Much work and success has been attributed to the School Improvement Grant that my school received three years ago. The school has gone from a 25% graduation rate to 49.5% graduation (GaDOE) and a completion rate of 80%. This grant has funded the following positions: A school improvement specialist, a reading coach, a math coach, half-time graduation coach, half-time social worker, an attendance specialist and a parent liaison, all of whom were extremely instrumental in the gains that we experienced. The instructional coaches provided much needed support for teachers to become more effective in order to increase student achievement. Through this grant, we have been able to fund a SIG week where teachers are paid to return to work a week before teacher pre-planning to receive training, instructional support and to plan for the upcoming school year. Collaboratively, the graduation coach, attendance specialist, social and the parent liaison all track attendance. The social worker makes home visits based on their recommendation. Of course our teachers have also personalized the learning experience for our students.
In addition, this grant allowed us to fund a mobile health van to provide on-site medical services to our students and counseling services as well. This grant has allowed us to truly provide a circle of support around every student that matriculates in our building. With the grant ending in September and even though, we have been working on a sustainability plan to transfer the instructional coaching duties to the department chairpersons, and request funding for some of our other positions and services, I am afraid that we might lose the momentum that we gained with the grant.
We received similar grant when our school was deem a priority school. The grant did help us as well. I am not sure if it caused our graduation Rate to go from 49% to 68%. The fact was that we were had just gotten anew principal the year before and he along with the leadership team to include teacher leaders developed a school improvement plan that I believe drove the improvement to increase our graduation rate. Our focus switch from generalities to Literacy across the content areas with emphasis on vocabulary development. We worked really hard to reduce the variability of instruction in the classroom. provided the necessary professional development for our teachers to modify their instructions in the classroom and adjust to the needs of our students
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