Glenmoor Elementary School (2020)

  1. PLC Story
  2. PLC Practices
  3. Achievement Data
  4. Awards
  5. Resources

In 2012-13, our school had the advantage to be trained by Cognitive Solutions in order to change the mindset of teachers’ thinking of how children learn and to establish a collaborative atmosphere among the staff.  Mari Fedrow trained our staff on Brain Compatibility with intensive hands on application to our newly adopted Common Core standards and curriculum.

With this new knowledge and anxiety of learning the new Common Core standards, our administrator added 35 hours of adjunct duty time to our first two years (2012-2013/2013-2014) of implementation to allow for additional planning time.   

As an impetus to find solutions for effective student intervention, we made a school wide commitment to identify our student’s needs per grade level.  In order to get total engagement from the teaching staff, we surveyed teacher concerns and found one of the major hesitations to be time constraints.  Our administrator provided dedicated time (common prep time) to all grade levels which allowed for teachers to collaborate at a regular time without having to carve out time with individual teacher schedules.

Beginning in 2016-17, we brainstormed other time constraints and used the 4 essential questions as our guiding inquiry.  We created norms and group/individual responsibilities during our first meeting.  There was an expectation that all group members will adhere to these norms.  Our commitment is determined and our grade level collaboration is strong. Having developed an environment of sharing ideas with no judgement, and assuming positive intentions we were able to create a holistic goal of assuming responsibility for ALL students at Glenmoor.  This allowed us to share data of student assessments and to openly share our teaching strategies to ascertain which teacher had the best results.  From there, we listened to that teacher’s strategies and adopted pieces that would work in not only our own classrooms but in the RTI groups we populated based on need.

We analyzed our district’s Priority Standards, in 2017-2018, by grade level to determine where we had the biggest deficits.    From there, we created a Common Formative Assessment (CFA) as a pretest to determine where our students struggle and how to challenge those students who ‘get it’.  We analyzed the data from the CFA and grouped students by skill mastery.  Groups were divided among grade level teachers as a team, appropriate resources were selected and RTI rotation set up.  The teacher with the lowest performing group determined the length of each RTI rotation. Students who showed mastery of the Priority Standards were challenged with rigorous activities that extended their learning. Upon the end of the rotation, we created a post-CFA that showed if the skill was adequately mastered.  The process was then repeated by looking at the Priority Standards.

 Using the above mentioned cycle of inquiry, the staff agreed that we would continue the RTI process until we covered all the Priority Standards and then would spiral back to ensure retention.  To this day, we utilize this effective process with demonstrated success.

In conclusion the following was developed throught our our journey and is our current scroll which we get our inspriation from.

 

Through a process developed by Simon Sinek Glenmoor’s teachers, staff, parents, and students developed a comprehensive mission and vision statement:

Mission

Glenmoor teachers, staff and families will provide ample opportunities for all students to develop to their full academic potential and become contributors to our global community.

 Vision

 Glenmoor School believes all students can succeed with the commitment of all teachers, staff, and parents:

  • in a positive, safe climate.
  • where students have the opportunity to understand their potential.
  • where each child is embraced for his/her unique character and ability.
  • in a supportive, and nurturing learning environment.
  • with a balanced education program that inspires intellectual and emotional development for all students.

From here and after living with the mission and vision statements for a while Glenmoor developed a collective commitment to ensure all students are getting the help and support they need emotionally and academically.

Collective Commitments

  • Continue to develop and implement common formative assessments (CFAs) using the district’s priority standards.
  • Continue to create a master schedule to ensure each grade level has time blocks to implement Response to Intervention (RtI) sessions.
  • Continue to improve upon the process for teachers to use to analyze data collected from the CFAs.  
  • Allow time during staff meetings and collaboration time to analyze data and plan for RtI sessions.
  • Streamline collaboration meetings with succint agendas and timings. 
 

In our annual goal writing process through our state Single Plan for Student Achievement (SPSA), the teachers have always advocated for time to collaborate and implement the RtI process. In addition there are Math, English Language Arts, Writing and English Learner goals all of which are focused on during the collaboration times and are vetted through RtI rotations.

        By June, we will provide as a school 30 hours of collaboration time for 100% of our teachers to focus on improving instructional strategies, creating assessments, and analyzing data for our Response to Intervention (RtI) Model. They will likewise analyze student data through Professional Learning Communities and create learning groups to increase student performance on the priority standards. This goal will be measured by pre and post tests during RtI model rotations, classroom performance, and district assessment results.

In addition to the above commitments and goals teams have developed their own set of norms to help them focus on the work. These norms are displayed at each meeting and are reviewed at the beginning and end of each meeting.

All of this foundational work has allowed us to implement a successful program in which all of our students are able to find success academically and emotionally during their time at Glenmoor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Monitoring student learning on a timely basis.

Teachers collaborate during grade level meetings to determine a priority standard that many students are challenged to meet.  A common formative assessment is created based on the priority standard. Based on the results of the pre common formative assessment, teachers discuss areas of weakness that students encounter.  Teachers will plan how to meet the students’ needs according to the assessment results. Strategies for each group will be discussed and the teacher instructing the lowest performing group will be determined by the strengths of the results of the common formative assessments. The assessment results help to determine the length of the intervention and enrichment period.  During the end of the intervention and enrichment period, the common formative assessment is given again to determine how much growth has been made.

In the intervention group, students will review and practice the priority standard.  In order to meet the needs of the students who have met the priority standard, the standard is extended, and a similar priority standard from the next grade level will be taught.  Once the cycle has ended, the common formative assessment is given to the students again. Any students that have not made any growth and require extra intervention will meet with our push-in intervention specialist. Researched online programs are utilized during classroom independent work time to help students practice these priority standards as well.  Students are given a formative assessment to determine if the push-in specialist and computer interventions have helped these students comprehend the standards.

Throughout the school year, math and reading assessments are given periodically to determine the growth and progress of each student.  The results of these assessments will help teachers to group students according to similar reading or math levels. Groups may change throughout the year based on the teacher’s professional discretion.  Teachers will determine the next priority standard to focus on based on their grade level needs.



 

2. Creating systems of intervention to provide students with additional time and support for learning.

Glenmoor Elementary school’s mission statement is to provide ample opportunities for all students to develop to their full academic potential and become valuable, positive contributors to our global community.  The entire Glenmoor community has the resources and the desire to address the needs of the whole child. In order to accomplish this, Glenmoor has established many systems that address a wide variety of needs through intervention and extension.  The school has a strong English Language Development program with a school wide designated time and an ELD specialist for support.  Each grade level is responsible for carrying out appropriate intervention through RTI.  In addition, Glenmoor has developed a Will/Skill club during lunch and after school for homework intervention.  The school uses funds every year to support push-in intervention specialists, who lead Will Club, during lunchtime so all students may benefit from the addtional time, (math facts, homework assistance, unfinished classwork assistance). It is during the Will Club time that we are able to reach those students who are not able to attend after school Skill Club.  While in the classrooms, our two push-in intervention teachers provide Tier 3 supports for those students who are still struggling with a particular Priority Standard after a complete RTI rotation. 

For those students who are invited and are able to attend Skill Club they receive even more intense help with academics and homework practice from a credentialed teacher and additional volunteers.We have learned over the years to keep this group of students small as they require a lot of one on one attention. If a student is not able to attend the after school program we ensure they receive ample opportunities during the school day to get the help they need to be successful.

In the beginning of the year, grade level teachers work together to assess student data to form three groups of students for our English Language Development Block.  One group is for students that need extra support in reading and writing.  The other two groups of students receive enrichment in ELA. To form these groups, teachers look at a student’s primary language, beginning of the year assessments and SBAC scores. The ELD Block is for 30 minutes, five days a week.  Teachers re-assess students throughout the year to monitor student learning and make changes with placement where needed.  In addition to the ELD time block, Glenmoor also has an ELD specialist who pulls long term English Language students and newcomers for extra support.

Teachers have been trained extensively to follow the RTI process.  Each grade level focuses on priority standards when creating common formative assessments.  CFA’s are given to assess which students need additional time and support with essential learning goals.  Teachers provide several blocks of instruction over a period of days to bolster the essential skills and understanding of the identified students.Each grade level will complete 5-7 RTI rotations throughout the year with the goal of increasing that number as the process becomes more natural.

  Other systems in place that aid this RTI process are the technology programs such as Lexia, i-Ready, and JiJi.  The smart, layered approach provides ample opportunities for students to have access to important, essential learning.

Coming out of the pandemic we realized that our after school "homework club" needed to be reexamined and revamped. As a staff we realized that simply having students come in to do homework was not enough. Glenmoor can now call our after school program a standards based skill club.  Teachers at the grade level have compiled resource folders in their google drives that are standards specific so really any teacher can come in and carry on with what the teacher before them had done. These folders contain activities, practice sheets, and independent work so student and teacher time together in small groups is targeted and measurable.

 

3. Building teacher capacity to work as members of high performing collaborative teams that focus efforts on improved learning for all students.

Across grade levels, teachers meet bi-weekly throughout the school year to collaborate with one another in high-performing teams, with the collective goal of providing the best learning opportunities for every student. Our Physical Education and Science teachers are also invovled in this process. This seven-year-long journey has grown and evolved to become almost automatic in our grade levels, and it has become essential to how grade levels plan their year and helps determine the flow of their lessons. These streamlined efforts are planned to improve the overall learning environment and success of all students.   

In these bi-weekly meetings, teams collaboratively create Common Formative Assessments (CFAs) meant to assist in determining student knowledge, proficiency and understanding of priority standards. The CFAs are implemented in each class to each student by each teacher. The team then comes back together to review and calibrate the CFA as a group. The resulting data is then openly analyzed, laying bare all data across all classes. This has been a good way for teachers to celebrate together the success of student learning, and also to delve into how to best reach those students who are not yet accessing the priority standards. The students who have mastered the chosen standard(s) will receive related enrichment lessons in a larger group. Those students struggling with the skill or standard will be placed in small, highly-targeted Response to Intervention (RtI) groups, which are then assigned to the teacher(s) whose students had the highest success with the CFA. These fluid, differentiated groupings are designed to change according to the standard, the data, the strength of each teacher, and the needs of the students.

After some RtI sessions have been completed,  a CFA is given again to determine the success of the differentiated groupings. As the number of students gain mastery of the chosen standard, the team will reconvene to review growth, determine if the course should be stayed for additional differentiated RtI, or if it is time to celebrate the success of the RtI rotation and begin the process again with the creation and implementation of a new CFA.  

 

Our PE and Science teachers work with other specialists in the district to develop lessons and CFAs around their content area. This process works a little different as the rest of the school. Once they have the results from the CFAs they provide small group differentiation, helping each other, with in their own classrooms working specifically with those students who lack mastery of the standard. This process continues throughout the unit of study.

A key component to the success of our program has been examining the strengths of our teaching teams and being open to sharing data for all students. This has helped to change the mindset of a teacher operating in his/her four walls to being a part of a team that is charged with the grand goal of reaching all our students for team success. We have learned to celebrate our individual strengths and be open to sharing and utilizing our team members to their fullest. The impressive data of the growth made between pre- and post-CFAs, with team collaboration and RtI, has supported the idea that this process has fostered highly-performing collaborative teams that improve learning for all students.

 

We have been honored to have several schools visit our campus this past year (2022-2023), through the designation as a PLC Model School, to observe what we are doing with our PLC process and RtI. Sometimes looking at our own practices is not as powerful as when outside observers come in to take a look at what we are accomplishing as a school as a school. Theses visits have been very powerful and have been confirmation that what we are doing is what is best for students. The process of working with other schools has been influential for both sides. It is our hope that these relationships carry on as these other schools continue their PLC journey.  

 

 

 

 

Achievement Data Files

Additional Achievement Data

Beginning in 2012, Glenmoor began diving deeper into our student data to identify the areas which required more focus for our students. Once our teachers identified these areas this is as far as it went. As a school we did not apply it to our lesson planning or instruction. Our Instructional Leadership Team (ILT) decided something had to be done with this information and we neede to address the needs of our students. Here is a timeline of the implementation of these positive practices.

2013-2014- Implemented the English Language Arts Enrichment Block (ELAEB) which is still a part of our schedule today. During this half hour block teachers focus on the English Language Development standards with our English Learners while our English Only students receive enrichment activities of non-priority standards.

2014-2015 Each grade level team developed a SMART Goal for themselves. What aspect of student achievement they wanted to focus on throughout the entire year. Depending on the needs of their students some grade levels focused on Math and others on English Language Arts. Maintained the ELAEB and began to unpack the ELD standards.

2015-2016 Continued to unpack the ELD standards andintroduced Essential Standards and began unpacking these as grade levels. Grade levels wrote SMART Goals for their students.

2016-2017 After a team went to Mike Mattos’ Response to Intervention (RtI) Workshop the ILT unanimously voted on beginning to implement the RtI process. We called this year RtI Lite. We set an expectation that each grade level would identify one Essential Standard; develop a Common Formative Assessment; create groups based on performance on that CFA; give direct instruction; reassess after several sessions. The growth of student data results  in each grade level was astounding!

2017-2018 The ILT decided to encourage 3-5 RtI rotations all while we maintained the ELAEB.

2018-2019 The entire school is now in full RtI implementation with the expectation of 5-7 different rotations during the year. Some grade levels have exceed the expectation and are on their 8th or 9th rotations and are still going strong.

We are proud to claim that we are a RtI school and the progress our sub groups are making is significant. Referring to our SBAC Performance by Subgroup charts you will notice substantial growth in English Language Arts in our African American (+24), Hispanic (+15), White (+12), EL (+9) and Special Ed (+23) subgroups. In Math there was growth in our Hispanic (+3), White (+7) and Special Ed (+17) subgroups.

2019-2020 Glenmoor has continued our journey focusing on the Response to Intervention model. As we look at our English Learner data our students continue to make progress with 52.2% of our EL students maintaining or progressing one level on the measurement scale. This is an increase of 3.3% from last year's results. In English Language Arts, overall Glenmoor students increased 12.3 points on our California Dashboard with each measurable student group increasing: Students with Disabilities +6.3 points; English Learners +6.2 points; Hispanic +15.1 points; Socioeconomically Disadvantaged +15.1 points; Asian +10.9 points; White +20.4 points. In Math, overall Glenmoor students increased by 8.4 points with measurable student groups either maintaining their status or increasing: Students with Disabilities +7.2 points; English Learners maintained with a 1.1 increase; Hispanic +6.2; Socioeconomically Disadvantage +4.5 points; Asian +7.8 points; White +11.8 points. The entire Glenmoor community is proud of our progress and will continue to challenge our students with rigorous lessons and focused Response to Intervention rotations.

2020-2023

To say the least, the past three years have been the most interesting in the educational field. Despite the difficulties the situation has posed, Glenmoor has maintained our Response to Intervention program and the Professional Learning Community process. 

Please see the attachments for the visual representations of the data.

Overall our students at Glenmoor, according to the 2022 Fall California Dashboard for English Language Arts we were in the Very High area being 47.4 point above the CA standard. As we dig deeper into the the sub groups we find that our English Learners, Socioeconomically Disadvantage, and Hispanic students fall into the low area. It is a very similar story with mathematics as well. Overall the 2022 Fall California Dashboard of Mathematics was High for all Students being 21.4 points above the sate standard.  Our English Learners, Socioeconomically Disadvantage, and Hispanic students falling in the low area of the dashboard. When looking at our English Learner Progress our students scored in the High range with 63.1 % making progress towards English Language proficiency form state testing results in 2022. This has been and continues to be a focus of ours through our Response to Intervention process. 

Coming out of the pandemic we knew these sub groups were going to struggle with coming back to in person learning which is why as a school we ramped up our interventions and are seeing a steady progression within our standards based Response to Intervention process. This is one measure of only our 3-6 graders at one point of the year. Looking at 2022-2023 data for this year we utilize i-Ready Diagnostic assessments. With this data we are seeing the achievement of our students increase with comparison of the beginning of the year to the mid-year assessments. In the area of English Language Arts our grade 1-6 students have increased be 28 percentage points for students being mid or above and on grade level. In math this increase was 17 percentage points. To contribute to these increases every single grade level improved their scores in both English Language Arts and Math.

The journey over the past eleven years has been, to say the least, a lot of hard work but worth all of the efforts. The reason we have made such strides is because the teachers of Glenmoor saw, and continue to see the need and work collaboratively in their grade levels and with each other to reach the place we are today. As a collective team we continue to analyze our practices and make the needed adjustments to the process in order for all of our students to be successful.

California Distinguished School 2012

California Gold Ribbon School 2016

Best of The City Fremont-Elementary School 2018

District 1st Place/County 1st Place/ State 5th Place Spelling Bee Champion 2018

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