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School Narratives

1-2 page/s User-friendly language Encourage use of graphics, charts, creative representations

Address 2 questions: 1. Explain connections between Tier 2 & 3 indicators for your school. Reflect on the specific improvement strategies your staff chose to address student learning. Reflect on your school's performance re: same.

2. Explain the story behind the numbers. Describe triumphs & challenges that impact students, staff & community that may not be apparent from the data.

Exemplars

1. Grant Road School 30% of Grade 1 students were below grade reading level in September. SMART goal was to improve these results.

Strategies: Every student was benchmarked (assessed) monthly on guided reading level.

Focused extra support: Students below level received extra time, practice, support via (15-30 min/day) either one-on-one or small group: -in class support -SSTs -volunteers (business partners & seniors) -reading buddies -reading club

Teachers participated in professional learning that addressed focused reading instruction.

Student time & support was tracked. Results: 8 students received 15 minutes daily gained 1/2 level/month 5 students received 30 minutes daily - 4 gained 1 level/month 1 student gained 1/2 level/month

Conclusion Extra focused reading support helped the majority of our students gain 1/2 to 1 level of reading/month.

2. Morgan Academy We had a problem with bullying behavior at our school.

SMART goal - to reduce # of bully incidents by half in one school year - increase student & parent feedback to proficiency level of 80% +

Strategy: September - anti-bully survey given to all students and families, data plotted, 60% satisfaction rate by parents, 50% by students, staff 80%. - review last year's discipline data: 10 incidents reported/month at the office - student/parent/teacher committee developed year long plan with monthly strategies to be addressed by whole school - discussed gaps in stakeholders. Need to align by seeking input from 3 stakeholder groups to understand the differences

October to May - monthly assemblies to model appropriate/desired behaviors, language, goals - weekly lessons addressed appropriate behavior - newsletters informed parents of strategies, monthly learnings, statistics - monthly stats shared with staff, students, parents - discipline procedures developed & clearly posted - new reporting strategy developed & shared - SCC & student council addressed satisfaction gap: newsletters, meetings, shared new procedures

June - collated montly data into year-end total - will conduct anti-bully survey once/year each June - reported incidents reduced to 6/month - satisfaction parents 75% students 80% staff 80%

We learned that this issue can never be at rest. We plan to add student mentors next year. We will continue our plan every year with updates & changes for improvements as we learn.

3. Dundee School The staff felt we could not get parents involved in our school. We hosted an evening open house where parents participated in their student's classes, welcome breakfast and parent-teacher conferences. All were poorly attended.

SMART Goal To improve parent participation in student learning. Strategy: Involve students in ways to communicate with parents re: learning achievement & activities at our school. We began by asking 3 questions of all students & parents. Response rate students 95%, parents 20%. 1. What do parents need to know about your learning and our school? 2. Are we presently doing anything that works? 3. What are some ways we can improve this?

Student Data Students were not eager to share achievement results with their parents. Report Card time was dreaded. Students felt little control &/or involvement in determining and reporting their learning results. Students did not see the connection to their life opportunities.

Parent Data Parents did not understand how student results were determined. Each teacher had their own system. Parents felt teachers reporting to them, without their student present, was meaningless. 80% of the parents did not feel comfortable coming to school. Parents felt a contact from the school indicated their student was in trouble. Due to busy schedules, parents found it difficult to attend school events.

The main strategy was to shift the focus onto student learning & involve students in this improvement initiative. Every classroom had a student representative who met monthly to develop & carry out targetted strategies. Any hosted events were organized by students & featured student learning. Monthly interim achievement & behavior reports were sent home, with a follow-up contact by staff. Student-led conferences were established. Informal, frequent learning events were hosted at various times of day by students to help parents understand learning & activities. A plan to include community career connections & opportunities was integrated monthly into the school.

Students & parents will be surveyed again to compare results.