L.J. Daly Elementary School (2019)

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

When we began our PLC journey, L.J. Daly School was identified as a focus school by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Focus Schools are Title I schools whose Student Gap Groups are among the lowest-performing in the state over three years according to state assessment results. The Student Gap Group that was identified was our free and reduced population. Our overall state assessment data in both English Language Arts and Math was below state average. We understood the importance of refining our practices and instructional strategies and knew there was much work to be done. The PLC process assisted our teachers and staff in identifying a common vision and mission, collective commitments and developing collaborative teams built on professional trust and shared leadership.  Our teams focused on data analysis and aligning instruction with a focus on the four corollary questions. 

Collaboration became highly effective with monthly building-wide Response to Intervention data team meetings during professional development days as well as twice weekly grade-level collaboration and data meetings.  When our teams meet, the conversations are now data-driven and centered around student performance on identified essential standards.  Students, teachers, and parents have a clear understanding of the current levels of and expectations for performance.  High levels of learning for all is the focus during our collaborative time.

The PLC process also helped to facilitate a shift to shared leadership.  Leadership is shared among the building leadership team, as well as other teachers in the building.  A common mission was established and the leadership team monitors the mission and the building plan, and involves all teachers and students in a high level of decision making.  The leadership team embraced the tough tasks of culture building, identification of essential standards, standards based grading, Response to Intervention, data binders and student goals, with a willingness to learn. 

Our commitment to our mission of building a foundation which equips ALL students with the essential skills for learning is the goal of our Response to Intervention program. Each grade level has a daily Falcon Time build into the school day in which students receive targeted instruction or enrichment in reading or math dependent upon their needs determined by data. Students are encouraged to set personal goals and students as young as Kindergarten track their learning in data binders. 

L.J. Daly is no longer identified as a focus school and students and staff have worked diligently to increase our student achievement scores on the English Language Arts, Missouri Assessment Program, test by more than 20% overall since the beginning of the PLC process. Our Spring 2018 Missouri Assessment Program test scores indicated that our students scored above the state average in both math and English Language Arts in every grade level. 

1. Monitoring student learning on a timely basis.

Teachers work together as members of a collaborative team.  The PLC process enabled our teachers and staff to develop teams built on professional trust and shared leadership. These teams concentrate on data analysis and aligning instruction with a focus on the four corollary questions.  Our grade level teams meet weekly to share data and address the four corollary questions to monitor student learning. When our teams meet, conversations are data-driven and centered around student performance on identified essential standards. This process has allowed for the grade level teams to focus on common assessments and make SMART goals based on their standards. Meeting notes are shared in a google folder and the leadership team reviews monthly the grade-level collaboration notes and provides feedback.  (See appendix-first-grade-team-agenda) (appendix-first-grade-team-meeting-notes) 

Student learning is also monitored through monthly data teams held during professional development days.  AIMSweb is utilized to benchmark students three times a year and progress monitoring occurs monthly.

Students set goals and keep track of their progress in data binders that they review with their teacher and parents. (Appendix- data binders) (Appendix-goals-data binder)

Revision of curriculum to meet the new Missouri Learning standards and defining the essential standards was also crucial to our work.  As part of the PLC process we worked on unpacking the standards and are transitioning to standards referenced grading. It was important to have a guaranteed, viable curriculum. In grade level collaboration meetings and curriculum meetings, proficiency scales were created and much discussion was had on what proficient looked like for each standard. Implementation of standards referenced grading was added in the 2017-2018 school year for third grade, 2018-2019 for fourth grade and fifth grade will implement standards referenced grading during the 2019-2020 school year.


 

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

Throughout the Professional Learning Communities (PLC) process Daly Elementary School (DES) has identified the need for school wide data teams and a response to intervention program (RTI).   In 2015, prior to a full implementation of the PLC process, data teams, and RTI 24.4% of DES students are in the below basic range in ELA as compared to 19.6% of the students in the state. DES started with English Language Arts as a focus for our Response to Intervention program. The impact is evidenced by a significant decrease in the students that are scoring in the below basic range on the ELA MAP test for DES as compared to the state average over the last two years.  For example: In third grade in 2017, 17.6% of the students in the state are in the below basic range as compared to 6.5% of DES students. In 2016, 18.6% of the students in the state are in the below basic range as compared to 2.4% of DES students. The RTI program with school wide data teams and SMART goals following the PLC process has led Daly Elementary School to identify students who are struggling and to provide specific,targeted interventions to track the impact on student learning.  

A master schedule was created that gave each grade level a Falcon Team (intervention and enrichment time) during the school day.  This is documented as Falcon Teams on the DES master schedule. (See Appendix 2019-2020DESmasterschedule)

Staff members utilize a shared Google document to track progress monitoring scores and interventions.  It documents each student group and identifies the strengths, needs, goals, and strategies, which are matched to the standard. An instructional focus exists for each group.  In each grade level a math group has been added to meet the needs of those students who have been identified through formative assessments. A SMART goal is created for each group and continuously monitored. (See appendix-data-Kindergarten-Falcon-team)

Grade-level data teams meet during Professional Development days. During this time, grade-level teachers collaborate with Special Education and Title staff to reflect on the interventions used and determine their effectiveness. The intent is for accountability and communication. Having collaborative teams built on trust has helped us to have courageous conversations during these data team meetings.  The PLC process has led to a shift in our thinking to these our ALL of our kids. 

We have also created additional support during the guided reading group block. Each teacher has an additional teacher or para that is trained to do guided reading groups. These individuals come to the classroom and facilitate small guided reading groups while the classroom teacher is also conducting guided reading groups. This allows for the students that may need a little extra to have two guided reading groups and less independent time.  This intentional additional support has helped to increase the number of students that are proficient when looking at the monthly data. This is documented in on the DES master schedule as push in the Appendix. (2019-2020DESmasterschedule)

We revisit the Four Corollary Questions driving our instruction and when needed changes are made to the groupings, focus, and interventions themselves.  An enrichment group has been added to each grade level for students that are above benchmark and do not need remediation on any skills.

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

Teachers measure their effectiveness based on results. Data is analyzed at both the grade level and the building. SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely) goals are made and monitored monthly. 

The PLC process helped to facilitate a shift to shared leadership.  Through our work with our PLC consultant and our monthly trainings through the Heart of Missouri RPDC we focused on building the "why" for our staff and building strong collaborative teams.  We used our building survey data to create our building plan (See Appendix- des2018-2019building plan) and the leadership team monitors the building plan monthly.  Surveys regarding trust and collaboration were also utilized by the grade level teams and other teams. This data was analyzed by the leadership team and support and feedback was given. (See Appendix-2019aprildesleadershipteam) (See Appendix-Leadership-team-notesmarch2019)

Peer observations was an area that we focused on to increase effectiveness of strategies and increase collaboration.  This was added to our building plan and has made a huge impact.

The leadership team attended the Powerful Learning Conference and implemented and shared ideas for effectiveness.  As a leadership team we sought out and learned from the Exemplary PLC schools at Powerful learning and it was amazing to have the opportunity to be recognized as an exemplary school and share our learning and journey. (Appendix image9840)

Achievement Data Files

Additional Achievement Data

The Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) test is given annually to elementary students in the areas of English Language Arts (ELA), Math, and Science.  2018 Science results were not given as it was a pilot test.  The graph indicates that Daly Elementary scored above or well above the state at EVERY grade level.

The District APR is the Annual Performance Review from the state.  The APR is made up of five categories; Academic Achievement, Subgroup Achievement, College & Career Readiness, Attendance, and Graduation rate. The Fayette R-III School district received a 97.8% out of 100% in 2018 as compared to 88.2% in 2017, 86.1% in 2016 and 83.2% in 2015. 

It is evident in the MAP overall achievement data since 2013, Daly Elementary has significantly increased the number of students scoring proficient or Advanced in both English Language Arts and Math.  This occurred while Missouri was introducing new standards and changing the state assessment.  Being a professional learning community enabled Daly Elementary School to focus on high levels of learning throughout the process. 

In 2019, Daly Elementary School was recognized by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education as a Missouri Exemplary Professional Learning Communities School.  

In 2019, Stacie Beaman, first grade teacher, was recognized as the Optimist and Rotary Teacher of the year and in 2018 Stacie Beaman was recognized as the Lincoln Public School Teacher of the year. 

In 2016, Mrs. Cheri Huster was recognized as the Exemplary New Principal of the Northeast District. As well as Dr. Cristina Heet was recognized as the Assistant Principal of the year of the Northeast District. 

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