Pleasant View Elementary (2023)

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

Pleasant View Elementary is a Kindergarten-5th grade public school in Baldwin Park, 18 miles east of Los Angeles.  There are 262 students enrolled at Pleasant View. At Pleasant View, 97.4% of the population is identified as socioeconomically disadvantaged. The ethnic breakdown of this school is: 8% Asian, 2% Filipino, 87% Latino, 1% African American, .5% White, and 1.5% two or more races. Forty-three English Learners receive daily Designated and Integrated ELD instruction and support to ensure that they have equitable access to the core curriculum and are making the progress needed to successfully reclassify. 

In the summer of 2016, Baldwin Park Unified sent school site teams to attend the PLC conference in Las Vegas.  Pleasant View sent a team of 7, and this evolved into a deep commitment to embrace and implement PLC practices schoolwide to ensure learning for all.  At the beginning of the 2016-2017 school year, the staff revisited the school’s mission and vision statements.  They obtained input from stakeholders, including parents.  The Leadership Team at the time reflected on specific practices like grading, assessments, intervention, and how staff members were collaborating.  During the 2017-2018 school year, the school sent another team to the PLC conference in San Diego.  This experience prompted the team to revisit grade level standards, identify essential standards, and create grade level common formative and summative assessments.  The school experienced a few changes in staff during the 2018-2019 period, including a new school principal.  A new Leadership Team evolved, and this team attended a PLC conference together.  This team agreed that its role on campus would focus on academic achievement for all students.  The team shifted gears and became a Guiding Coalition.  The team, with input from the staff, agreed that we would develop staff meeting norms that would align with our PBIS REAL Roadrunner student behavior expectations: Respect, Etiqutte, Accountability, and Leadership.  The staff agreed to also adopt these norms durin their grade level meetings.  We found that this provided our staff with a true sense of consistency and accountability. 

One of the biggest tasks taken on by this team was that of tightening up and improving schoolwide intervention.  In 2019, the school hired a Curriculum, Technology, and Intervention Coach (CTIC) who would focus on supporting teachers, specifically with data analysis and tiered intervention.  Data analysis days were calendared for the year, and teachers were provided with time during the school day to analyze data and plan for standards-based instruction and intervention. Teacher teams completed data analysis documents and saved them in a shared folder accessible to the coach and administration. 

The pandemic hit in March of 2020, but teachers continued to meet collaboratively and provided virtual intervention and support at all levels.  Teachers used release time to analyze data and share findings with administration to develop a long-term plan for Tier 1 instruction and Tiers 2 and 3 intervention.  Coming back from distance learning and embarking on the 2021-2022 school year proved to be challenging, but the school was determined to mitigate learning loss and provide students with an even stronger intervention plan.  This plan would also include social-emotional intervention to address the whole child and ensure academic success.  The school hired an Intervention Teacher and Intervention Aide.  Both worked closely with the CTI Coach and teachers to develop and execute a schoolwide intervention plan and schedule to ensure that all students receive the academic support and interventions needed in ELA.  At the start of the 2022-2023 school year, the staff at Pleasant View met and developed non-negotiables that included grade level data analysis and schoolwide Tier 2 and Tier 3 intervention.  The school sent a team to the 2022 RTI conference in Pasadena.  This conference validated the systems that were in place and gave the team perspective on what needs to happen to continue strengthening the already existing systems. The team agreed that in order to strenghten what was already in place, the school needed to develop and implement a plan for Math intervention based on the data, specifically SBAC data.

The Pleasant View community has worked diligently since the 2015-2016 school year to build shared knowledge and focus on the four critical questions of a PLC: 1. What do we want all students to know and be able to do?; 2. How will we know if they learn it?; 3. How will we respond when some students do not learn?; 4. How will we extend the learning for students who are already proficient?  These four questions have and will continue to guide our collaborative discussions and instructional planning.

The Pleasant View Team is dedicated to fostering and maintaining an environment that provides all students with a guaranteed and viable curriculum.

 

1. Monitoring student learning on a timely basis.

In the summer of 2020/2021, our district established a committee of teachers and ToSA's that reviewed and revised grade level essential standards for English Language Arts and Math. After reviewing the standards shared by the district, grade level teams at Pleasant View discussed and determined what was essential at our school site.  Through vertical collaboration, teachers narrowed the focus in order to guarantee mastery of these standards to ensure proficiency of pre-requisite skills for the following grade level. These essential standards serve as a safety net for students to ensure success in the next grade level. Teachers at Pleasant View are committed to making sure students master these essentials in order to be successful in their current grade level and also prepared for the next. Teachers use these high-leverage essential standards to drive instruction and provide academic supports for students not showing mastery. Our guiding coalition makes sure teachers have the necessary support they need in order to implement our viable curriculum and to monitor student progress.

Grade level teams meet during GLC, Grade Level Collaboration, time to look at their grade level essential standards to determine the focus standard/s for the Tier 2 Intervention Cycle. In addition to discussing the area of focus, teams work together and agree on the most effective Tier 1 instructional strategies to teach the focus standard/s. After this collaboration time, teachers present, teach, and then assess the agreed upon skill/s.  Teachers Kinder through 5th use the following common formative assessments to determine mastery or need for intervention: weekly assessments that come directly from the curriculum and are aligned to the identified essential standards taught, teacher created and agreed upon assessments, and i-Ready Standards Mastery assessments.  At their next GLC meeting, teachers analyze assessment results and engage in conversations in order to determine which students mastered the standard and which students need additional support. Grade level teams form their groups and determine who will take each group. Teachers provide enrichment for those who got it and additional instruction for those who did not. Some students receive this Tier 2 support while also receiving Tier 3 support at a different time. Our Intervention ToSA and CTI Coach provide this Tier 3 support for those who need foundational skills. Teachers follow a Tier 2 Intervention Cycle calendar to stay on track throughout the school year. These bimonthly and protected GLC meetings guarantee the time needed to organize and prepare for these Tier 2 Intervention cycles.

In addition to our Tier 2 Intervention cycles at our site, teachers also administer district assessments at the end of each trimester. Teachers have a Data Chat day at the end of each trimester that allows them to complete the summative data analysis of these assessments. Teachers are provided a substitute teacher so that they can meet with their grade level teams to engage in conversations about these results. Collaboratively, they complete a data document that allows teachers to look at students’ strengths and needs. Teachers look at and discuss district ELA and Math benchmarks, district English Language Development assessments, and i-Ready data to determine how students are progressing on grade level standards.  The purpose of the Tier 2 cycle is to guarantee grade level standard mastery by student.  

At Pleasant View, the Language Assessment Team meets twice a trimester to look at Initial and Summative ELPAC data, district ELD assessment data, and i-Ready Diagnostic results in order to monitor the growth and progress of our English Learners. This data is used to guide the planning of Designated and Integrated ELD instruction. One of the goals establilshed by this team was to ensure that the 5th grade student leaving Pleasant View and transitioning to middle school successfully reclassify to guarantee academic success.

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

At Pleasant View, we have made it a priority to create systems of Intervention to provide students with additional time and support for learning. We have a Tier 2 Intervention calendar in place that outlines consistent cycles that occur throughout the school year. When scheduling school events, we make sure that this Tier 2 calendar is not affected. These cycles are continuous and teachers meet bimonthly during Grade Level Collaboration time to plan for these cycles. Teachers start a new cycle after all students demonstrate mastery of the target standard.

In addition to our continuous Tier 2 Intervention cycles, we have established a high functioning Tier 3 Intervention system. We are fortunate to have a Curriculum, Technology, and Intervention Coach who supports teachers with Tier 3 Intervention. We also have an Intervention Teacher on Special Assignment who focuses on Tier 3 Intervention all day. With the help of a full-time Intervention Instructional Aide, the CTI Coach and Intervention ToSA are able to serve students in all grade levels, Kindergarten through Fifth Grade, in both English Language Arts and Math. Our CTI Coach serves Fourth and Fifth Grade students, the Intervention ToSA works with First through Third Grade students, and the Intervention Instructional Aide supports our two Kindergarten classes. The Intervention Aide spends forty minutes in each Kindergarten class five days a week and works with students who have not mastered grade level essentials in ELA and Math. She supports First through Third Grade students who need Tier 3 support in the area of Math. The Intervention ToSA provides the support for First through Third Grade students who need support with foundational skills in the area of English Language Arts. Together the Aide, ToSA, and CTI Coach look at data, plan lessons, and assess students regularly to monitor growth and progress towards mastery.

Our Intervention Team meets with students on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays to provide this support with foundational skills. This team utilizes Wednesdays and Fridays for assessment, data analysis, and data chats. We are certain that the implementation of data chats with students has had a huge impact on our assessment data. The CTI Coach meets with the Fourth and Fifth Grade students who receive Tier 3 Intervention, the ToSA meets with First through Third Grade students who come to Tier 3 Intervention, and the Intervention Aide meets with Kindergarten students on a weekly basis to discuss i-Ready lessons and Diagnostic results. We monitor students closely to make sure they are progressing appropriately through grade level content and reaching mastery of grade level standards. Our classroom teachers meet with the rest of the students who do not receive Tier 3 Intervention to have these same conversations. We have created data binders as a way to organize this information and to ensure we are consistently meeting with students. These data binders help us monitor student progress, and this system also allows our administrator to easily review the data to know how students are progressing.

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

We dedicate a lot of time at Pleasant View to building teacher capacity to ensure our students receive effective Tier 1 instruction. To guarantee high levels of learning, we dedicated a staff meeting to establishing a set of non-negotiables. These non-negotiables are systems and practices that, as a staff, we agree upon as highly effective and necessary to safeguard learning for all students. These non-negotiables are posted in all classrooms and referenced at all staff meetings. Our professional development days and staff meetings focus on these non-negotiables so that we are building teacher capacity.

Getting good data is crucial in order to determine which students have mastered essential standards and which students need additional support. We provide our teachers with the support they need so that they can guarantee students are doing their best on assessments and so they can then analyze data that reflects where students are. The CTI Coach and Intervention ToSA join Grade Level Collaboration meetings to answer questions and to guide the data analysis. They also facilitate the full-day Trimester Data Chats. Teachers learn how to access assessment data from our SIS, Student Information System, and look at various comparison charts to gain a deeper understanding of how our students are performing in comparison to others in the same grade level and students across the district. Teachers analyze strengths and areas of need in ELA, Math, and ELD, and they engage in conversations to determine overall grade level needs. Teachers then document this information on our schoolwide data sheet which is submitted to the administrator for further review. During these Trimester Data Chats, teachers are able to collaborate with the CTI Coach and Intervention ToSA to discuss which students need Tier 3 support. Teachers also have the opportunity to ask questions about effective instructional strategies to use during their Tier 2 Intervention cycles.

At Pleasant View, we strive to meet teachers’ needs in order for them to meet their students’ academic needs. In an effort to build teacher capacity, the CTI Coach, Intervention ToSA, and Administrator work together to provide teachers with the instructional support they need to provide high levels of rigor in the classroom. Our Guiding Coalition meets regularly to discuss areas of need and ways to support teachers. The CTI Coach and Intervention ToSA provide one-on-one coaching and demonstration lessons for teachers who need additional support with the implementation of our non-negotiables. Our teachers are very receptive to this support because the CTI Coach, Intervention ToSA, and Administrator have established a trusting relationship with staff members and maintain a growth mindset that creates an environment in which everyone learns. Learning is at the forefront of everything we do at Pleasant View!

Achievement Data Files

Additional Achievement Data

i-Ready:

-In all four years, we noted significant growth in the number of students who scored "on grade level or above" from the 1st Diagnostic to the last Diagnostic accross all grade levels in both reading and math. 

-When looking at the 2nd grade data from 2020-2021 in math, the numbers do not indicate significant growth because many students were at the "on grade level" mark and shifted to the "above grade level" mark.  This still demonstrates growth, even though the percent stayed the same.  

Interims:

-When discussing math intervention needs, our team agreed that "number and operations in base ten" was a concern because very few students were reaching proficiency in this very important foundational area. We addressed this need during Tier 3 intervention, and because of this level of support, the number of 3rd grade students who reached proficiency has increased significantly from 8% in 2018-2019 to 42% this school year. 

SBAC:

-Based on the data presented, we noted that the 3rd grade group of students in 2019, demonstrated significant growth in the area of ELA on the SBAC as 5th graders in 2021.  This was important for us to note because this was the group of students who began receiving Tier 3 intervention as 3rd graders and continued to receive regular intervention during the pandemic online.  You will note that the math scores did drop, but this is attributed to the fact that the focus of our Tier 3 intervention was in the area of ELA. 

-When we realized the urgency to provide the same level of interevention in math, we created a schedule that would include math intervention for all students who needed it this school year. 

-The i-Ready data for this school year (when comparing the first Diagnostic to the last one taken) tells us that the math intervention students are receiving is supporting them with obtaining grade level proficiency.  

Discipline: 

-When analyzing our discipline referral data, we noted a drop of 41 Office Discipline Referrals (ODR's) when comparing the 2019-2020 number of referrals through this school year.

-We had a significant drop in the areas of defiance, physical aggression, and disrespect. We attribute this improvement to the collaborative work we did as a team to assess the data and determine the behaviors that were impacting academics the most.

 

 

 

Awards and acknowledgements received at Pleasant View Elementary:

  • 2016 California Department of Education Gold Ribbon School Award
  • 2016 California Department of Education Title 1 Academic Achievement Award
  • 2018 Scale Up Los Angeles County of Education Grant Recipient
  • 2019 California PBIS Implementation Silver Award
  • 2021 Promising Learners Project Los Angeles County of Education Grant Recipient
  • 2023 i-Ready District Recognition Award for Student Growth and Mastery

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