A Clearinghouse for Martensdale-St. Marys Community Schools Professional Development

Monday, January 17, 2011

Whatever It Takes, Chapter Seven

We begin the spring semester with a look at chapter seven in Whatever It Takes. In this chapter, the focus is on another elementary school, Los Penasquitos, located in San Diego, California. While there are a great number of differences between Los Pen and MstM (ethnicity, SES, size, etc.), there are a lot of lessons to learn from this school's systemic and systematic approach to engaging all learners.

1. How did Los Penasquitos Elementary School . . .
a. Identify students who needed additional time and support for learning?
b. Provide that additional time and support?


2. Compare and contrast the Boones Mill plan for intervention with the Los Penasquitos plan for intervention.


3. How are the commitments presented in the Los Pen Pledge different from the belief statements included in most strategic planning and visioning processes being used by schools?

4. Contrast the use of the Los Pen Student Success Team with the typical use of Child Study Teams in traditional schools.


5. Los Pen operates under the assumption that student achievement data should be easily accessible to and openly shared among teachers. Is student achievement data easily accessible and openly shared in your school? What steps might be taken to make this happen in your school?

8 comments:

  1. PLC Group 1: Caleb, Don, Noel, Paula

    1. How did Los Penasquitos Elementary School . . .
    a. Identify students who needed additional time and support for learning? The classroom teachers identified interventions and developing solutions when a student was experiencing difficulties.
    b. Provide that additional time and support? They paid facilitators hourly and were selected for their expertise. They did this both before and after school.

    2. Compare and contrast the Boones Mill plan for intervention with the Los Penasquitos plan for intervention. -Both Plans align daily instruction for specified learning objectives. Both schools have collaborative teams as well as programs set up to increase parental involvement. Each school has very different ethnic groups.

    3. How are the commitments presented in the Los Pen Pledge different from the belief statements included in most strategic planning and visioning processes being used by schools? -The staff has transformed those phrases into powerful commitments that they act upon and bring to life each day. They've established programs for them as well.

    4. Contrast the use of the Los Pen Student Success Team with the typical use of Child Study Teams in traditional schools. -It honors teachers' time. Each facilitator at Los PEn is assigned to specific SST meetings and is called upon to lead his or her meetings. Members of the SST typically only devote 2-3 hours per month to the process.

    5. Los Pen operates under the assumption that student achievement data should be easily accessible to and openly shared among teachers. Is student achievement data easily accessible and openly shared in your school? What steps might be taken to make this happen in your school? Student data is readily available to other teachers. We meet physically at some point during the year to go over ITBS/ITED data. We also can use the HEART database to look at student achievement data for ITBS/ITEDS. You can look at your own students grades in all the rest of their classes on JMC to monitor progress as well.

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  2. Melissa Schad, Jan Devore, Brenda Halverson, Jodi Noga, Amy Dewaard, Sara Kuhns, Joe Franey

    1. How did Los Penasquitos Elementary School . . .
    a. Identify students who needed additional time and support for learning? They had a data clerk and facilitators for each grade level.

    b. Provide that additional time and support?
    They had booster clubs, tutoring clubs, counseling, parent university, etc. to assist them. The teachers get paid by the hour to provide that assistance.

    2. Compare and contrast the Boones Mill plan for intervention with the Los Penasquitos plan for intervention.

    They both used data and student trends to make decisions. Boones Mill was a high school plan and Los Penasquitos was a elementary school. They both used extra funding to acheive their plan. They both used specific goals focused on student achievement. Both used volunteers to make things happen. The specials teachers were all part of Boones Mill's intervention.

    3. How are the commitments presented in the Los Pen Pledge different from the belief statements included in most strategic planning and visioning processes being used by schools?

    They're not just statements, they are actions that all teachers must take.


    4. Contrast the use of the Los Pen Student Success Team with the typical use of Child Study Teams in traditional schools.

    In a lot of the child study teams, they look at it as the 1st step to Special Education. The SST looks at it as ways to prevent being put into Special Education.



    5. Los Pen operates under the assumption that student achievement data should be easily accessible to and openly shared among teachers. Is student achievement data easily accessible and openly shared in your school? What steps might be taken to make this happen in your school?

    Yes, we do share data through data days, our black boxes. We also use the yellow/blue cards at the end of the year. We have ITBS data days.

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  3. Rana, Kim, & Terah
    1.a) Teacher referal is how the process begins, then discussed at a meeting, which sometimes consists of parents who would make recommendations of students. A group of teachers through several meetings decides if the student will recieve services.
    b.facilitators are paid hourly and are selected by their expertise, after school tutoring, time consists of the counseling, peer tutoring, programs before and after school, parents are educated, and there are partners in the community.

    2. Boones Mill had less options and resources, yet they both have a set system that involves parents and peers in the process. They also have a great evaulation and monitoring systems set up to make sure the programs are functioning to the greatest degree.

    3.Their belief systems seem to be the same, each school is focused on the sucess of each student as their final outcome.

    4.Typically school systems do not desolve to these extreme to provide processes for students to succeed. In our experience traditional methods are an evolving process dependent on the leadership of the time, AEA standards, and district policy. Lots of observation and data is collected and each student case is tackled by a gathering of support staff, parents and teachers to begin an intervention apperiate to that students particular needs.

    5. Our student data is shared and accessible most of the time, often it depends on the data, who takes the data, and what it is used for. Som data that we have gathered in the past, for example bullying, has been gathered and anylzed but not necessary used to solve the problem.

    ReplyDelete
  4. 1.
    a. When students were not achieving at grade level, they were identified.
    b. Student Success Team after you have tried all the interventions you could try.
    2. Boones Mill developed outcomes and assessments of their own, then analyzed the results, to find those in need of assistance. Los Pen used a comprehensive list of interventions that had to be exhausted firt on a referred student, in order to determine if the student needed assistance above and beyond.
    3. The pledge is more specific, yet contains the same planning and vision that is in most schools mission statements.
    4. The Los Pen SST system works on a on-on-one basis with each student, where a teacher is responsible for that student in relationship with the interventions taking place with other teachers. Most Child Study Teams(BAT?) are team directed without the one-on-one relationship and ownership by a single teacher.
    5. Achievement data is shared for the most part. It would be nice to have access to student transcripts on JMC, just like grades and attendance. It would be nice for the parents to have also.

    ReplyDelete
  5. 1a. Los Pen identified students by a series of interventions by the teachers. If the students still struggle with the interventions, then they proceed to the SST groups for further assistance.

    1b. The SST would meet once a month and distribute the duties so that it would be less demanding on the teachers. Also, Title I funds would be used for teachers performing extra assistance.

    2. Boones Mill's intervention included shifting resources to provide time and support for students. Los Pen, however, used interventions like mentoring/tutoring, counseling, volunteering, and other supports to help students achieve their goal. Both require a great deal of committment from all parties for the program to be successful. Also, they both developed specific outcomes for their students.

    3. Los Pen gives the parents, along with the students, responsibility in their statment. Not many schools include parents or administrators in their pledges, mission, and vision statements.

    4. Los Pen had dedicated time and support for the program. They had extra funds to support the teachers putting in the extra time. Also in Los Pen, classroom teachers cannot suggest students for special services until all interventions have been exhausted. By having a set of interventions, teachers have the same form to evaluate each student before taking the next step.

    5. Student data is easily accessible from students JMC scores and access to all students' ITBS scores. Also, collaboration among teachers is common, which helps open discussion on achievement of grades and individual students.

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  6. from Sara F., Mollie, Dianne, Amanda P., Jen P.

    1.a.Teacher referral of a student after all interventions available to the classroom teacher have failed to bring about the desire improvement.
    1.b. SST coordinator meets w/ facilitator, teacher, stuent, & parents meet to decide upon new interventions for the next 6-8 weeks. Numerous resources are available from many groups to provide addition time/support (impact teacher groups, after-school tutoring, math booster club...) Teachers work longer days & make themselves more available to students for longer hours.

    2. Boone Mill schools used test scores to identify students who needed extra tutoring. They provided these students with a 30 minute tutoring block per day. Los Penasquitos schools begin their process by teachers referring their students to the Student Success Team for consideration.

    Both schools use mentoring, peer tutoring, and parent workshops/university.

    3. Commitments are different because Los Pen "promises to do whatever it takes to ensure that every student achieves or exceeds grade-level academic expectations."

    4. The Los Pen Student Success Team differs from the typical use of Child Study Teams, because they have more monetary resources to be able to pay their team for their hourly work. Comprehensive interventions are available and used by the Los Pen SST including math booster clubs, after-school clubs, 6-6 program, Los Pen Parent University, and Community Partnerships.

    5. We feel that our student achievement data is easily accessible and openly shared in our school. We share student data with fellow teachers and administrators to bounce ideas off of each other and to discuss the students' needs. Teachers collect several types of data and share readily with collaborating teachers and administrators.

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  7. 1. How did Los Penasquitos Elementary School . . .
    a. Identify students who needed additional time and support for learning?

    Student achievement is measured by tests and other objective measures. Also, they have grade level academic expectations and if students don’t meet those expectations, they are referred to the team.

    b. Provide that additional time and support?
    Impact teacher groups, math booster club, after school tutoring clubs, 6-6 program, counseling, mentoring, peer tutoring, senior citizen support, community partnerships, SST facilitator support, classroom teacher support, creative grouping reading recovery, and literacy specialist support.

    2. Compare and contrast the Boones Mill plan for intervention with the Los Penasquitos plan for intervention.
    The Boones Mill had very few resources compared to the Los Penasquitos School. Los Pen has more clubs and programs. They do a lot more out-of-school support services such as the senior citizen support and community partnership. They also got a lot of money through grants and other means.

    Boones Mill has a more step by step process as opposed to all the different programs with people doing their own thing. Boones Mill seems to have more feedback regarding how students are performing which provides more structure.


    3. How are the commitments presented in the Los Pen Pledge different from the belief statements included in most strategic planning and visioning processes being used by schools?

    The staff promises to do whatever it takes to go that extra mile in order to have students succeed. Other schools have that goal in mind but they don’t necessarily state that specifically or have the time or funding to commit to all the different programs.

    Los Pen has a no limits belief on learning potential for any child. Parents, teachers, and students are all held to high standards of performance regarding student achievement. They want to make their school one of the highest achieving in their district.

    4. Contrast the use of the Los Pen Student Success Team with the typical use of Child Study Teams in traditional schools.

    They have a ‘no excuses’ policy which means just because you are in an impoverished area doesn’t mean you can’t succeed. They have many more programs and services that traditional schools might not have access to. They do have more individualized learning which is similar to our interventions.


    5. Los Pen operates under the assumption that student achievement data should be easily accessible to and openly shared among teachers. Is student achievement data easily accessible and openly shared in your school? What steps might be taken to make this happen in your school?

    The information is there but we don’t necessarily have the time to discuss and interpret what is going on with the kids or collaborate to provide services regarding the data. We say the information is there but we don’t always utilize it to the best of our abilities. Sometimes with interventions, we are expected to do things individually from a book rather than use the professional team.
    We need to ‘arm ourselves’ with more tools and resources in order to provide opportunities that will work with a diverse student population. We need more time to review the data as well as time for collaboration among teachers and assistants as well as time to push the ‘middle’ or ‘average’ group in order to help them succeed more.

    -- Amanda, Tish, Barb

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  8. 1.
    a. Teachers had to do all the interventions themselves and when that didn’t work they referred them to the SST group.
    b. Many methods to provide support. Some identified as counseling, peer mentoring, after-school programs, senior citizen groups, etc.
    2. Boones Mill had a clear cut system for identifying struggling students. Los seems like their system is more subjective and places the responsibility on classroom teachers. Their needs were also very different due to their student population. At Los, emotional and social support is just as important as academics. Los had a lot of parent support and classes on parenting. Boones had parent workshops but more for updating them on curriculum.
    3. The Los Pledge stresses faculty to do whatever it takes and must be available after hours for the success of the students. Expectations of teachers are high. Both had a whole staff approach to student support. Boones Mill seemed like it told more of the process while Los showed the finished product.
    4. The divide and conquer approach seems more effective than having one BAT team working with struggling students.
    5. The time is not made available to retrieve data and analyze it. Data isn’t available on a consistent basis, usually only annually or each semester. Extra time for teachers may be needed to assess data.

    ReplyDelete