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Eliminating the Achievement Gap |
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School
Transformation
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In one of
the most fundamental changes in the history of Seattle Public
Schools, every school is responsible for developing and
implementing a detailed plan to eliminate disproportionality.
Principals and staff are evaluated on their progress. In addition,
we are displaying and analyzing disproportionality data and
targeting strategies to eliminate the achievement gap. With these
efforts, and the involvement of students, parents and community
leaders, we are seeing positive changes.
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Aggregated Data
High Achievement
Schools |
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Attributes/Evidence of High
Achievement Schools
Below is a table that defines
the attributes of a quality, high achievement school and the
components that make those attributes evident. |
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Attributes
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Evidence
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Common
focus
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- Staff
articulate shared academic mission
- Academic
mission drives decisions about instructional program, staffing,
budget and assessment
- Student-centered
environment
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Small, safe,
personalized learning community
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- Small
learning communities within the school
- Advisory
program
- Support
services for students
- One-on-one
relationships
- Individual
learning plans
- Every
student known well by at least one adult
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Healthy, supportive,
school culture and climate
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- Caring
adults
- Culture of
collaboration
- Focus on
collaboration
- High
performance expectations for every student and staff
person
- Safe, clean
environment
- High
attendance rates for students and staf
- fLow discipline
statistics
- Sense of
community
- Rewards and
celebrations for students and staff
- High
enrollment demand
- Self-directed
students
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Academic rigor and
high expectations for all students: "Culture of
excellence"
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- All
students prepared for four-year college even though they may choose
other post-secondary options
- Rigorous
course offerings with challenge and depth learning tasks available
to all students
- No
tracking
- Continual
progress toward the elimination of disproportionality
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Effective curriculum
and instruction
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- Students
engage in "real world" works
- Standards
base curriculum, instruction, and assessment in every
classroom
- Consistent
academic standards in language arts, math, science
- Rigorous,
relevant
- Student-centered
education
- Diversified
curriculum and instruction to meet wide range of student needs and
reflective of multicultural population
- Technology
is an integral part of the teaching/learning process
- Technology
used to individual instruction and create alternative learning
opportunities
- Students
fully competent using technology to access, analyze, and synthesize
information as well as to communicate
- Rich array
of academic choicesHighly effective teacher in every
class
- Meaningful
professional development
- Adequate
resources appropriately aligned
- Frequent
reporting to parents/guardians on student's academic progress on
standards
- Proactive
prevention/intervention structures for students
- Students
demonstrate what they know via exhibitions, projects,
performance-based assessments, portfolios, etc.
- Emphasis on
the application of knowledge and understanding to predictable and
non-predictable problems
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Aggregated Data from School
Transformation Plans
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Schools have
identified the following resources to increase individualized
student time, engage in alternative assessment methods to more
accurately represent student learning, and to provide more
challenging curriculum and instruction, to ensure optimal academic
and social support district wide for groups affected by
disproportionality. It is important to note that the strategies are
both preventative and interventive. (The following data was
extracted from each school’s transformation plan and compiled
in the following summary.)
- Student
centered, small group instruction
- Workshops
on curricula development, alternative assessment, and varied
methods for looking as student work and measuring
achievement
- Construct
rubric to define “rigor”
- Provide
accelerated curriculum for low achieving students and challenging
curriculum for high achieving students
- Portfolio
assessment
- Tutoring
- Partnerships with GEAR Up*, ASAP, Boys and Girls Clubs*, YMCA*
- Counseling
in addition to social and mentoring support (Wellness Center, Peer
Mediation, GEAR Up, Natural Helpers)
Recognizing
that student success is best achieved when home, school and
community work collaboratively in their efforts to eliminate the
achievement gap, schools have committed to the following
community-based engagement in order to build capacity among
parents, teachers, staff, and students:
- Family
evenings/events
- Parent
nights
- Saturday
parent conferences
- Parenting
support classes – How to Help Your Students
Packet/Conferences
- Parent
enrichment and training to broaden levels of communication
(i.e.-computer training, E-mail, internet use, memos,
etc.)
- Student
mentoring
- Student
advisory
- Diversity
training
- School
improvement committees
- Climate
surveys
- Site
council/shared governance (recruit parents for)
- Disciplinary review
panel
The
following were among the initiatives and best practices schools
submitted as strategies and considerations for how schools will
progress and what will be addressed in reports regarding plans to
reduce disproportionality:
- Building
leadership team – shared governance
- Climate
surveys
- Lower class
size and instructional groups
- Early
Childhood Education Project
- Form
action/research groups
- Align
curriculum to best practices and student centered
learning
- Restructure
collaboration time to work in teams/accommodate block
planning
- Increase
staff awareness of barriers to academic achievement
- Integrate a
multicultural curriculum
- Engage in
conversations about race and the impact diversity has on
relationships with students and academic achievement
- Cultivate a
professional school culture of collaborative assessment, peer
observation/critique, personal reflection
- Cross grade
level meetings/inter- and intra-grade communication
- Individualized accelerated
learning plans
- Inclusion
model/decrease pull-outs
- Differentiated
instruction
- Literacy
Initiative*
- Book
clubs/groups for staff professional development
- Extended
day activities
- Expeditionary learning –
Outward
Bound*
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| *Outside
link. |
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| Updated April 4,
2003 |
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