District Improvement Plan - April 6, 2009
| District Improvement Plan | (04/06/2009) |
5:18 | Jason Smith: Welcome to the live blog regarding the district improvement plan and planning process. You can begin submitting questions at any time, but we will officially begin at 5:30. |
5:31 | [Comment From Bri] What is the plan? |
5:34 | Jason Smith: A draft version of the plan is available at www.fwps.org/info/press/0809/090318improvement.html. Take a look as you might have further questions/comments. |
5:35 | [Comment From Bob] What is AYP? |
5:38 | Jason Smith: AYP stands for Adequate Yearly Progress. It is a measure used by the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, as directed by No Child Left Behind legislation to determine our progress towards all students meeting state standards. |
5:39 | [Comment From Concerned Citizen] How is AYP calculated? |
5:42 | Jason Smith: Determining AYP is a pretty complicated process. Districts have to meet AYP in 37 different cells (or subgroups) in each grade band. There are three grade bands - elementary, middle school, and high school. For more detailed information, you can access this site: www.k12.wa.us/ESEA/Guidance.aspx. Scroll to the bottom of this page for a detailed explanation. |
5:42 | [Comment From Concerned Citizen] How many other districts in the state of Washington are also in the same phase of AYP as FWPS? |
5:45 | Jason Smith: Federal Way Public Schools is in step 1 of improvement status. To get into Step 1, districts must have not met AYP for two consecutive years. Currently, there are 31 districts in step 1 and 25 districts in step 2. However, 209 of 296 school districts in Washington State did not meet AYP in 2008. |
5:45 | [Comment From Tony] I was wondering what did you use for resources in creating the AYP plan you have spent several months developing? |
5:54 | Jason Smith: We used several resources in the development of the draft plan. One is the McKinsey Report which has guided a lot of the recent work in our district. This document is available at www.mckinsey.com/clientservice/socialsector/resources/pdf/Worlds_School_systems_Final.pdf . Another document we used is Characteristics of Improved School Districts which is available at www.k12.wa.us/research/pubdocs/DistrictImprovementReport.pdf . |
5:55 | [Comment From Freddy] How is Federal Way ensuring the right people are becoming teachers? How are you helping the teachers that are not "up to standard"? |
5:58 | Jason Smith: Our human resources office has always done a great job of recruiting the best teachers. They are continuing to refine their recruiting and hiring practices to get the best teachers for our students. Recently, all district administrators went through a training on hiring practices. |
5:58 | [Comment From Ann] In the powerpoint presentation to the board, it says the district is already doing a lot of the 'right' things - what are those? How do you know they are working? |
6:01 | Jason Smith: We are very proud of the staff and students in our district. According to WASL scores, our district does better than other districts with similar demographics. |
6:01 | [Comment From Tony] How is the plan being communicated to staff, parents, and the community? |
6:04 | Jason Smith: The committee has provided an update at the February 28th board meeting which is open to the public and broadcast on local television. Committee members are doing presentations at each school, soliciting feedback from teachers. Also, we are conducting the live blog right now to get feedback from parents and the community. Anyone can provide direct feedback to me at jasmith@fwps.org after viewing the plan available at www.fwps.org . |
6:06 | [Comment From Jill] Why are we spending resources on creating this plan if Fed Way is facing a $5 mill + shortfall next year? |
6:08 | Jason Smith: Great question. The state and federal government require us to develop an "Improvement Plan". Fortunately the state provides a small, one-time grant that pays for the development of the plan. |
6:08 | [Comment From Lance] Why is the plan in question format? |
6:11 | Jason Smith: The plan is in question format, because it is the committee's goals to facilate a process where each local school creates meaning of how take the critical elements of the plan and develop a local or "site" based interpretation of implementation. These questions and interpretations will then be reviewed to ensure that we have K-12 alignment and can move the district ahead as a whole community of schools. |
6:11 | [Comment From Jill] When will the plan be finished........if it is not already? |
6:13 | Jason Smith: The plan will be adopted as a working document by the school board on May 26th, 2009. We all recognize that this plan has been developed on past trends and this year's data. It will be important that we continuously progress monitor our plan and implementation throughout the next school year and years to come. |
6:14 | [Comment From Lance] Who is on the committee? |
6:17 | Jason Smith: The committee is made up of certificated teachers, parents, and building and district level administrators. The following link will outline who specifically represents each of the groups above. http://www.fwps.org/info/press/0809/090318improvement.html |
6:17 | [Comment From Tony] How does the district get out of "in improvement" status? |
6:18 | Jason Smith: The district can exit "improvement status" by successfully meeting all the AYP requirements two consecutive years. |
6:19 | [Comment From Tony] How can you tell you have met "progress" when you do not have the same fifth grade student population as last year? How will the district compare this year's progress with next year's progress when the test for next year will not be the WASL? |
6:22 | Jason Smith: Great question, unfortunately this is a delemma that we face regularly. We use different groups of students each year to determine success. This is a federal requirement that doesn't necessarily communicate "added academic value" in our schools. Locally, we have created cohort data to help schools and their communities determine success. |
6:30 | Jason Smith:
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6:31 | [Comment From community member] I understand that there are 2 instructional coaches in every elementary school. What are their roles? With the budget in such dire straits...Can we really afford this kind of luxury?? Will there be any kind survey done in regards to their effectiveness??? I have heard from many folks that these coaches are not effective and that they have had little or know direct impact on student learning. |
6:41 | Jason Smith: The role of the instructional coaches at our elementary schools is twofold. First, to develop our classroom teachers into highly effective instructors. Second to provide and developintervention programs for struggling learners. Research has provided numerous examples that developing highly effective instructors is one of the leading contributing factors to increasing student achievement. In Federal Way Public Schools we have used federal grant resources to support these efforts in each of our buildings. These federal grants have very specifc requirements of usage of these dollars. Two of these requirement are that they be used to support intervention and professional development. If these dollars are used in ways other than to support student intervention and professional development, they will not be allocated to local districts. When done right, instructional coaching can be a leading contributor to increasing teacher effectiveness and thus increasing student achievement. Please see: http://www.mckinsey.com/clientservice/socialsector/resources/pdf/Worlds_School_systems_final.pdf |
7:02 | Jason Smith: Thank you to all for participating this evening. Your questions and comments will be shared with our committee and school district leaders. If you have further questions or comments, please contact me directly at jasmith@fwps.org. Your support for of our schools and our students is much appreciated. |
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