Heather's Action Research Adventure

Friday, September 28, 2012

Helping to Improve our Economically Disadvantaged student's scores

Title of Family-School-Community Partnership Project

Helping to improve our Economically Disadvantaged student’s scores

I. Data-Evidenced Student Need

At Helena Park Elementary our Economically Disadvantaged students are not performing well on state assessments. This can attributed to lack of effective instruction, low parent involvement, and lack of mentoring. We missed meeting AYP by one Economically Disadvantaged student this past year in reading. This is a serious problem for many of our students. They are not getting the support they need from home, school, and community.

II. Benefits for Student Achievement

The family-school-community partnership that I am proposing will help to foster the whole child, which in turn will help to improve student achievement. I want to implement parent education classes, mentoring for our Economically Disadvantaged students by community members, and staff development for our teachers to improve instruction delivery. These students are doing the best they can in the situation they are in, but as educators and good citizens it is our duty to make sure all their needs are being met. This will allow these students to meet their full potential with a little hard work and dedication.

III. Proposed Activities/Strategies

The need for our school to sponsor parent education classes for our Economically Disadvantaged student’s parents is very important. If our parents feel comfortable helping their children with school work, their child will understand that school is important to them. Also, I think we need to implement a mentoring program to help our students’ self-confidence. If they have a mentor who comes to school a couple times a six weeks to check in with them and spend a little one-on-one time with that student building a rapport with them, the student’s self-confidence will improve and their scores will start to improve as well. I also want to implement some staff development to our staff about building better relationships with our students and effective teaching strategies. I feel this will benefit not only our Economically Disadvantaged students, but all our students.

Many studies have found that homework, combined with parental involvement, positively affects student achievement (e.g., Maertens & Johnston, 1972). In fact, Epstein's (1995) framework of the six types of parental involvement includes "learning at home" (Type 4) as an important component of school-family-community partnerships. Epstein suggests that schools should provide information and ideas to families "about how to help students at home with homework and other curriculum-related activities, decisions, and planning" (p. 704). Although the practice of parental support of their children's homework is "probably the most widespread and acceptable form of cooperation between school and home" (OECD, 1997), questions have been raised about who benefits from it.

1^st goal – Through this partnership I would like to improve attendance by 15% in our Economically Disadvantaged students.

2^nd goal - I would like to improve student performance on state assessments by 10% in reading during the initial year and every year after.

3^rd goal – I would like to improve student performance on state assessments by 10% in math during the initial year and every year after.

The Economically Disadvantaged students will increase student achievement through the support of parent education classes, mentoring program, and better instruction. This will come from parents, teachers, administration, and community members. This would increase the amount of support each student is currently receiving. Support is vital for at-risk students.

IV. Proposed Process for Planning and Implementation

The first step would be to make sure we are not violating any confidentiality laws during the implementation of this partnership. We would need to get enough personnel to implement the program. We would also need to have some way of sharing the program with the entire staff and all stakeholders. We could ask local business to help fund this partnership. I could speak with the principal about extra funds in the budget. We could look into grants to help subsidize this program.

V. What You Want from Your Audience

I want my audience to recognize the significance of this issue. These at-risk students deserve to have all their needs met, so that they can reach their full potential. I also want my stakeholders to know the most important resource will be the donation of stakeholder’s time. I want my audience to walk out convicted to help these students become “all they can be.”

Reflection from Week 5 - 5326 School-Community Releationships

I have been busy working closely with my principal on creating a campus calendar (complete with testing dates, RtI meeting dates, faculty meetings, Special Education committee meetings, and AYP planning team meetings, helping to plan faculty meetings), working on revamping our instruction delivery on our campus, mentoring new teachers, attended a five day dyslexia training, and creating intervention groups and schedules.

Our campus did not have a campus calendar that kept everything in one place. So I asked my principal if I could create one. Little did I know that I would spend approximately eight hours on this one task. Once I had gathered all the dates from various groups I created the most comprehensive “living” calendar our campus has ever had. Each month I send the updated calendar out to all the staff, so that we are all on the same page.

The list to complete is a little overwhelming. I must interview technology coordinator, personnel director, superintendent of curriculum, librarian, food service manager, complete a walk-through, attend a board meeting, creating a parent survey, compiling a list of social agencies, etc. Compiling this list has made me really overwhelmed. I have been very busy, but it seems not busy enough. I will have to revisit my timeline and make an actual calendar to complete some of these activities. I don’t want time to get away from me. I want to keep my eye on the prize and learn something from each and every one of these activities. This is going to be quite an endeavor. J

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Week 5

This class has been exhausting. I have learned a lot and can't wait to get started on my Action Research Project. I will get to check off the first line item on my plan by Friday. Looking forward to staying focused and seeing where this endeavor takes me.

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Revised Action Research Project

I met with my Site Supervisor this week to discuss my Action Research Project. He was super supportive of it. He offered some great insights and I made some adjustments. I am looking forward to getting started. This is going to be an awesome endeavor.

Tool 7.1 Action Planning Template

Goal: Improving Economically Disadvantaged students’ Reading STAAR scores
Action Step(s)		Person(s) Responsible	Timeline: start/end	Needed Resources	Evaluation
1.	Use 2011-12 STAAR Reading data to decide which students we will be working with	Heather Barrow	Start: August 20, 2012 End: August 27, 2012	· 2011-2012 STAAR Reading data · List of ED (economically disadvantaged) students names	· Spreadsheet · Meet with Dr. Evans
2.	Small group instruction – Students will engage in Guided Reading group 4-5 times a week with me.	Heather Barrow	Start: September 10, 2012 End: April 19, 2013	· Fountas and Pinnell Guided Reading Program	· Running Records (2-3 per 6 weeks)
3.	Analyze 3-week averages and 6-week averages – I will use our electronic grade-book to collect data on these students	Heather Barrow	Start: August 27, 2012 End: June 6, 2013	· eSchool program	· Analyze students’ grades improving, staying constant, or declining
4.	3^rd and 4^th grade teachers will administer the STAR reading assessment in the computer lab	3^rd and 4^th grade Teachers	Start: August 27, 2012 End: September 10, 2012	· Renaissance STAR reading assessment on the computer	· Analyze individual data for each classroom
5.	Reading Inventory on 3^rd and 4^th grade students that have been selected	Heather Barrow	Start: September 3, 2012 End: September 7, 2012	· Fountas and Pinnell Reading Inventory	· Analyze each students’ independent reading level
6.	Find teacher mentors for our selected students	Heather Barrow and Dr. Evans	Start: September 3, 2012 End: September 15, 2012	· Interested Teachers	· Making sure each student gets a mentor and the mentors understand their responsibility
7.	3^rd and 4^th grade teachers will administer the 1^st 6 weeks benchmark	3^rd and 4^th grade teachers	Start: October 2, 2012 End: October 5, 2012	· Campus Reading Benchmark	· Teacher Data reports · Sub-pop report
8.	Parent Reading Night	Heather Barrow	Start: October 8, 2012	· Handouts for parents · Public Library Cards · Book list	· parent survey
9.	Teacher / Parent survey	3^rd and 4^th grade teachers / student’s parents	Start: October 12, 2012 End: October 19, 2012	· Survey	· Analyze information from teachers and parents
10.	3^rd and 4^th grade teachers will administer the STAR reading assessment in the computer lab	3^rd and 4^th grade Teachers	Start: October 22, 2012 End: October 26, 2012	· Renaissance STAR reading assessment on the computer	· Analyze individual data for each classroom
11.	Reading Inventory on 3rd and 4th grade students that have been selected	Heather Barrow	Start: November 5 , 2012 End: November 9, 2012	· Fountas and Pinnell Reading Inventory	· Analyze each students data · Report back to teachers and administrators
12.	3^rd and 4^th grade teachers will administer the 2^nd 6 weeks benchmark	3^rd and 4^th grade teachers	Start: November 12, 2012 End: November 16, 2012	· Campus Reading Benchmark	· Teacher Data reports · Sub-pop report
13.	3^rd and 4^th grade teachers will administer the Reading CBA	3^rd and 4^th grade teachers	Start: December 10, 2012 End: December 14, 2012	· Campus Reading CBA	· Teacher Data reports · Sub-pop report
14.	3^rd and 4^th grade teachers will administer the STAR reading assessment in the computer lab	3^rd and 4^th grade Teachers	Start: December 10, 2012 End: December 14, 2012	· Renaissance STAR reading assessment on the computer	· Analyze individual data for each student
15.	Meet with 3^rd,4^th grade, and principal to discuss data	3^rd, 4^thgrade teachers, Heather Barrow, and Dr. Evans	Start: December 17, 2012	· Teacher reports from the Reading CBA	· Analyze and plan for our students weaknesses
16.	Reading Inventory on 3rd and 4th grade students that have been selected	Heather Barrow	Start: January 10, 2013 End: January 14, 2013	· Fountas and Pinnell Reading Inventory	· Analyze each students data · Report back to teachers and administrators
17.	3^rd and 4^th grade teachers will administer the STAR reading assessment in the computer lab	3^rd and 4^th grade Teachers	Start: February 4, 2013 End: February 8, 2013	· Renaissance STAR reading assessment on the computer	· Analyze individual data for each classroom
18.	3^rd and 4^th grade teachers will administer the Reading CBA	3^rd and 4^th grade teachers	Start: February 25, 2013 End: March 1, 2013	· Campus Reading CBA	· Teacher Data reports · Sub-pop report
19.	Meet with 3^rd,4^th grade, and principal to discuss data	3^rd, 4^thgrade teachers, Heather Barrow, and Dr. Evans	Start: March 4, 2013	· Teacher reports from the Reading CBA	· Analyze and plan for our students weaknesses
20.	Reading Inventory on 3rd and 4th grade students that have been selected	Heather Barrow	Start: March 25, 2013 End: March 28, 2013	· Fountas and Pinnell Reading Inventory	· Analyze each students data · Report back to teachers and administrators
21.	3^rd and 4^th grade teachers will administer the STAR reading assessment in the computer lab	3^rd and 4^th grade Teachers	Start: April 8, 2013 End: April 12, 2013	· Renaissance STAR reading assessment on the computer	· Analyze individual data for each classroom
22.	Reading Inventory on 3rd and 4th grade students that have been selected	Heather Barrow	Start: May 6, 2013 End: May 10, 2013	· Fountas and Pinnell Reading Inventory	· Analyze each students data · Report back to teachers and administrators
23.	3^rd and 4^th grade teachers will administer the STAR reading assessment in the computer lab	3^rd and 4^th grade Teachers	Start: May 6, 2013 End: May 10, 2013	· Renaissance STAR reading assessment on the computer	· Analyze individual data for each classroom
24..	Analyze STAAR Data	Heather Barrow	Start: May 25, 2013 End: June 6, 2013	· STAAR DATA	· Analyze each student · Report back to teachers and administrators