Executive Summary. Sidney Lanier Senior High School

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1 Montgomery County Board of Education Dr. Antonio Williams, Principal 1756 South Court Street Montgomery, AL Document Generated On October 7, 2015

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Description of the School 2 School's Purpose 3 Notable Achievements and Areas of Improvement 4 Additional Information 6

3 Introduction Every school has its own story to tell. The context in which teaching and learning takes place influences the processes and procedures by which the school makes decisions around curriculum, instruction, and assessment. The context also impacts the way a school stays faithful to its vision. Many factors contribute to the overall narrative such as an identification of stakeholders, a description of stakeholder engagement, the trends and issues affecting the school, and the kinds of programs and services that a school implements to support student learning. The purpose of the Executive Summary (ES) is to provide a school with an opportunity to describe in narrative form the strengths and challenges it encounters. By doing so, the public and members of the school community will have a more complete picture of how the school perceives itself and the process of self-reflection for continuous improvement. This summary is structured for the school to reflect on how it provides teaching and learning on a day to day basis. Page 1

4 Description of the School Describe the school's size, community/communities, location, and changes it has experienced in the last three years. Include demographic information about the students, staff, and community at large. What unique features and challenges are associated with the community/communities the school serves? Sidney Lanier high School (SLHS) was founded in At one point Lanier was the only high school in the Montgomery County School System. The population of Lanier at one time was 3,000 students. Today, 927 students walk the halls of the South Court Street institution. In 1911, the student population of Lanier was all white. Currently in 2015, the student population is predominately African American with three white students and three English Language Learners. The major factor influencing this change can be found in the current migration pattern in the city. The zoned neighborhood surrounding Lanier once all caucasian is now almost completely African-American. Other change is attributed to the current magnet programs and private schools. Additionally, declining parental involvement has impacted the Lanier High School program. We believe this factor contributes to the low daily attendance rate at Lanier. Lanier is constantly seeking strategies to encourage those students needing an extra push in order to stay on track with meeting higher graduation requirements and school expectations. Sidney Lanier High School is surrounded by a plethora of locations peritnant to the rich history of the city of Montgomery. One of the neighboring locations is the historical landmark, Holt Street Memorial Baptist Church. The history in this local ministry cannot be denied as this is the church were Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his first speech in 1955 after the arrest of Ms. Rosa Parks. Essentially, Dr. King's journey began here. Perhaps one of the most significant landmarks surrounding the campus of Sidney Lanier is the Govenor's Mansion. Built in 1906, the eloquently built residence houses the current govenor of our state. This stately home and our school, affectionatley known as "The Castle," possess similar architectural styles and ornate craftsmanship. Sidney Lanier High School is one of five traditional high schools within the Montgomery County Public School System. Our school, like the others, serves grades SLHS has an ethnically diverse faculty and staff, while the student population is predominately black. Lanier has a principal, three assistant principals and a curriculum instructional assistant, 56 fulltime teachers, a support staff of 30, a security staff of 2-fulltime policeman and five security guards. Sidney Lanier supports a population of approximately 931 students. Page 2

5 School's Purpose Provide the school's purpose statement and ancillary content such as mission, vision, values, and/or beliefs. Describe how the school embodies its purpose through its program offerings and expectations for students. During the District Accreditation process, not only did Montgomery County Public School System engage in an extensive and exhaustive process to select a mission and vision that expressed who we are system-wide, but so did Sidney Lanier. When this cycle of accreditation approached, the administration, and faculty reexamined previous mission and vision statements and elected to create another singular voice. The Montgomery Public School System mission and vision are embodied in the idea that all schools will be safe and caring communities where teachers teach and students learn at higher levels. Therefore, the mission of Sidney Lanier reflects that overall mission. Our mission is to provide the highest quality educational program in a safe environment by promoting the value of learning through relationships, rigor, relevance and results. This guiding principle for Sidney Lanier is displayed in the offices, on our school's website, in correspondence, and posted throughout the building's classrooms and hallways. It is a recurring theme when administration and other stakeholders of Sidney Lanier engage in discussions concerning our students. At Sidney Lanier, we are continually adapting our courses, programs, and supplemental programs to meet the ever-changing needs of our student populous. Therefore, at Sidney Lanier, there is an even greater emphasis in many divergent areas: using technology in every content area; expanding courses offered, revisiting, revamping, and even replacing existing courses and programs; utilizing the Response to Intervention (RtI) process to its fullest extent; participating in the Credit and Grade recovery opportunities presented; and encouraging educators to develop into teacher leaders through continuous professional development opportunities. These all ultimately lead us to our unifying goal - to ensure our system's vision is accomplished: One focus...preparing students for life! It is the goal that Sidney Lanier High School will meet the Alabama Plan 2020 Annual Measurable Objectives as determined by state accountability measures, and that all standards will have been met by our students and teachers. It is also our vision that here at Lanier High School we will provide a safe and secure learning environment where every student is given the opportunity to explore and demonstrate reallife applications while learning how to problem solve. We believe that our programs should include the acquiring of skills, the development of desirable character traits, the acquisition of knowledge, the development and maintenance of physical well-being, and the enhancement of our cultural values. We believe that the children we are graced to instruct should be encouraged to think, that creativity be encouraged, for it instills within the child a sense of making use of the many existing community resources, which gives our students a feeling of individual worth. In an attempt to accomplish these endeavors, we utilize a variety of assessments. Some of the performance assessments utilized here at Sidney Lanier High School include ACT end of course Assessments, ACT PLAN 2014, ACT with Writing, Global Scholar benchmark assessments, individual classroom assessments, and grades. Additionally, Global Scholar and Chalkables data reports aid in the identification of areas where students exhibit strengths or weaknesses within our learning community. These are a few of the tools our faculty, students, and parents utilize in an effort to determine what may need modification in the instructional process for our students at Lanier. Page 3

6 Notable Achievements and Areas of Improvement Describe the school's notable achievements and areas of improvement in the last three years. Additionally, describe areas for improvement that the school is striving to achieve in the next three years. Since its doors opened in 1911, Sidney Lanier High School, nicknamed "The Castle," has seen many glorious days. A myriad of sports' championships; LAMP, the academic magnet program formerly housed on site, subsequent academic successes and accomplishments such as the academic learning communities (Leadership, Business, Health, and Arts); our faculty's and students' determination to improve the graduation rate; outstanding auxiliary teams such as JROTC, Lanier's choral program and band ensemble are a few of the wonderful things we have to be proud of at Lanier. Our administration and faculty are justifiably proud of its rich heritage and tradition of greatness. Presently, three members of our LHS faculty have either completed or are in the final stages of acquiring a doctorate. We are proud to say that one hundred percent of our faculty members are highly qualified. In the past three years, numerous teachers have received individual recognition for their achievements such as finalist for the state teacher of the year, representation in the local Alabama Education Asscociation(AEA) offices, and a successful investment in the stock market through an advanced marketing class. In the last 3 years, Sidney Lanier, like most public schools, has faced its particular set of challenges. One of our greatest challenges has been in the area of unification and team building among our administration, faculty, and staff. The primary cause of this challenge has been the constant changing of administration/instructional leadership. We have had nine different principals in the past ten years and a large turnover of faculty. There has been little opportunity for us to work on team building due to other urgent issues related to weaknesses reflected in test scores. This inconsistency in administration and faculty, along with the uncertainty of the school's future as a traditional high school, has also impacted faculty and student morale. It is our belief that consistency in these areas will lend itself to our ability to develop as one cohesive administrative staff and faculty working as one collective unit to improve the lives of our students. Another challenge Sidney Lanier High School administration and faculty has found itself tackling is attendance concerns. Parental involvement at Lanier is sometimes reflected in student behavior and lack of commitment to a quality education. This is especially true in the low daily attendance rate at Lanier. Attempts to improve student attendance has led to our working closely with the District Attorney's Office as those on staff maintain a close connection with our school's attendance personnel and holds meeting with our students' parents. These strategies will reinforce the importance of the learning process. Unfortunately, this is a strategy utilized for those students needing an extra push in order to stay on track with meeting higher graduation requirements and expectations within the school. Our school has offered a number of programs to assist at-risk students in reaching their course credit and graduation goals. Saturday school, morning and evening tutoring, and a concentration on areas on ACT end of Course Assessements and the ACT college entry exam have all served to improve success in courses and to strengthen students' skills for the exam. We will offer an Evening Academy to afford students the opportunity for credit recovery so they can be on track with their cohort. Afternoon tutorial provided by individual teachers, the High Hopes Tutorial Program and the Alabama State University TRIO Program have been integrated into the fabric of the academic culture. In an effort to keep our students' parents constantly in touch with their student's success at SLHS, progress reports and notices are disseminated every two weeks. Accordingly, STI Home affords the parents constant access to their student's grades in each class. Parents are continuously invited and encouraged to participate in appropriate discussions with administration and teachers concerning their children's education. The parents of students of Sidney Lanier must be constantly reminded that they are partners in the educational process and their presence on campus is not only welcomed but expected. Page 4

7 Additionally, Global Scholar, Performance Series assessments, district - wide implementation of social networking programs like My Big Campus and Edmodo, and any other teacher generated pre- and post-test assessments, magnify the need for sufficient funding to ensure adequate technology is acquired and maintained at Sidney Lanier. If our educators are expected to consistently adjust instruction to meet the students' needs, our schools must, in turn, provide the resources and latest innovations in technology to ensure that they may effectively do so. Page 5

8 Additional Information Provide any additional information you would like to share with the public and community that were not prompted in the previous sections. Although Lanier High School has had its challenges and the school was on the state's failing school's list, there are many positive occurrences at the school. Lanier High School has been cited by Montgomery Public Schools for saving the most energy of any other school in the district. The male basketball team in the last five years has come shy of winning the state championships three times. Lanier's math department has surpassed its Annual Measurable Objectives (AMO) for the last eight years under No Child Left Behind requirements. New accountability measures have been outlined in Alabama PLAN Sidney Lanier High School's target AMOs based on Alabama PLAN 2020 for Algebra I is 8% annually and for English 10 is 1% annually. The demographic which ranked the lowest is the school's special education population, and strategies are in place in the hopes of curtailing and correcting this and meeting or surpassing the school's Annual Measureable Objective (AMO). Page 6