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Littlestown School District Superintendent Review

Spring 2015 – Fall 2015

Table of Contents

Executive Summary ……………………………………………………page 2 Community Survey Results………………………………………….page 3 and 4 Employee Engagement Results………..………………………….page 5 Student Engagement Results……………………………………….page 6 School Board Interviews………………………………………………page 7 Technology …………………………………………………………………page 8 Finances………………………………………………………………………page 9 PSSA Results………………………………………………………………..page 10 Keystone Exams and Advanced Placement Exams……….page 11 Standardized Test Growth Data…………………………………..page 12 Post High School Plans…………………………………………………page 13 Student Achievement Summary………………………………….page 13

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Purpose: The purpose of this entry plan is to gain an understanding of the school community through every lens possible. The beginning of the plan started with interviews of the school board members, community and key staff members. We then conducted a community survey, staff engagement survey, and student engagement survey to gather input from all constituents. In addition to the interviews and surveys, a thorough analysis of the district’s finances, operations, and staffing were completed to gain a full 360 degree view of Littlestown Area School District.

Executive Summary: In reviewing multiple sources of financial data, student achievement data, survey summaries and school board interviews, there are many areas to brag about as well as a few areas to dream of improving. Overall, the community, parents and teachers believe student achievement in and out of the classroom is our number one priority. By student achievement we mean more than standardized testing to include extra-curricular activities such as the arts and athletics and much more. Our public school must continue to generate thinkers, leaders, and problem solvers while learning lifelong moral and ethical lessons in and out of the classroom. Ninety-five percent of our teachers are ready to give more than what is expected of them, while 73% of the students believe they can achieve at high levels, indicating teachers and students are ready for higher expectations. Standardized tests including the PSSA, Keystone Exam and Advanced Placement exams reveal some common threads. Overall LASD students out-perform students when compared to the state averages. When you compare LASD to schools and districts like us the high school emerges at the top while the elementary and middle schools are in the middle of the pack. Fortunately we are not at the bottom of any metrics of standardized testing. We still have room for improvement when you look beyond the averages and investigate more closely. Standardized test performance is usually predicted by the percent of free and reduced lunch students. The lower the percent free and reduced the greater the percent proficient. We need work in early childhood performance, math in general with specific focus on 6th and 7th grade, and the students’ overall thinking and writing abilities. In addition to state exams, the Advanced Placement participation and performance has doubled from 2011 to 2015 from 16 students to 37 students. This level of participation is a great start; however less than 25% of the graduating class is accessing our highest level courses. Areas to dream about improving include technology in the classroom: Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math (STEAM) programming; robotics; biomedical fields; advanced business; and online education for all students. Program cuts in the middle school and high school over the last 10 years have narrowed the curricular offerings while we have seen an increase in students attending for-profit cyber schools, flat-lined percent of students attending college, and above average dropout rates. Other areas that emerged as areas to review and address include communication with stakeholders, transparency in decision making, career and college guidance counseling, increasing parent support for education, and rejuvenating the arts, music and drama programs as key extra-curricular opportunities. The LASD’s financial status is stagnant with two consecutive years of using savings to balance the budget and handling increasing state mandates without additional revenues. While the district has a decreasing student enrollment and aging buildings, we believe there are many strategies available to the school district for enhancements that will improve learning, safety and increase access to technology. In addition, there are large foundations and grants available to LASD if we match our strategies to the grant designs. Overall, the Littlestown community is proud of the education LASD students are receiving due to the committed teachers, administrators, and support staff. We will work on improving in the areas we have mentioned as priorities in the most cost effective way. This entry plan study will attempt to lay out the future of LASD school improvements, so our students will be prepared for the demands of the future. Our goal is for all students to be prepared for a 2 year, 4 year, military, and/or technical schooling beyond high school without necessitating remediation. Required skills for all children include Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, and Creativity. K-12 public education is for all children.

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Spring 2015 Community Survey

Communication with the Community In the area of communication, 85% of respondents refer to receive online information about the schools. In fact, the top three areas respondents get information from the automated phone and email system, then the website and finally the e-newsletter. Sixty-eight percent of the respondents indicated the district does not ask for input. This is one of the many areas we will work hard to improve. We are hoping this survey is the beginning of a new routine of asking the community for their opinion and input into the continual improvement of Littlestown Area School District. We will be working on recrafting the LASD vision to meet the needs mentioned above while maintaining traditions. Thank you, thank you and forever thank you for your invaluable input and participation in the education.

Glowing Areas:

66% of the community gave the school a ranking of A or B

60% of the community believes

we spend tax dollars to support students

83% of the community believes

our teachers care about students

71% of the community believes we have high expectations for our

students

72% of the community would recommend others to move into

LASD

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Growth Strategies:

1. Providing a safe learning

environment

2. Keeping class sizes small

3. Expand learning

opportunities for students achieving at or above grade

level

4. Increasing access to

technology in the schools

5. Meeting the needs of students in disadvantaged

circumstances

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Spring 2015 Employee Engagement Survey

Glowing Areas:

Growth Areas:

95% indicated you

are motivated to contribute

more than what is

expected

88% indicated meeting students’

needs is the number one

priority

85% indicated your principal

and or supervisor

allows you to make decisions on how best to do your work

87% indicated you have the

education and training to do

your best work

40% indicated the district training helps you work more effectively

59% indicated work is distributed fairly

47% indicated the evaluation tool is helpful in assessing work performance

39% indicated the district office explains how decisions are made

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Spring 2015 Student Engagement Survey Grades 6-12

Glowing Areas:

Growth Areas:

76% of students indicate their

teachers believe they can achieve

88% of students indicate their

parents believe they can achieve

78% of the students are

satisfied or very satisfied with their school experience

10% of the students considered dropping out of school

19% indicate homework is interesting

44% are interested in what they are learning

53% of students are proud to go to this school

49% of the students are praised for doing good work

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School Board Interviews

Glowing Areas:

Growth Areas:

Believe staff is enthusiastic and

deeply care about students

Believe our schools are good overall

with much potential for improvement

Must increase teacher collaboration time

Reduce the impact of state and federal mandates

Develop budgeting principles and guidelines

Enhance technology to increase stdudent achievement

Send more students to 2 and 4 year colleges.

Rejuvenate the Arts and Music programs

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Technology The district currently has 1,016 computers, a combination of desktop and laptop PCs. The average age of the computers in the district is 7.5 years old, purchased in 2008. While processing and memory upgrades have been made to a majority of these machines, the devices are nearing end of life. Over the past three years, only 97 new computers have been purchased as funds were redirected to upgrading the technology infrastructure. There is a lack of a dedicated replacement and purchasing cycle of technology. In February of 2015, Appalachia Technologies was contracted to assess the technology environment of the Littlestown Area School District. Overall, the technology environment was found to be in good working order. Recent upgrades had been made to the majority of the network infrastructure, including Ethernet switches, wireless controllers and access points, and the installation of a new Voice over IP solution. Several areas of concerns raised in the report were inadequate anti-virus protection, inconsistent patching, no DMZ, back-up strategy vulnerability, lack of formalized policies and procedures, and technology having a “seat at the table”. The Technology Budget stands at $245,000. Of this amount, roughly $22,000 is allocated to leasing servers; $35,000 for telecommunications/internet connectivity; $43,000 for supplies such as toner, ink, and batteries; $90,000 for annual subscriptions and software licensing including our student information system, data warehouse, One Call Now (automated message delivery), Microsoft licensing, School Dude Incident Management System, Compass Learning, and Read 180; $45,000 for technology replacement; and $12,000 for new technology purchases.

Glowing Areas:

Growth Areas:

Technology

Infrastructure

Recently Upgraded

New Voice Over IP Phone System

Average computer

age 7.5 years

Lack of computers at the secondary

level

Lack of funding to support

technology

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Expenditures, Revenues, and Taxes

The school board and community is committed to providing the best education affordable for all Littlestown students. The chart above represents past, present, and future revenues over expenditures and associated tax increases. The school board and community will have some difficult decisions ahead as we anticipate expenses will exceed revenues in the short term without an increase in revenues. Unfortunately, the flat from state and federal dollars has burdened local tax payers.

With 70% of the costs in a school budget associated with personnel and benefits, the next step will be to review programs and staffing levels as well as associated contract benefits. Internal data indicates that health care and employee retirement benefits represented the largest increase in the LASD school budget over the past 4 years. Also, reports indicate many non-teaching programs have seen reductions in budgets and staff. In addition to programming and staffing, we are reviewing potential savings through consolidation of our elementary buildings, energy savings, and contracted services where appropriate. From 2009 to current LASD cut 2 Administrators, 17 Teachers, 9.5 Support Staff, 12 Teaching Assistants/Aides and 5 Full-Time staff moved to Part-Time. This represents significant program and support cuts over the past 6 years in an effort to balance the budget. We must look very closely at increasing revenues and class sizes so we can balance a budget and add high interest programming.

Over the past 8 years education was reduced to basic programming with a growing population of needy students. In Littlestown, we have seen a reduction in teaching positions related to art, reading, business, alt ed, music, exploratory shops, and languages. In addition, the number of free and reduced students has increased to 40% of the population. The special education population has remained the same, however we have seen an increase in multi disability students, and autistic students. Students with unique exceptionalities require two to three times the average cost to educate. We are reviewing programming and exploring high priority occupation fields such as robotics, engineering, coding and app development, biomedical fields and languages to fly LASD to the top ranks in education once again.

Overall, it will take serious efforts on all fronts to sustain and improve the quality of education in LASD.

3.8%

1.8%

2.2% 2.2%

2.7%2.5%

3.1%

0.0%

0.5%

1.0%

1.5%

2.0%

2.5%

3.0%

3.5%

4.0%

$0

$5,000,000

$10,000,000

$15,000,000

$20,000,000

$25,000,000

$30,000,000

$35,000,000

2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14 2014/15 2015/16 2016/17

Revenues Expenditures RE Tax Increase

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2015 Littlestown Student Achievement Summary

Overall there are two ways we measure student achievement through standardized tests. One is by measuring the percent of students advanced and proficient and the other is by growth scores. We are accustomed to discussing proficiency and/or pass rates on exams. We are not as familiar with sharing growth scores. When evaluating or judging school performance you must look at both proficiency and growth scores. Below you will find charts that demonstrate LASD performance on both measures. Please make note that the PSSA scores are now called PACORE test resulting in a more challenging test.

PSSA Exams for grades 3 through 8 Proficiency.

LASD exceeded the state proficiency rates on the new PSSA exams by an average of 7%.

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Keystone Exams in the High School

Advanced Placement Exams in the High School

Percent of Students Proficient and Advanced High

School State

Algebra I 59.6% 38.7%

Biology 79% 46.5%

Literature 79.9% 58.5%

LASD exceeded the state proficiency rates on Keystone exams by an average of 33%.

Increasing access to AP classes and increasing pass rates.

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Growth Scores for PSSA and Keystone Exams

We exceeded growth standards in Algebra, 5th and 8th Grade Math. We exceeded growth standards in Literature and 8th grade English We exceeded growth standards in Biology and 4th grade Science. Overall we exceeded or met growth standards in 13 of the 15 categories. We did not meet growth standard in 6th and 7th grade math.

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Percent of students self-reporting they are headed to college:

We see steady numbers of students over the 5 years entering the military and work force at 6% and 11% respectively with 18% of the students graduating LASD undecided for their future.

Student Achievement Summary

Glowing Areas: In summary of student achievement, we have exceeded the state average on all proficiency rates and in all subjects as well as met or exceeded growth rates in 13 of the 15 categories. The high school is leading the state Keystone results in all categories by achieving above the state average on proficiency rates by 33% and exceeding all growth score indicators for all three exams of Algebra I, Biology and Literature. In addition, grade 8 achieved similar results by exceeding above the state average on proficiency rates and by exceeding growth score indicators for Math and ELA. Grade 5 Math is noteworthy due to proficiency rates above the state average and moderate growth scores.

Growth Areas:

1. 3rd Grade Reading/English Language Arts (ELA) Proficiency Rates 2. 6th and 7th Grade Math Proficiency and Growth Scores 3. 8th Grade Science Proficiency and Growth Scores 4. Early Childhood Programming in Grades K-2 5. Advanced Placement and Percent of Students Attending 2 and 4 Year Colleges 6. High Interest Career and Technical Education 7. Grade 4 through 7 ELA Growth Scores

We are struggling with measuring our early childhood programming in grades K-2. We are in need of a consistent, reliable, and sustainable measurement system with multiple data points. The data system will allow us to improve our decision making processes and enhance the overall number of students reading on grade level. With a growing free and reduced population, we must intervene early and with much greater intensity as to provide each child with the best chance of reaching career and college ready status. The cost of interventions in the later grades is costly, when we know that we can invest heavily in the early grades at a fraction of the costs.

61% of Students in 2015

64.5% of Students in 2014

58% of Students in 2013

62% of Students in 2012

70% of Students in 2011

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