Irwin County Schools Kerry Billingsley, Principal 149 Chieftain Circle Ocilla, GA 31774 Document Generated On March 18, 2013
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? is located in Ocilla, Georgia within the Irwin County school district. Irwin County's population is approximately 9,600, which is predominately Caucasian (70.9%), but also includes African Americans (27.3%), Hispanic (2.8%), Asian (0.8%), American Indian (0.2%), and Multiracial (0.9%). The socio-economic status of the county is low to middle, with only 17.8% below poverty. The median household income is $40,000 and 20% of the population is below the poverty level. was first accredited in 1945. ICHS serves 425 students in grades 9-12. The majority of students in the high school is Caucasian (64%), but also includes African Americans (31%), Hispanic (3%), Asian (0.9%), Multiracial (0.47%), and American Indian (0.23%). The number of male and female students is almost equal. Over 50% of the student population is economically disadvantaged. ICHS currently serves 14% of the students in the Gifted Education Program and 10% in the Special Education Program. There are no English language learners in the high school. There are 249 (64%) students eligible to receive free/reduced price lunches. Teacher turnover for is relatively low. Last year only two teachers and one administrator left or transferred from the system. ICHS currently has 39 certified teachers, six paraprofessionals, three administrators, one guidance counselor, one media specialists, one school nurse, and six support staff members. The community support for the school is relatively high with political and parental involvement. Irwin County High has a school council, which consists of school personnel, parents, and local community members. 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. 's mission is to provide a safe, orderly, and caring environment where each student has an equal opportunity to acquire the knowledge, skills, and attitudes required to function effectively in society. Our school motto is "Irwin CARES." CARES is the acronym for commitment, accountability, respect, expectations, and support. Student learning is the chief priority of our school. Individual self-discipline, responsibility, and accountability are essential to personal development and the learning process. Teachers, staff, administrators, parents, students, and community members share in the responsibility for providing a supportive learning environment within our school. The commitment to continuous improvement is imperative if our school is to enable students to become confident, self-directed, lifelong learners. ICHS offers courses in the four academic areas of English, Math, Science, and Social Studies. Students also have the opportunity to complete courses in our CTAE Department in the areas of Family and Consumer Science, Technology, Business, and Agriculture. ICHS offers classes in Art, Music, and Physical Education. ICHS also has students in the ACCEL, Move on When Ready, and Dual Enrollment Programs with Abraham Baldwin Agriculture College, Middle Georgia College, and Wiregrass Technical College. ICHS offers an after school Credit Recovery program to help students who are behind on credits. Communication is vital to making successful. ICHS communicates with parents, students, and community through progress reports, report cards, Open House, school website, Facebook, The Ocilla Star, Kiku Text, and Remind 101. Community outreach meetings were held in the fall at various locations in the county and School Council meetings are held quarterly. At we care about our students. has the best faculty and staff in the state of Georgia. Here we are all one and we stress the importance of respecting each other. Through our program Platinum Pride we recognize those who have put this belief to work. We work as one to help our students become the best person and student they can be. We offer many technological opportunities for our students as well as great community support for all our school programs. Here at we stress and recognize the importance of both Athletics and Academics through our recognition of our Scholar Athletes and our Top Ten Academic Champions. Here at Irwin County we have teachers who are very caring and concerned about our students. They do a great job of communicating with parents on a one on one basis about each student in our classes. Our teachers also work with our students when they have tragedy or sickness to make sure they have an opportunity to learn the information that they may have missed due to absences. Our teachers provide tutoring for our students four days a week in all academic areas twice a week. End of Course and Graduation test tutoring is also provide for students six weeks prior to test after school or during extended learning time. For all after school tutoring transportation is provided for most students. We provide services for our gifted and sped students in all academic areas. Our students are challenged here at Irwin County and the rigor is there as we offer advanced content classes as well for our students. 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. The End-of-Course Tests (EOCT) are the administered in each academic area each semester, with the exception of Math, which is given in the spring semester. These state assessments are the primary source of academic success for the courses tested. One goal for ICHS is to increase the achievement level for all tests. ICHS has begun an after school tutoring program. Tutoring is available four days a week in all academic areas. Bus transportation is being provided for students needing to stay beyond the school hours for additional help in a class. Teachers and students have begun using USA Testprep as an additional resource. Teachers use the online program to help create benchmark assessments. Teachers have also been using the Statewide Longitudinal Data System (LDS) to determine areas of weaknesses and strengths on the EOCTs. ICHS has incorporated an alternative bell schedule for activities to occur during the school day. This helps maintain time for instruction and allows for fewer interruptions throughout the school day. ICHS also introduced "skinnies" that allow four block classes to be divided in two, 45-minute academic sessions for year-long teaching. This idea began for advanced content classes, but will include all ninth and tenth grade academic classes next year. Administrators have a close working network. Weekly administrative meetings are held to keep up with all academic, vocational, athletic, and other school events. Administrators and teachers use the Classroom Mosaic app for walk-throughs and peer observations. Monthly department meetings are held and minutes are sent to principal via email. Yearly trainings and/or updates are held on the Acceptable Use of Technology, Code of Ethics, and Child Abuse for all certified personnel and staff members. Various opportunities exist throughout the year for professional learning. has been blessed to have numerous channels of technology to offer to our students. We offer this year to our students the BYOD- Bring You Own Device that will allow students to use their own technology to work on projects in class through their internet or our wireless system. We also have 2 computer labs with more than 25 computers in each one. There are also two classrooms with as many computers. Each of our academic departments has sets of laptops as well as the guidance office. In our media center we have 10 computers, E-Readers for students to check out. Our teachers have IPADS and all academic classrooms have promethean boards. We also have 3-D machine that our science and math teacher can use to teach their content in 3-D. 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. We have a program that we started three years ago call Platinum Pride. This program was our PBIS program. It has been watered down a little do to not having our behavior specialist any longer. However, we still do a number of things to try and encourage academic achievement and deter negative behavior. At the end of each semester we give away prizes through a drawing of names of students who have not been to ISS or OSS. We also give away prizes to students who have come to the after school EOCT/GHSGT tutoring. These prizes range from Flat Screen TV's, Laptops, Kindles, and IPODS. We also have assemblies each 9 weeks and recognize those students who have done well on EOCT test and we show our students our pass rate for each academic class and tell them where we need to be and celebrate all accomplishments from academic to sports and clubs. Our community here in Irwin County has great support from parents, numerous business, local agencies and churches. Irwin EMC offers numerous scholarships to our seniors, as well as gives donations to all our clubs and sporting teams. Our local chamber of commerce has provided in the pass financial support for summer credit recovery. Our local police and sheriff's offices are always there when we need them for support at local events such as football, basketball games as well as Relay for Life and numerous other events. We are proud of our athletic teams and academic successes we have made strides all areas. We pride ourselves on teaching the whole child and recognizing them for what they do well and working on the things we don't do well. Here we field teams that are competitive and our coaches do a great pushing our students on the field and in the classroom. Each sport recognizes scholar athletes by giving them an award for students who maintain a 90 avg. for their season of sport. Academically we offer our students the opportunity for dual enrollment for our students with ABAC, Wiregrass, as well as Move on When Ready with Middle Georgia College. We also recognize our academic success with having an Honor Day and Honors Night. Honors Day is for seniors who have received some type of scholarship or military award. Honors Night is for those students that have maintained a 90 avg. the entire school year. This is a dinner for the parents and students. The entire school faculty and school board attend this dinner. Page 5