PROBLEM OF PRACTICE
- With the majority of our students learning virtually this year it was important to increase student learning for our lowest performing subgroups by supporting our WHOLE school community to increase student attendance, participation, and engagement.
- A little overview of Washington we are a K-5 Magnet School with a gifted and talented program. Where everyone has a gift or talent to share. We have 549 students and by the breakdown you can see we do not have a majority instead we say we have 100% great kids.
- With 75% of our students being virtual this year and trying to meet our SIP goal of meeting or exceeding growth we found we had a big hurdle to tackle. As you can see in this chart every year, these are our lowest performing subgroups which are always the main focus and need the most support.
- Our concerns are with loose attendance guidelines, inequitable access to virtual learning, highest non-participation in tested grades, non engagement rate increasing to 25%, and an increase in missing intervention, IEP, and instructional support.
- Therefore we believed student attendance and participation would decrease, learning gaps would increase, our lowest performing groups would be the most negatively impacted, growth and achievement would decrease, and staff and families would need support tackling this year’s challenges.
- Therefore, my POP was focused on increasing and maintaining student learning of low performing subgroups by effectively supporting students, families, and teachers in the remote/blended environment and increasing and monitoring student attendance, participation, and engagement.
- Our 1st strategy was to see where we were by collecting data, doing teacher walkthroughs, getting feedback from ALL stakeholders, implementing an attendance percentage tracker, and creating schedules that supported ALL students, families, and teachers.
- Our second strategy was to support staff and increase staff knowledge by providing time and ensuring all staff completed the Wake County blended learning modules and PD on feedback provided by admin on how feedback can increase student engagement.
- Also, the 4CATS team provided PD on Digital learning tools for engagement and participation. Staff had choices, received feedback, and had follow up sessions. We will end the year by planning what PD staff will need and what digital tools will be used next year to increase engagement.
- Our 3rd strategy was to focus on students by providing intervention and small group support. We focused on creating intervention plans, schedules, student groupings, and using the intervention effectiveness tracker. We wanted to ensure ALL students were receiving what they needed to increase their learning.
- Our 4th strategy was to support students and families by improving attendance and participation. It started with just tracking attendance and we saw students' participation numbers drop, so I improved the process with an attendance/participation guidance infographic.
- Attendance was directed to one place while participation/engagement was directed in another. I worked with the student support services team weekly to make home visits, phone calls, conferences and provide materials and technology, tech support, and create plans to support families virtually.
- At the beginning we saw improvement from 125 students not participating in May to 33 for the first quarter. By 2nd quarter it increased to 52. We improved the process and it dropped to 22 for the 3rd quarter. As of 4/26 we have 8 students.
- Overall, we saw a decrease from 25% not participating to a final of 1%, Lowest performing groups were positively affected, we increased equity among VA and in person learning, and we increased fidelity with intervention, feedback, and engagement.
- Also, we saw staff felt so supported, comfortable providing feedback and raising concerns it unexpectedly improved our TWC data as you can see here when we assessed staff in April we saw great improvement in our lowest areas.
- After this process some recommendations would be to continue the attendance/participation supports, to continue to provide and focus on our lowest performing subgroups, providing intervention and small groups, providing needed PD for staff, and continue collecting data and getting feedback from the school community.
- My personal reflection from this process is that I’m thankful I was able to support my whole school community through this new process, reduce barriers and create equitable access, and create strategies, review data, improve on them and then see the end result of success and improvement.
- For next year, with a VA program there will still need to be a way to support the WHOLE school community. There will need to be a process for attendance/participation support, support for families and PD for teachers, a way to start the year with intervention, and focus on a way to provide our lowest performing subgroups with what they need to be successful.