Skill Recovery and Credit Repair Options

I currently developed an intervention plan for Skill Recovery and Credit Repair option using our teacher developed online courses in our eClass system.  eClass is our online portal used for communications between parent, teachers and students. The gist of the plan is that teachers will give students access core academic courses in the portal to attempt learning targets that they were not successful during the regular school day. I am hoping to roll it out in January. Does anyone have ideas on something similar at their school and any suggestions on Credit and Skill Recovery

Teacher Retention and the Retention of New Teachers

A few weeks ago our school had two teachers quit with only one week's notice.  One was from the department that I support.  This happened to me last year as well right before the end of first semester.  It baffles me how some teachers think that this is corporate America and that they can just give a two weeks notice (if that) and not give one care in the world.  This directly affects the students as well as every other teacher in the department.  We had to have 4 teachers and myself the AP go on extended day for two weeks before we found someone.  Although I enjoyed being back in the classroom teaching one period each day, it was beyond stressful to find someone remotely qualified to teach the kids.  What worries me is that many of our veteran teachers are suffering burn out and we are not even done with first semester and we have brand new teachers to the profession who just up and quit and think it's okay not to push through and finish out the year.  We are a Title I school with somewhat challenging students so our teachers bust their tails every day to may learning engaging and personal for each student.  Our teachers are consistently going to trainings done in house by highly qualified teachers who specialize in certain areas.  They work day in and day out and it's driving our very strong teachers out of our school as well as out of the profession.  For me, I lost eight teachers last year in my department for various reasons and this was just my first year as an AP at this school.  I at first thought it was me, but they assured me it was other reasons which I will not mention.  We are trying very hard to change the culture and climate but we are struggling right now.  I know that I cannot do another year of hiring eight new teachers.  I worked from February through June trying to find the most qualified teachers.  I will say this year has been awesome with the teachers I have hired as well as keeping our veteran teachers positive.  It truly has been a change for the best.  But I do not want any of my teachers leaving because we have finally found ourselves in a very upbeat and positive climate within my department.  But my teachers still are burnt out no matter how positive they appear.

Academy Schools

I would like some feedback on schools that have a 9th Grade Academy. My school is in the discussion stage of making some changes to our school. We are in search of ways to foster academic success. There are many topics on the table and we will have more in depth conversations as spring semester begins and we prepare for the next school year. Will someone, who has a 9th grade academy or has experienced this, give me more information about it? How does it work? What are the differences? Have you experienced positive outcomes? What are teachers remarks/concerns? Do you see less discipline issues? Have you been pleased with the academy process? Any information you share will be greatly appreciated.

Block Scheduling ???

In my never ending quest for improved student achievement I have read in an article that block scheduling has given positive results on student achievement.  However, the research in the article was not about block scheduling and there was no data regarding block scheduling, it was just a suggestion on one way to decrease same grade student retention.

I have looked in several databases to find research on block scheduling.  Everything I have come across is either 1.) old research and 2.) research based on post-secondary education or high school.  Has anyone come across any recent research indicating that block scheduling may be beneficial in the middle school grades 6-8 setting?

In my opinion, as we move towards more project based learning and interdisciplinary lessons the way the students would be able to achieve the work completion needed in class would be through block scheduling. I can see where block scheduling would be a benefit but I would like the research to back up my theory.

I look forward to hearing any input that you all may have on the topic.

Celebrations

The graduation rates were released last week and my school results showed that we have doubled our numbers. We went from 25% to 49.5% in one year and also revealed a completion rate of 80%. This monumental increases were accomplished through the dedication of all staff members to embrace the many innovative strategies that were implemented to drive improvement.  Those strategies include:

1. The introduction of the Student Circle of Support Team Concept.  The SST or Dream team as we call it, included the counselors, attendance specialist, social worker, graduation coach and parent/community liaison. The team facilitated the review of the student achievement data and comprehensive needs assessment.  Based on the data, they designed a holistic approach to the evaluation of student achievement, student discipline, and attendance data drilled down to the individual student level.  As a result of this data analysis the team the implemented what is now known as Operation Graduation.  Operation Graduation was a strategic breakdown of the entire population of the school based on cohort.  A personal profile was developed for each student. The students were tracked and assigned priorities based on their risk level toward graduation. 

2. The master schedule and bell schedule were redesigned to reflect a schedule that enables us to develop flexible learning plans for our students.   Flexible scheduling included adding three extra periods to the school day, Saturday School and the summer mini-mester component.  The impact of the teachers and staff who volunteered work these additional hours is truly reflective in the increase number of student accomplishing the goal of graduation.

4. Our Increased Learning Time (ILT) program where students are able to accelerate and remediate their learning based on their individual needs is also reflective of this increase in graduation rate.

Student Discipline and School Climate

Our school climate has gone down hill majorly this year.  We have developed our 9th grade academy to increase student achievement and decrease behavior problems among our 9th grade students.  However, this has not been the case this year.  Our data for 9th grade looks good but our discipline is far from stellar.  All of our 9th grade teachers work their tail off but this year's 9th grade students have been the worst that have come through our school when it comes to discipline.  We only have two Assistant Principal's and we are one AP down from last school year.  Our Assistant Principals have been knee deep in discipline and we can barely keep our head above water.  We try our hardest to support teachers in discipline of their students but we can't keep up.  This has greatly affected our school climate.  Our teachers are so down right now and we have recognized teachers, done breakfast by departments, coffee, etc. to keep our teachers spirits up.  We are just at a loss and our AP's are exhausted and have worked around the clock to help our school.  We are looking towards doing something like a scavenger hunt as well as a night out for the staff.

What do you do?

My project is working with 9th grade students in supporting them academically. I have a group of 70 students that I identified in the summer as being at risk. These students receive a great deal of support through teachers, administration, peer support, and community support. I am concerned, even frustrated, with many of these students. I do a weekly grade check and this week there are many of these students failing 3 or more classes. I do realize they have been identified At-Risk, however, there seems to be no motivation with them at all. In meeting with these students this week, I had one student tell me that he is "going into the music industry so I don't need to graduate" and another tell me that he is "gonna have my own business so it don't matter about my grades." It seems that nothing I do or that the school does is motivating these students. There seems to be no intrinsic motivation. Any suggestions on how to covey to these students the importance of their education? How do I spark a fire? I know we are not the only school that deals with this. I am interested in hearing what other schools have in place to help students.

Creating Awareness

Part of the IB authorization process is creating awareness for parents and the school community. I decided to develop a quarterly workshop call IB MYP101. On October 29th I had my 1st workshop. This workshop was to inform the parents and community about the core tenet of IB, the learner profile. In creating this workshop, I decided to use station to station activities to engage the participants. In one station, I invited a seasoned MYP Coordinator to come speak about the importance of the learner profile to the IB curriculum. Another station, I enlist the services of a community organization and the PTA to organize materials that will help parents through this process. Another station, involved a matching activity that exposed participants to the learner profile vocabulary. The last station was a video presentation of the learner profile. The feedback that from the workshop was very positive. Participants stated that the workshop was very informative and engaging. I would have loved to have had more community members at the workshop. I informed the parents and community two weeks in advance. Yet the turn out was disappointing. How can I increase community involvement for the next workshop?  

Conflict on the job

This year, I have been in conflict between how I view my job versus how school leaders view  my job.   As an instructional coach, I see my role as a support system for teachers.   I monitor instruction, I provide feedback on observations and lesson plans.  I arrange professional development for teachers.   I model lesson and co-teach with teachers.  However, with all of the new mandates on teaching, such as the student growth value, I am feeling the pressure of becoming the middle person for documenting teacher deficiencies for other purposes than helping them to become great teacher, which is an uncomfortable role for me.  I think in the end, it make breakdown the trust and relationship I have built with my teachers.  In the past, I have been to speak to them about their deficiencies in confidence without them worrying about my sincerity, and they have been receptive.  However,  school leaders have been calling meeting with me and the teachers based on my feedback and their desire to weed our ineffective teachers to discuss feedback that would have normally been confidential.   So I am wondering if there is a way to effectively work with teachers,  while being in compliance with what I have been asked to do.