ability grouped across the grade level for instruction at their level, there is still a relatively small amount of time spent on small group instruction and building background knowledge and higher order thinking skills. During literacy instruction comprehension is the skill most emphasized beginning in second grade, all the way up to fifth grade. There is no emphasis or instruction on phonemic awareness or phonics for students missing those skills. Through PLC meetings, it was discovered that teachers knew how to assess benchmark skills at each grade level, but were unsure how to utilize our current universal screener to identify gaps in lower level skills that are effecting comprehension. Plan: Goal: All students will grow by one year in reading as measured by the Reading 3D Assessment Train all teachers how to administer off-grade level assessments in the skill areas of phonemic awareness and phonics Train all teachers how to analyze data to determine intervention needs and plan appropriate interventions Assess all students that scored red or yellow on the universal screener with off-grade level assessments to determine gaps in phonemic awareness, phonics, and fluency instruction

Use assessment data to group students across each grade level based on their intervention needs

Do:

Homeroom Teachers will group students within the grade level into small groups based upon their targeted intervention and enrichment needs Administration will assign Instructional Assistants and Specials teachers to a grade level during I/E time Implement a daily intervention and enrichment schedule to include the assistance of all classroom teachers, Specials teachers, and Instructional Assistants at every grade level Homeroom Teachers will progress monitor students weekly using Reading 3D Assessment probes Homeroom teachers, Specials teachers, and Instructional Assistants will provide research-based interventions and enrichment in a small group setting to all students daily based on assessment data Homeroom teachers will identify research-based interventions to utilize during I/E time Professional Development on administering Reading 3D probes, analyzing data to determine needs, grouping students for intervention/enrichment, progress monitoring, and research-based interventions will be embedded within PLC meetings by administration, SST members, and the school psychologist

Check: Progress monitor students weekly to determine the effectiveness of interventions Analyze student data across the grade level bi-weekly to determine needed changes in student groupings and interventions during PLC meetings Fidelity checks with homeroom teachers by administration to ensure that all assessments are being given uniformly to ensure data collected is an accurate assessment of student performance Act:

Continue intervention and enrichment groupings and strategies that are working based on assessment data Implement new interventions for students who are not showing growth based on assessment data

Assignment 1.3 Personal Reflection on Strategic Leadership:

Strategic Leadership is the driver of the seven standards because it sets the purpose for everything that you do in the school. Without a clear vision of what you want to achieve and a concrete plan for achieving your goals, then how will you know if you are headed in the right direction? You must have a clear vision that can be communicated to others in a way that will get them to want to support the vision, and the vision must be clear enough that everyone involved knows what the vision looks like at every level of implementation and support. Strategic

Leadership creates unity around an inspiring and shared purpose with buy-in at every level. During my internship year, I will work with my mentor principal to evaluate our schools vision, mission, and beliefs and to evaluate if all that we say and do truly aligns with our intended vision.