Ringgold Primary School (2021)

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

Ringgold Primary School is a Pre-K through 2nd grade school located in Ringgold, Georgia.  It is part of the Catoosa County Public School System that is known for its innovative practices and commitment to excellence. Our promise to our stakeholders is we will prepare every child, every day, without exception.  We encourage every child to reach his or her full potential.

We became familar with PLC at Work when several of our staff attended a Solution Tree sponsored conference in 2017.  Since then, we have also attended numerous conferences in Atlanta, Georgia and Des Moines, Iowa.  Our teams of teachers came back and had a better understanding of how to reach every child, every day.  We began to talk about our desire to become a Professional Learning Community at Ringgold Primary School.  Initially, we adjusted our mission to include learning for all and teachers helped develop the schedule so that collaborative planning was embedded in the school day.  Each team's collaborative time together is student centered and data driven.  Our data showed that we were in need of adding an intervention time for students needing Tier 3 support.  From this, WIN Time (What I Need) was established. WIN Time is an opportunity for students to receive remediaiton from previous years' instruction outside of current grade level Core Instruction.   

In 2018, our school was exposed to many PLC trainings that were provided at the district level in our county.  Our school formed a Guiding Coalition and together we began to empower our teachers to become leaders. We identified essential standards system wide and teacher teams worked collaboratively to create common formative assessments to assess these standards.  Book studies were implemented with teams within the school to deepen the understanding of the PLC process.  Our guiding coalition continues to champion their co-workers in ways to be team players using data to keep track of student progress.

In 2019 Ringgold Primary began using units of study designed around the county's essential standards and learned to develop common formative assessments to help drive our instruction and assess mastery of targets. A Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum now guides the instrution of all grade levels at Ringgold Primary School.  Collaborative planning time with teachers is centered around the four critical questions of a PLC. Our master schedule has been designed to make sure that students receive Tier 2 and Tier 3 support as needed without missing core instruction and extension activities are planned for students that can demonstrate mastery of targets.  Students are aware of the path to mastery through student friendly learning targets and grade level SMART goals.  Our main objective is that all of our students will grow academically. 

Currently, our school's mission, vision, collective commitments and school wide goals are what drive of our work as a Professional Learning Community.  These Four Pillars are referred to and revisited often by our teams.  We have created a culture of goal setting and analysis and our team discussions are data driven and student centered.  

***Please see the document Four Pillars of Ringgold Primary School in the uploaded documents section.

 

1. Monitoring student learning on a timely basis.

At Ringgold Primary School, we share the thought that ALL STUDENTS are OUR STUDENTS no matter the homeroom in which they are placed.  RPS works continuously to build a shared understanding and commitment to the PLC at Work process.  Essential standards were established at county level collaborative meetings.  These essential standards were prestented to the individual grade levels.  Curriculum maps were developed during collaborative time to determine pacing, rigor and assessment methods. Teams utilize unit SMART goals to drive their instruction of the essential standards. These essential standards are then assessed using common formative assessments developed by the grade level team.  Following the assessments, the grade level teams reconvene to delve into the results.  Strengths and weaknesses are determined and students participate in a flexible and fluid Tier 2 re-engagement time as needed.  Students showing mastery participate in extension activities while others receive Tier 2 instruction. Tier 3 students are progress monitored once a month to analyze growth and understanding.  During our daily W.I.N.(What I Need) time students are receiving enrichment or remediataion based upon collected student data using research based programs such as Lexia and Dreambox.  Poorly mastered skills are identified and new learning strategies are discussed by the team.  During weekly collaborative meetings, teachers whose students produced mastery leveled results share their strategies in hopes that these ideas will in turn aid the students in other classes.  Three times a year teachers meet to review MAP benchmark results in both reading and math to establish goals for future academic achievement for all students.  Not only do grade levels meet to discuss essential standards, common formative assessments and student sucess as well as interventions, but all grade levels also periodically meet vertically with other grade levels to discuss things that are going well and those things that might require more attention.

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

At Ringgold Primary we are creating and implementing systems of intervention and extension by collaborating as a team to meet every child's needs.  We have a shared belief that EVERY student can learn at high levels.  Therefore, a systematic approach to learning has been implemented regarding each tier of learning with support to fill in gaps and extend learning.  Students are assessed at the beginning of each school year using a county wide screener.  Currently, we assess strengths and weaknesses of student learning through MAP Growth (Measure of Academic Progress).  Once students are assessed, grade levels meet as a collaborative team with our Academic Coach to determine at-risk students.  All students receive Tier 1 instruction and have access to and receive high levels of essential core instruction through a guaranteed viable and research based curriculum in reading and math (Reading Wonders and Eureka).  Data for Tier 2 students is monitored  through CFAs and summative assessments which are centered around essential learning targets.  If learning of the essential target is not met, the students are re-engaged or provided supplemental intervention to gain better understanding or mastery of the learning target, while students showing mastery receive an extension activity to participate in.  Re-engagement is administered in a timely, targeted, and flexible manner.  Lexia and Dreambox are used for tier 3 interventions and extension.  These are implemented during our designated WIN (What I Need) time which is built into our school schedule.  The schedule allows for 45 minutes a day, 5 days a week of Lexia and Dreambox outside of core instruction.  Tier 3 interventions are monitored daily.  Learning skills are reinforced with skill builders and one on one lessons from the teacher.  Also, the ASIT (Academic School Wide Intervention Team) meets monthly to track and assess improvement of our most at-risk students.  The goal is to determine what other assistance may be needed to help each child reach their full potential.  Grade level teams have 90 minutes of collaboration time weekly embedded in the school day.  The work of the teams is guided by the 4 Questions of the Professional Learning Community.  AT RPS we work with the philosophy that it is our collective responsibility as teachers and a school to equip each student with the skills, confidence, and knowledge to successfully move on to the next grade level.  Our long term goal after the COVID-19 pandemic is to share students across the grade level to maximize learning of essential standards and learning targets.

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

At Ringgold Primary School, we believe in following the PLC at Work process. Several staff members have attended Solution Tree Institutes to receive training to help us develop the necessary skills to achieve the goal of becoming a PLC school. This has included administration, academic coaches, classroom teachers, and related arts teachers.

Beginning in 2017, RPS adjusted school schedules to allow for weekly collaborative teacher planning embedded in the school day, including SpED, inclusion, and gifted education teachers. This was a unique challenge at the primary level due to the fact that we have 7-8 classroom teachers at each grade level with only two related arts teachers. However, we made it a priority to work whole grade level planning into the schedule weekly. Charter funds were used to provide an art and STEM teacher, and the media specialist and guidance counselor provide additional support in the daily schedule. This had enabled grade level teachers to meet together weekly to create pacing guides for units of study, generate CFAs, develop strategies for reteaching and extension of learning targets, and analyze data collected through CFAs and benchmarks. 

Collaborative time embedded in the school day has given us the opportunity and time to use the four critical questions of the PLC as a guide to lead our teams in the important work. Our teachers create Unit SMART Goals as a team before teaching a unit. In the unit goal, the teams use pre-assessment data to determine the goal for the unit. The format we use has an area for teachers to list the results of the CFA and an area that allows for the next steps and final results.  A chart on the same page as the Unit SMART Goal allows the teachers to input their CFA data and teachers compare their results and discuss teaching strategies when the data is reviewed by the team.  The team discussions of successful teaching strategies have helped improve the teaching practices of our grade levels tremendously.  (In the uploaded documents a Kindergarten unit SMART goal and data analysis form has been added to provide an example of the protocol we use to set goals for units and how we look at data and plan as teams for re-engagement and extension with our students)     

Related arts teachers have been a part of the PLC process by participating in weekly team meetings with the academic coach. This includes PE, music, art, STEM, media, and guidance. They focused on the four critical questions and collaborated on how these questions could be incorporated into their content area. These teachers planned weekly “Wonderful Wednesday” lessons to provide extension activities for all students. Led by our guidance counselor, the related arts teachers have also been an integral part of our Check-In/Check-Out program, which follows our students with Tier 2 academic or social behaviors. During the 2020-21 COVID school year, some of our related arts teachers were moved to different positions, which interrupted our progress. This year we have resumed our plan, specifically working on how our related arts teachers answer question three in their content areas.

Following the PLC at Work process has allowed us to take an in-depth look at our essential standards and develop a guaranteed viable curriculum together as a grade level. We have been able to create CFAs based on the learning targets within the essential standards. By coming together to discuss the needs of our students, we have changed our focus into a shared responsibility for all student growth.

 

Achievement Data Files

Additional Achievement Data

Formal state assessment in Georgia does not begin until third grade. At the primary level, the data that is used largely depends on each individual school or district. From 2016-2020, Catoosa County used the STAR Reading and Math for benchmark testing three times each year and used Easy CBM for our progress monitoring in 1st and 2nd grade. Additionally, in 2019, we implemented Lexia and Dreambox to track Tier 2 and 3 students on a weekly basis. Beginning in the 2020 school year, the school system switched to MAP Growth as the designated benchmark measurement for the primary and elementary school setting. Our Georgia state measurement for Kindergarten has remained GKIDS since the 2008 school year.

**Going into the 2020-2021 school year, we realized that our students would have significant learning gaps due to the interruption of instruction in the spring of 2020. For this reason, Catoosa County purchased enough “seats” in our intervention programs (Lexia and Dreambox) so that ALL students could receive personalized practice in reading and math for 30 minutes each day.  The growth by our students observed in these programs for the school year was significant.  

For the 2021-2022 school year, our big step has been the development of various SMART Goals. We have also developed a system of evaluating our benchmark and CFA data to monitor the mastery of these goals:

  • Our Guiding Coalition developed school-wide SMART Goals based on our school-improvement plan.

  • Grade level teams developed SMART Goals based on their benchmark data.

  • Students developed their own SMART Goals based on their individual CFA data.

  • Grade level teams develop ongoing unit specific SMART Goals based on their pre-assessment data, learning targets, and essential standards.

 
We have added additional support for our second grade team to address the slight decline in the Second Grade Math MAP scores at the end of the 20/21 school year.  As a guiding coalition we tweaked the master schedule to ensure we are maximizing learning time for math instruction, the grade level team participated in a professional development session with a Eureka representative (the math curriculum company) and the academic coach is modeling lessons for the teachers throughout the school year. 

Catoosa County Public Schools is a PLC awarded school system.

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