Steele Lane Elementary Santa Rosa, CA

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Steele Lane ElementarySanta Rosa, CA

• A
• Learning Community

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A LITTLE ABOUT US

• Steele Lane is located in Santa Rosa
• Santa Rosa population 250,000
• Anglo-55
• Latino 45
• Asian 2
• African-American 8

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• Steele Lane is a K-6 Elementary School
• Student population 380
• Hispanic 65
• White/Other 35
• SED 85
• Mobility Rate 50

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• Teachers
• 18 FT Classroom Teachers
• 1 RSP Teacher W/ an aide
• 1 Title I Reading Teacher
• 1 Literacy Coach (Reading First)
• 1 PIT Teacher
• 1 PT Counselor
• 1 PT Psychologist

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My assignment, should I choose to accept it

• Superintendent Solie says
• Good Luck

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Did I make a mistake?

• Two prior principals before I arrived in 2004
• - One worked for 1 year and 1 month and
  moved to DO
• - Next one finished out the year and was
  moved to another site
• The Coover Question

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The A,B,Cs

• Attendance of students was at an all-time low
  (92.45)
• Behavior
• Students (92 suspensions 140 lost school days,
  4 expulsion hearings-drugs, weapons)
• Parents (2 parents w/ restraining orders by
  school personnel)

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• -Curriculum
• -HM Reading in K-3 (most teachers had some
  training-but little consistency of
  implementation within across grade levels)
• 4-6 (no PD no HM)
• No pacing guides/calendar map
• - Math (texts published 1988 no consistent
  program within/across grade levels)
• No pacing guides/calendar map
• - Collaborative Time weekly meetings on
  minimum days (no clear, consistent focus)

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• Overall School Climate
• Diverse, economically disadvantaged student
  population angry and frustrated
• Independent Contractor Mentality among teachers
• Minimal Parent Involvement (no PTA/PFO, ELAC in
  name only) Parents seemed mad at the school.
• Some positive cheerleaders, but all in all a
• Tough Assignment

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• Definition of Insanity
• Doing the same thing over and
• over again and expecting
• different results
• Albert Einstein

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• Where to Start?
• Develop an Action Plan with Early Adopters
  (Tipping Point) with ELA Math Goals
• Primary focus on systematic Curriculum Delivery
• Professional Development
• Track Progress
• Build trust support with all stakeholders

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Action Plan

• SLIM Team agreed on two goals
• - Increase the API scores in ELA and Math by
  focusing on the students in the BB and FBB bands.
• - Increase the students scoring Proficient by
  focusing on 330 club

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• Systematic Curriculum
• Delivery
• Curriculum Map for ELA based on Grade Level
  Standards
• Next step - Pacing Guides
• I was to assure the fidelity to HM
• (HSWI)

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• No one leader, institution or nation can control
  everything without help
• A. Hargreaves

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• Professional Development
• Results Mike Schmoker
• A Framework for Understanding Poverty Ruby
  Payne
• Thinking Maps
• Release Days

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Tracking Progress

• Reading First Grant
• Theme Assessments
• OARS

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Building Trust

• 5 Dysfunctions of a Team (Lencioni)
• Trust
• Productive Conflict
• Commitment
• Accountability
• Attention to Results

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• Overcoming Lack of Trust
• Vulnerability-based Trust requires
  shared experiences over time, multiple instances
  of follow-through and credibility, and an
  in-depth understanding of the unique attributes
  of team members
• Patrick Lencioni

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Successful!

• All of these efforts took enormous
• amounts of time and energy, but
• We got great results

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• API
• 04 05 06 07
• School 629 680 695 728
• White 688 745 NS NS
• Hispanic 590 649 668 711
• SED 595 663 669 681
• ELL 626 647 681

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• AYP Proficient ELA
• 04 05 06 07
• School 21.1 26.5 28.7 37.6
• White 31.5 42.4 51.2 53.2
• Hisp. 12.3 18.9 20.0 30.6
• SED 14.5 23.3 22.4 32.7
• ELL 11.9 14.8 13.8 26.4
• Sw/D 13.0 14.8 20.8 18.2

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• AYP Proficient Math
• 04 05 06 07
• School 25.1 35.8 32.6 40.2
• White 36.9 44.1 44.2 52.2
• Hisp. 17.3 30.3 27.4 36.1
• SED 20.4 32.7 27.7 36.6
• ELL 16.5 26.1 24.1 32.5
• Sw/D 13.0 18.5 20.8 22.7

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What Happened in 2008?

• Flat-lined in ELA
• Knocked the socks off in Math
• Our quick take
• 83/20
• 83 new students
• 20 of who were proficient

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But We Really Took Off

• RCAT Grant
• APS
• Professional Development
• RtI The Pyramid
• Continuous Growth
• Greater Depth of Analysis
• Sustainability

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Culture and Climateat Steele Lane

• The Culture and Climate at Steele Lane
• have gone through a dramatic
• transformation in the past two years as
• a result of the processes associated
• with becoming a Professional Learning
• Community.

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Program and Process The Difference

• Program refers to the specific strategies we
  employ to attain our goals.
• Programs and fads go hand in hand. They come and
  they go.
• Programs elicit compliance.

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Program and Process The Difference

• Process is the way we go about doing our
  business. It is the underlying philosophy and
  belief system we use to make decisions related to
  goal-setting and doing our jobs.
• Process is ongoing.
• Process inspires commitment.

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SOME BASIC ASSUMPTIONS

• Teachers Matter
• Teachers Care
• Schools Matter
• The Research is Clear

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A Recent Marzano Study

• If you took an average kid based on
• CAT 6 what ile would you expect
• him to score after one year with
• - an avg. teacher in an avg. school?
• - a poor teacher in a poor school?
• - a great teacher in a great school?

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A Fundamental Shift

• Marzanos research and our own beliefs as a
  faculty coupled with the Professional Development
  we received through the RCAT Grant prompted a
  dramatic and fundamental shift and change in the
  way we do the business of education

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The Shift is From To

• Focus on Teaching Focus on Learning
• May/may not goal related SMART Goals
• Little tracking of progress Measure and track
• Hope for improvement Commitment to
  improvement
• Conversations around Conversations
  around
• Programs key questions

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We chose to become a Professional Learning
Community

• The most promising strategy for sustained
  substantive school improvement is building the
  capacity of school personnel to function as a
  professional learning community. The path to
  change in the classroom lies within and through
  professional learning communities.
• Milbrey McLaughlin

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The Characteristics of a PLC

• - Shared mission, vision, values and goals
• - Collaborative teams FOCUSED ON LEARNING
• - Collective inquiry into best practice and
  current reality
• - Action orientation/experimentation
• - Commitment to continuous improvement
• - Results orientation

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There are 3 Big Ideas that Drive Professional
Learning Communities

Student Learning Collaboration Results
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• Big Idea 1
• We accept high levels of learning for all
  students as the fundamental purpose of our school
  and therefore are willing to examine all
  practices in light of their impact on learning.

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Steele Lane Mission Statement
This is the Steele Lane mission as developed in
a full faculty meeting the week after school
began In August 2006

• All kids can learn and we will establish high
  standards of learning that we expect all students
  to achieve

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At the Heart of Steele Lanes Learning Community

• Is a constant, RELENTLESS drive to answer 3
  questions

What is it we want kids to learn?
How do we know they have/have not learned it?
What do we do when they have/have not learned it?
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To answer the first questionWhat is it we want
kids to learn?We look at

• Standards
• Blueprints
• District Expectations
• Course Outlines
• Curriculum Maps
• SMART Goals

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SMART Goals produce results

• Strategic and specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Results-Oriented
• Time-Bound

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How do we know they have/have not learned it?Is
best answered by

• Frequent Formative Assessments
• Tracking Assessment results (OARS)
• Create a Scoreboard
• Sharing Results
• Focus on Literacy Math

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What do we do when they have/have not learned
it?ACTION IS REQUIRED!!!

• Brainstorm and Implement Strategies
• Employ Preventions/Interventions
• Develop a Pyramid of Interventions
• Share Research Based Strategies

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• Big Idea 2
• We can achieve our fundamental purpose of high
  levels of learning for all students only if we
  work together. We cultivate a collaborative
  culture through the development of high
  performing teams.

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Need for a Collaborative Culture

• Improving schools require collaborative
  culture....Without collaborative skills and
  relationships, it is not possible to learn and to
  continue to learn as much as you need to know to
  improve.
• Michael Fullan

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• The current reality in education is that we
  essentially ignore the research that supports
  collaboration around student achievement data as
  a framework for improving our schools and
  continue to operate as independent kingdoms
  surrounded by a common parking lot.
• Rick DuFour

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• Big Idea 3
• We assess our effectiveness on the basis of
  results rather than intentions. Individuals,
  teams and schools seek relevant data and
  information and use that information to promote
  continuous improvement.

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Non-Negotiables

• Defining essential learnings and using common
  assessments
• Participating on a team
• Demonstrating that student learning is a priority
  through the analysis of data and high impact
  instructional strategies
• Honoring collective commitments to the school and
  the team
• Showing evidence of student achievement
  improvement

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PLC A Process not a Program

• The professional learning community represents
  an ethos that infuses every single aspect of a
  schools operation.
• When a school becomes a professional learning
  community everything in the school looks
  different than it did before.
• Andy Hargreaves

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IF

• The most promising strategy for sustained
  substantive school improvement is building the
  capacity of school personnel to function as a
  professional learning community. The path to
  change in the classroom lies within and through
  professional learning communities.
• Milbrey McLaughlin

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Then

• Why does knowledge of what needs to be done so
  frequently fail to result in action or behavior
  consistent with that knowledge?
• Pfeffer Sutton, The Knowing-Doing Gap

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The Pygmalion Galatea Effects

• Your expectations of people and their
  expectations of themselves are the key factors in
  how well people perform at work.

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• When people believe they can succeed and
  contribute,
• their performance rises to the level of their own
  expectations.

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• These concepts are effective for
  teachers/employees in the workplace as well as
  for students in the classroom.

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• The way managers treat their
• employees is subtly influenced by
• what they expect of them
• J. Sterling Livingston

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• I shall always be a flower girl to Professor
  Higgins because he always treats me as a flower
  girl and always will but I know I can be a lady
  to you because you always treat me as a lady and
  always will.
• Eliza Doolittle, Pygmalion

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• If you think you can
• or cant
• Youre RIGHT!!!

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• Sharing thoughts about Professional learning
  Communities

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• As a new person on staff, I appreciate the
  support and comraderie the PLCs provide.
• Joyce Stohlmann

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• I no longer believe that an Enneagram is a
  magical/spiritual symbol to ward off demons,
  werewolves and witches.
• Sharon Garrison

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• I appreciated the effective Vocabulary
  instruction. I love the word for the day and so
  do my children.
• Mary Coover

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• I love PLCs!!
• Louise Silk

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• There seems to be a new, fresh level of
  cooperation among our faculty. Ive noticed we
  make more of an effort to listen to each other.
  Our classrooms arent quite as isolated as before
  because weve worked so hard to focus on whats
  best for students.
• Susan Wood

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• The best part of being in a PLC is the
  comraderie, the sharing and knowing were all in
  this together and no one of us is as smart as
  all of us
• Nicole Mule

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• PLCs have really helped me stay focused with my
  intention to improve student learning. I like
  the process. To watch our whole staff, despite
  our differences, honor and work toward this goal
  is inspiring.
• Monica Thompson

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• Our Professional Learning Community provides a
  way of working together with heart and mind to
  give our children a better future. Our
  collective efforts are truly making a positive
  difference in the learning of our students.
• Howard Hardie

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Special Education Revisited

• Howard Hardie