School Improvement

My school has a Building Leadership Team (BLT) composed of teachers, administrators, department chairs, and other staff members. We meet monthly to discuss and plan for improvements in the building. When we returned from holiday break, the first order of business was to address the high number of student tardies. Fall semester, we adopted a special program call HERO that rewards students who are on-time to class. On the contrary, students who are chronically tardy to class receive documentation and consequences. The goal of this program is to deter negative behavior, while encouraging positive behavior through positive reinforcement.

Due to the high number of tardies weeks prior to the break, our administrative team is overwhelmed with issuing disciplinary actions against the students with excessive tardies. This semester, our BLT will work with all administrators to organize the HERO pass line, issue consequences more quickly, and help teachers communicate with parents of students who are chronically tardy.

One of the major problems I observed was teachers allowing students to enter class late without documenting it. This creates disconnectedness among teachers, leaving students to take advantage of the inconsistency. I proposed to department chairs that they go back to their respected departments and communicate how crucial is it for all teachers to be consistent with our HERO program policies. Allowing students to be late creates chaos in the building, and can lead to school safety concerns.

Another focus of our school-wide improvement plan is to increase student growth, based on Georgia Milestones Assessments from the previous year. One of the strategies we are implementing is to compile a targeted list of students to grow from one score category to the next. I do not agree with the number of students that teachers are asked to target, but one of my professional goals involves student growth. I am committed to implementing activities that will help all ten of my students improve their most recent score category up at least one level. I met with my targeted list of student individually in November, and discussed growth goals and how we can achieve these goals. Some of the strategies I have already begun to implement involve students more closely monitoring their progress in my math classes. My students use an accountability log to document how much time they spend studying, doing homework, and working on other assignments outside of the regular classroom. Students also use www.IXL.com for remediation and enrichment of standards as needed. IXL is a website that individualizes and differentiates math problems for each student. It has been one of my favorite websites to use over the years, and I expect to see growth from each student with consistent use.