NEUQUA VALLEY HIGH SCHOOL NEWSLETTER to Parents

In This Issue

From Bob McBride, Principal

MAY 2010

NEWSLETTERto ParentsPrincipal’s Message

NEUQUA VALLEY HIGH SCHOOL

Over the course of this school year, every Wednesday has been a late arrival for students. For Neuqua Val-ley High School teachers, however, Wednesday mornings have been an early arrival. Over the course of the school year, you might have wondered how our school and faculty were using this Wednesday morning time. This entire newsletter is devoted to sharing with you our professional development work this year. Every Wednesday, faculty members have been engaged in professional development and growth. As a school, we have committed ourselves to a specific professional development model, Professional Learning Commu-nities. The concept behind this model is simple. In each academic depart-ment, faculty members are organized as small teams. These teams focus on a critical course in the department, and the teachers on the team all teach that course. Rather than an episodic or accidental discussion of the course or the students taught in it, teachers meet weekly on Wednesday to examine stu-dent learning and shape their instruc-tion around it. Professional Learning Community teams focus on three critical ques-tions first developed at Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, IL where much of the PLC concept first took form: What is it we want students to learn? How will we know they learned it? What will we do if they have not learned it? The idea behind these questions and the PLC concept is that teachers look

weekly for gaps in student knowledge and understanding, and they collaborate to develop ways of addressing these gaps. The work of our teacher teams is designed to build a collaborative environment around instruction, technology, and assess-ment. It is also designed to focus faculty members on learning as the litmus test for effectiveness in the classroom. So why organize teachers into teams? When students are learning and succeeding, it is easy to operate as a solo act in the classroom. But when students struggle, when they fall short, and when they don’t learn, that is when professionals rely on each other to ana-lyze what students need. The pages of this newsletter illumi-nate samples of Professional Learning Community work that our departments and teachers have completed over the course of this school year. Our teachers have followed a cyclical process of de-veloping professional norms for collabo-ration, assessing student strengths and weaknesses, setting goals for achieve-ment, and pursuing those goals through teaching. We are proud of the work we have produced this year, and we continue to focus our efforts on creating a school culture that aligns itself to what students need when they struggle and fall short of the learning goals we have for them.

Sincerely,Bob McBride

We believe in fostering a climate that

encourages learning & personal growth

MISSION STATEMENT

RESPECT your building . . . RESPECT your school . . . RESPECT yourself

Main Building

2360 95th Street

Naperville, IL 60564

630.428.6000

630.428.6001 fax

Freshman Building

3220 Cedar Glade

Naperville, IL 60564

630.428.6400

630.428.6401 fax

Principal’s Message | 1

PLC Diagram | 2

Sample Goal Statements | 3 from PLC Teams

Sample Areas of | 4 Focus and Work

Thoughts About the | 5 PLC Process

A

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PLC Timeline

2

9

16

23

30

7

14

21

28

3

10

17

24

7

14

21

28

5

12

19

2

9

6

13

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27

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18

5

12

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26

= First PLC Meetings: 6:55am hard start

Norms, Protocols & Commitments

Goals

Monitor & Collect Data

= First Day of School

3

10

17

24

Learning Fair - During AM and PM sessions, teams present to one another, sharing what they discovered about their students and themselves.

Establishing shared guidelines for decision-making, timeliness, and engagement respects the time and talent of your team.

Pre-Assessement

Strategic & SpecificMeasurableAttainableResults-orientedTime-bound

Developing strategies, instruments and tools to explore what students know and don’t know, what they can and can’t do, narrows a PLC focus.

A focus on learning is at the heart of the PLC process. SMART goals help keep us accountable to student learning.

A SMART GoalThe percentage of English I students scoring a 3 or better on the writing standards rubric will increase by the end of Semester I.

Not a SMART GoalStudents will improve their writing skills in English 9.

A SMART GoalBy the end of Semester I, 80% of all 2D art students will be able to demonstrate the use of line, shape, value, color and texture as measured by the 2D drawing rubric.

Not a SMART GoalStudents will improve their drawing skills in 2D Art.

Norms, Protocols& Commitments

Pre-Assessment

SMART GoalsMonitor andCollect Data

Reflection

Revise

PLC

Once you’ve developed what you’re going to collect and how you’re going to collect it, begin archiving that information and sharing it with your PLC.

PLC’s are an organic process bound by basic guidelines. Within those parameters, teams will move at different rates. For the first two months, we’re asking teams use the above calendar as a guide to govern the pace of their work. This collective commitment will set a foundation for successful experiences.

Professional Learning Communties require patience, leadership and communication. Working with colleagues builds our capacity to serve students and our confidence in the goals we set for them.

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B A D

S I P

PLC Diagram


Page 2


Page 3

Sample Goal Statements from Professional Learning Community Teams To answer the question “What do we want our students to learn? Profes-sional Learning Community teams at Neuqua Valley set SMART goals at the beginning of the school. SMART is an acronym for goals that are Strategic, Measurable, Results-oriented, and Time-bound. These goals guided discus-sions about students, curriculum, in-struction, assessment, and educational technology. The goals provided a target for students and teachers and provided a focus. Teams set goals, revised them, reached them, and wrote new goals over the course of the year.

BuSINeSS

100% of the students will demonstrate an understanding of the stock market by effectively completing the stock market project. This will be shown by achieving a score of 80% or above on the summa-tive project as measured by the stock market rubric.

eNGLISh

70% of all junior Contemporary Litera-ture students will be able to correctly in-troduce, blend, properly cite, and explain quotations within their writing by January 14, 2010.

ForeIGN LANGuAGe

In Spanish I students will be able to earn a grade of 85% or better on weekly assessments that focus on subject/verb agreement by December 9th.

GuIDANCe

By the end of the 3rd quarter atten-dance will increase at academic re-source and classroom performance will improve for sophomore students who

have been recommended for academic resource and have not previously at-tended.

MATheMATICS

In Algebra 1 on summative exams dur-ing the current school year all students will achieve proficiency of 65% on commonly assessed topics and 71% in honors/AP courses.

MuSIC

By the end of the first semester, 75% of all woodwind, brass, and percussion stu-dents will be able to interpret rhythmic organization and identify the durational symbols within the context of a musical composition as measured by a multiple choice exam.

heALTh

90% of students will show improve-ment in their writing skills utilizing vo-cabulary terminology throughout the semester.

PhySICAL eDuCATIoN

75% of students by the end of the 1st Quarter will know all 12 muscle groups as shown on the quarter exam.

SCIeNCe

In Chemistry by the end of the second semester, the majority of students will show improved graphing and graphing interpretation skills as measured by the graphing rubric.

SoCIAL STuDIeS

In US History after collecting pre-as-sessment data we expect 75% of stu-dents to be able to write an average or above average thesis statement based on the prompt. n

SMART is an acronym for

goals that are Strategic,

Measurable, Results-ori-

ented, and Time-bound.

Measura

ble

Strategic

Results- Oriented

Time- Bound

Sample Areas of Focus and Work

Page 4

We focused on

creating the best

possible measures

of assessments for

student learning.

We reviewed and

revised assessments

that were already

in place.

Throughout the year, PLC teams se-lected specific areas of work in curricu-lum, instruction, assessment, or technol-ogy to work on pursuing their student goals. The following descriptions sum-marize how some teams approached their work week to week.

FroM BuSINeSS

“We analyzed each exam and em-bedded or altered related questions and stems to continually determine the level of mastery with regards to the four management functions. We dissected each question and tracked progress from each course section to compare and contrast mastery levels across our different teachers.”

FroM eNGLISh

“Across the board, students improved their writing skills and scores when these two groups of scores were com-pared. Some interventions or adapta-tions used included additional practice in class, reviewing examples, and addition-al practice with structure in study skills for students with IEP’s. These changes benefitted students because the first writing PLC study created further dia-logue.”

FroM FAMILy AND CoNSuMer SCIeNCe

“We focused on technical reading, vocabulary building, note taking, and summarizing. We believe that if students mastered certain strategies then it would improve their performances overall.”

FroM GuIDANCe

“We wanted students to learn how to take responsibility for their learning. The tools utilized were academic resource

opportunities and time management dur-ing option. The target group of students consisted of students that had one ‘F’ or more on the weekly progress report.”

FroM MATh

“We focused on creating the best pos-sible measures of assessments for stu-dent learning. We reviewed and revised assessments that were already in place. Based on the students’ scores on these assessments we were able to determine if they had reached our learning targets.”

FroM PhySICAL eDuCATIoN

“Using CPS as a test form has al-lowed us to collect data with all eight dance classes offered in PE. We have been able to compare what questions students struggled with and what areas students’ excelled in. Once we evalu-ated our questions, we made modifica-tions to tests as needed.”

FroM SCIeNCe

“We wanted to create a set of goals related to graphing skills. This goal is linked to the ACT. We designed a graph-ing assessment to evaluate the progress of their graphing skills, and we incorpo-rated graphing activities into each unit with varying difficulties.”

FroM SoCIAL STuDIeS

“We adjusted lessons and assignment for next year, as well as both formative and summative assessments. In the short term, we began utilizing CRISS strategies to help us achieve our goals. We didn’t necessarily adjust the pace, but rather improved upon what we were already doing to enhance our curriculum and help students be more successful

overall.” n


Bob Mc [email protected]

Mark TruckenbrodAssociate PrincipalResponsibilities include oversight of Deans, Special Education, and Student [email protected]

Lance FuhrerAss’t. Principal for Curriculum & Instruction. Responsibilities include all academic programs at Main and Gold, School improvement initiatives, and professional development

[email protected]

Mark KolkmanAss’t. Principal for OperationsResponsibilities include oversight of classified staff, direction of buildings and grounds, facility use scheduling, budgeting, purchasing and [email protected]

Maree RussavageAssistant Principal Responsibilities include Lead Administrator at the Gold [email protected]

Tyrone SmithAss’t. Principal for Student Support. Responsibilities include coordinator of student programs, focused student intervention efforts, data assessment, and school/district equity [email protected]

Barb BarrowsAthletic [email protected]

Charles BibbsLead Administrator at [email protected]

Administration

Page 5

After our first year in this small

group learning structure, we are

currently working on revisions to

it and adjustments. The focus is

making the most of our time and

the most of our collaboration with

each other. The below comments

represent some of the reactions we

gathered about the Professional

Learning Community Team process:

“This year’s structure seems a

good balance between freedom and

mandate. Flexibility is needed and

appreciated. A somewhat flexible

deadline for SMART goal formation,

mid-year reflection and end-of-the

year summary is all that is needed.

The benefits of focusing on one

concept/course/goal are great. This

has led to very pertinent information

sharing, discussion, and discovery

for each of us – veteran and young

teachers alike.”

“A benefit of our PLC was being

able to focus on one specific course

with the same team members,

which allows us to keep a good

rhythm within one course. The only

drawback is that we do not spend

time on other courses that we teach

during that time.”

“In regards to the PLC structure,

we feel that less structure for next

year would be more beneficial to

our PLC work. We understand that

structure was needed, as this was

the first year of PLC work, however,

from here on out, we understand the

PLC process and cycle and can be self-

motivated and self-monitored.”

“The composition of our team, that

being directly focused on one compo-

nent of our department has enabled

the team to be exceedingly productive.

The more focus dictated to the PLC the

more potential it has of simply becom-

ing task driven and less productive. For

our PLC a semester-driven timeline

was appropriate. We should continue to

allow each department to decide how to

form and steer PLC’s. The make-up of

the PLC is what determines the direct

benefit to the students.”

“Weekly gives us a timely opportunity

to discuss and reflect upon our goals.

The current amount of time seems

appropriate although given the current

morning schedule we do sometimes

feel rushed and do not have the option

to continue the conversation because

of time constrictions. Having our PLC

focused on one course allows us to

build common expectations for our

course and uniformity in the way it is

presented.” n

Thoughts About the PLC Process


Documents

NEUQUA VALLEY HIGH SCHOOL NEWSLETTER to Parents