Rapides Parish School System Mrs. Crystal Furniss, Principal 4310 Pardue Road Ball, LA 71405 Document Generated On December 14, 2015
TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Description of the School 2 School's Purpose 3 Notable Achievements and Areas of Improvement 4 Additional Information 5
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
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?, built in 1980, is a public elementary school located in Ball, Louisiana. Ball is the third largest municipality in Rapides Parish. In 2013, the population of Ball was 4,012 with a median household income of $53,192. The school is surrounded by industrial businesses such as Proctor and Gamble and Plastipak. Tioga Elementary is the largest of four elementary schools in the Ward 10 zone. After completing elementary school, students will then attend Tioga Junior High for seventh and eighth grade and then Tioga High School for the remainder of their school career. Currently there are 667 students enrolled in grades Pre-Kindergarten through six. Of these students, 78% are White, 18% are Black, 3% are Hispanic, less than 1% are American Indian, and less than 1% are Asian. Male students make up 53% of the enrollment with females making up the other 47%. Sixty-five students receive special education services in either speech, resource, gifted, or Emotionally Disturbed classrooms. There is also approximately 15% of our population who receive services through Section 504. Many students live in single parent homes or are being raised by someone other than their biological parents. Approximately 74% of our students receive free/reduced meals which also qualifies the school as Title I. One challenge that our school faces specifically is with our high-poverty population that throughout the generations has been in this community. Many of the students have parents and even grandparents who attended here as well. There is not a significant emphasis placed on education from the majority of these families and we have sought to break the cycle and help instill a value for education. The staff consists of one principal, one assistant principal, one secretary, forty teachers, ten paraprofessionals, three custodians, six cafeteria workers, and one law enforcement officer. There are only three male staff members of the total sixty three. In the last three years Tioga Elementary has experienced change at both the school and parish level. Most recently, the administrative team has changed. The principal who had served here the last 15 years took a job at the junior high. The assistant principal was named as the new principal which then brought about a new assistant principal being named. For the past two years, the school has been able to also have a Lead Teacher position to help support the administration and teachers in various roles. Fortunately, with the change in administration, we have a good support system within the faculty and staff. We provide and promote a family atmosphere among our staff and through the years have had a very high retention rate of teachers and staff. Page 2
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. Mission Our mission is to bring academic success to all students through quality teaching and learning, in order to create lifelong learners who are college and career ready. Beliefs Student learning is the chief priority for the school. All students can learn. Students learn in different ways and should be provided with a variety of instructional approaches to support their learning. Students learn best when they are actively engaged in the learning process. A safe and physically comfortable environment promotes student learning. Teachers, administrators, parents, and the community share the responsibility for advancing the school's mission. The commitment to continuous improvement is imperative if our school is going to enable students to become confident, self-directed, lifelong learners. The Rapides Parish School District began implementation of Common Core State Standards in the 2013-2014 school year. Common Core State Standards emphasizes a focus on high standards that are consistent across all states so that all students will be college and/or career ready by the time they finish high school. Curriculums such as Journeys and Eureka math have been adopted in our district to meet these new and more rigorous standards. Teachers have received extensive professional development in order to effectively implement these standards in their classrooms. Holding true to our beliefs, we expect our students to meet these high expectations and work hard to provide meaningful and engaging opportunities for them to learn and develop themselves socially, emotionally, and physically. We want to reach the "Whole Child" through our efforts. Our teachers utilize a variety of research based strategies and techniques to meet our mission and promote student success. Kagan structures are in place in all classrooms and the majority of our teachers use Whole Brain methods in their classrooms as well. We want to take every opportunity to build confident learners who take responsibility for their learning while advancing socially and emotionally as well. We believe very strongly in giving our students opportunities to gain experiences they may not otherwise have. Although all of our students attend field trips in each grade level, our 3-6 grade students go outside of the parish and get to visit 4 landmarks in major cities in the state of Louisiana. Also contributing to advancing the whole child, our school offers various events throughout the year that promote community involvement and celebrate academic success. These include Community Day, The School Fair, Veteran's Day Program, Family Night, Accelerated Reader celebrations, and Pride Buck shopping. Our students look forward to these days and they help to make us who we are. Page 3
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. In January of 2014, participated in a ten day roll out of the Data Teams process. Data Teams had previously only been implemented in low performing schools in the parish. After the completion of the ten day roll out, teachers began participating in Data Team cycles. During data team meetings, the teachers gather data from their students (we use district mandated benchmark test), disaggregate it (decide which priority standard students are weakest), and select research-based strategies that support the area(s) of weakness. The teachers develop common formative assessments (CFAs) based on the strategy and then administer the CFA pretest to the students. The students are grouped according to how they performed on the CFA. The teachers select power strategies to implement in their classroom that focuses on each groups' weakness. The teachers teach for ten days and give the students a post-test CFA. The results from the post-test are discussed at the next data meeting and the teachers are able to see if the strategy they used was effective. They also use these meetings to collaborate and share effective strategies they have used. Based on that information, the teachers decide what their next focus will be. This cycle continues throughout the school year. Reading below grade level is a common academic concern for many of our students. At the start of the 2014-2015 school year, school funds were used to purchase a brain based intervention program called Fast ForWord. Students in first through sixth grade who scored below grade level on the STAR Reading test were assigned to the Fast ForWord program. They were pulled from their specials time or RTI time. A teacher or paraprofessional was assigned to monitor a group of ten to fifteen students and implement interventions as needed. At the end of the school year, students took a RPI to determine how much improvement had been made. Many of our students gained at least six months improvement in their reading ability. Fast ForWord has also been purchased for this school year and will continue to be renewed each year as we seek to propel all students to reading on grade level. The math curriculum has also seen change at our school. The parish adopted Eureka math for all schools in the district for the 2014-2015 school year. This adoption brought a consistent math program for use in all grade levels. The Eureka curriculum has experienced much controversy from stakeholders at all levels. However, the end of the year Discovery Education assessment showed tremendous growth in proficiency in all grade levels. We will continue to use the Data Teams process and the curriculum to increase student achievement and ultimately seek to become an "A" school as graded by the state. Page 4
Additional Information Provide any additional information you would like to share with the public and community that were not prompted in the previous sections. Tioga Elementary has experienced a considerable increase in its enrollment in recent years. To say the least, we have outgrown the school building and portables have had to be brought in to accommodate the increasing numbers. A bond was passed by taxpayers in 2014 to make improvements to all schools in the Ward 10 zone. Tioga Elementary was awarded approximately 2,940,000 dollars. The project includes a two classroom addition to the kindergarten hall, renovation of the current library and faculty lounge area, and a new wing consisting of four classrooms, band room, multipurpose room, library, and restrooms. Construction started June 2015 and is scheduled for completion in June 2016. The construction has forced us to make some major adjustments in the way we do business, but the supportive staff and students that are easy going have made this transition period flow smoothly. Page 5