Centennial is an elementary school in Plano, Texas, a suburb north of Dallas. Opened in August 1999, Centennial Elementary was named to commemorate the 100 Year Anniversary of Plano Independent School District.

Traditionally, Centennial has always been a very high performing campus by state standards, however, in 2016 the state accountability ratings began to change. No longer was achievement based solely on the percent of students passing state tests,  something that Centennial had a high percentage of. The state started to look at other factors such as traditionally lower performing subpopulations, closing the performance gap and comparisons of “like” campuses.  This shift, along with the district initiative of High Reliability Schools (2018-2019), provided Centennial with an opportunity to review our instructional practices as a campus and began the PLC journey.  

From a review of data, a few key areas of growth were identified:

• No matter where a student started the school year, all students needed to show growth.  Some students were starting the school year at or above grade level, but still failing to meet projected growth measures. Students below grade level were not making significant progress to catch up to their peers over time. 

• Very few students were identified as At Risk, needing Tier 2 or Tier 3 interventions such as Dyslexia, Section 504 or Special Education services and therefore students were not accessing available support. The systems in place to identify these students was not aligned with current district practices, was unclear to staff, and confusing for families. 

The staff at Centennial began the work of understanding the foundation of the PLC process and the big ideas that drive the work of the PLC. Through this work, next steps to address these areas of growth were established by the leadership team. These steps have taken place over the course of our PLC journey starting in 2018. They have evolved through our learning process, through the COVID-19 pandemic, and through changes to the state accountability assessments. 

• Implementation of a backwards design planning protocol that was collaborative and ensured strong Tier 1 instruction for all students based on the district curriculum. 

• To increase vertical alignment, collaborative teams were strategically  reconfigured.

• A dedicated intervention and enrichment time was established in order to meet the wide range of academic needs in each classroom and grade level.

• A new master schedule was developed to maximize instructional minutes. The schedule was created jointly between all departments to ensure academic staff could support students needing intervention or enrichment. 

• A system was established to monitor student growth including setting and tracking Response to Intervention (RTI)  goals and providing Tier 2 and Tier 3 interventions when needed. 

• The campus aligned to the district referral process for 504 and Special Education students. 

• Implementation of data meetings for the purpose of creating, administering and analyzing Common Formative Assessments (CFA’s) in order to inform instruction. 

After identifying targeted areas of growth and steps to move forward, our campus used the “Learning by Doing” A Handbook for Professional Communities at Work to guide our learning. We redesigned our mission and vision statement, developed our collective comments and set school wide achievement goals. We also created a campus instructional model similar to our district model.

Through this work, we’ve developed a campus that reflects the characteristics that create the foundation for and reflect the culture of a PLC.  We have a shared mission, vision, values, and goals. These are collaboratively developed, interconnected and drive our work.  Collaborative teams use student data to focus on best practice. Our collaborative teams share a common work and common purpose.  Our campus is committed to a growth mindset and creating an environment in which innovating for the sake of continuous improvement is a part of “the way we do things”.  Our campus recognizes that our efforts are measured by the results of our student achievement. Thus, creating a highly reliable culture. 

1. Monitoring student learning on a timely basis.

Our campus master schedule allows each collaborative team to meet daily for a 50 minute planning period.  Monday through Wednesday are designated for planning core curriculum, data analysis, planning intervention/enrichment or creating CFAs.  These days are protected from other types of meetings so that every team member can be involved in the planning process.  Our campus has a clearly defined system and structure in place for planning laid out in our “Centennial Curriculum Playbook” linked in the resources section.  Within this playbook, teams have an outline of the collaborative planning process our campus has committed to. This includes the Plano ISD Collaborative Team Framework, the Plano ISD instructional model, and Centennial’s instructional model. 

Instructional coaches and administrators meet weekly with collaborative teams to plan and unpack the four critical PLC questions. During this time, feedback is provided to teams using our planning walkthrough form to help teams as they move through “Centennial Collaborative Planning Cycle” from the pre-initiating stage to the sustaining stage in an effort of continuous improvement. Examples of collaborative planning can be found in the resources section. 

In addition to grade level collaborative teams, our campus also uses vertical teams to ensure the highest level of instruction.  These teams meet monthly to ensure the consistency of instructional practice and student monitoring campus wide. During these meetings, campus wide instructional practices are aligned.   This system provides for continued learning across grade levels and therefore leads to higher collaboration  campus wide.  Please see the vertical team agenda in the resources section. 

At Centennial we utilize multiple strategies for monitoring student learning and for responding when students experience difficulty in learning. The use of multiple strategies allows us to ensure all students are making adequate progress and no student is left behind. 

• Student Support Team (SST)/RTI - A clear process for multiple tiered support is in place.  The flow chart in the resources section was created to provide teachers with a clear understanding of the process for Multiple Tiers of Student Support (MTSS).

• Common Formative Assessments (CFAs)/Data Meetings - During the 2019-2020 school year, our campus began digging into the process of (CFA’s). We participated in extensive training in order to help teachers understand the benefits of a CFA as well as how to correctly implement them. These CFA’s allow teacher teams to quickly evaluate student learning on an essential standard, group students by common errors or misconceptions, and reteach quickly for mastery. Teachers follow the CFA Data Meeting protocol linked in resources in order to ensure meetings are focused and efficient. Examples of CFAs and our campus developed data protocol can be found in the resources section. 

• Reading Record Tracking - Teachers track student reading levels at minimum three times a year (beginning, middle and end). For students whose reading level is below grade level at one of these checkpoints, Tier 2 goals and interventions are put in place and reading records are administered monthly in order to help monitor student growth.  An example of the campus wide tracking tool can be found in the resources section. 

• District Created Unit Summative Assessments - At the end of each unit, teachers in grades 3-5 use district created unit assessments to evaluate student learning. These assessments, given in Edugence, allow teachers to easily disaggregate data from the assessment and respond accordingly. Some standards may be retaught in small groups, while others may be spiraled in later for all students to ensure mastery. 

• Small Group Instruction - In both reading and math, teachers conduct most of their instruction in a small group setting. This allows teachers to monitor students' understanding and application of skills as well as provide immediate corrective or positive feedback.  Teachers use this data to flexibly group students.   This instruction is outlined in our campus instructional playbook located in the resources section. 

• Intensive Intervention by Support Staff - Campus support staff provide intensive intervention to students who qualify for additional assistance, including ESL support, Dyslexia instruction, or Special Education services. Students who have not qualified for these services but have been identified through our SST process as needing intervention may also receive pull outs from campus support staff, including one of our instructional specialists or adult temp. These intensive interventions are designed to provide targeted small group instruction and allow for close monitoring of student progress.

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

A system can be defined as, “a set of things working together as parts of a mechanism or an interconnecting network”.  Early in our journey as a PLC, we set out to develop and define our system for intervention and enrichment and create “Intervention/Enrichment” (I/E) time.  I/E is a daily, targeted, intentional instructional time when every student receives additional support on essential standards outside of the Tier 1 instruction that they receive in their classrooms. Teachers group students based on multiple measures of data that may include CFA data, benchmark data, unit assessments, reading levels, and daily teacher observations.  An example of how students are grouped can be found under the resources tab titled “21-22 4th grade I/E Reading Groups”.  An example of I/E flexible group plans are also located on the resources tab titled “Math IE Plans 4/11”.  

I/E has continued to evolve and transform since we started in 2017. At first, each grade level set aside 30 minutes within their day to provide this time for students.  While many grade levels found success in this schedule, we found that in order to truly meet the needs of our students, it was best to pair each grade level with an additional support teacher to allow for manageable groups.  In order to do this, we determined that a campus wide dedicated I/E time ensured that all staff members were available to support and pull small groups. The 2021-2022 master calendar reflects an I/E time that is the same school wide, where each grade level has additional support utilizing special education teachers and academic specialists.  A start and stop date is agreed upon before school starts and very limited outside activities disrupt this time. 

Common I/E structures utilized across the campus include:

• I/E grouping is fluid and based on a variety of data sources. Student grouping may change based on the standard being addressed. 

• In grades K-2, one teacher per grade pulls a small I/E group to provide multisensory reading instruction.  This targeted and intentional instruction has increased understanding of phonemic awareness and reading strategies for our kinesthetic learners and our campus’ ability to identify students with reading disabilities, such as dyslexia.  

• Grade levels determine the amount of time focused on math or reading based on their specific grade level data. For example, in Kindergarten, I/E time is primarily focused to address reading to ensure that students have a strong literacy foundation.

• Each grade level has a group focused on providing an opportunity for enrichment.  This allows students who are above grade level or gifted to extend beyond grade level curriculum. 

• Within each I/E group a portion of the time is spent receiving direct instruction at the teacher table either from the grade level teacher or support staff. 

• While the instruction within each grade level group is differentiated, the collaborative team is collectively responsible for the planning and implementation. No teacher plans in isolation. 

Students showing limited growth despite school-wide targeted intervention time are brought to the Student Success Team (SST). This collaborative team meets throughout the year to discuss students who may need more extensive intervention. The members of this team include the classroom teacher, specialists, administrators, other campus personnel and/or parents depending on the nature of the students’ needs.  The purpose of these meetings is to collaboratively determine the appropriate next steps for each student and a plan for intervention is developed.  The document titled, “SST Protocol and Time Stamped Agenda” shows a detailed example of the process that is followed for these meetings.

When comparing our campus data to our district “like campuses” (those who have similar demographics), we determined that our campus was under-identifying gifted students.  Data from I/E helped to identify students for referral to The Plano Academic and Creative Education (PACE ) Additionally, our campus noticed a need for additional training in the identification of gifted students.  In the Fall of 2020, our PACE academic specialist provided staff training on identifying gifted students in the classroom particularly those that are twice exceptional.  Since this training, the number of students identified for PACE has increased, despite restrictions with testing due to COVID-19.  

• 2019-2020 97 students in PACE 

• 2020-2021 110 students in PACE

• 2021-2022 118 students in PACE 

This “all hands on deck” approach has created a sense of collective responsibility amongst the staff at Centennial.  No longer are students seen as “your students” or “my students” rather they are seen as “all of our students”.  Not only is this approach most effective for students, it supports staff as well.  No ONE person is responsible for any one student’s success.  We are all in it together. 

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

The foundation to building teacher capacity is our campus culture.  Our effectiveness as educators and as an organization has been grounded in a safe, supportive and collaborative school climate. We have a mission and vision that supports a healthy school culture, clearly defined core values with established systems in place to support our results oriented student achievement goals. 

We as educators share a core belief that ALL students can excel and we are willing to challenge and change our own practices to ensure that ALL students do.  A common phrase on our campus is, “what is best for kids, not what is easiest for adults”.  It is because of this philosophy our campus was able to be successful and continue to increase student achievement despite the changes and challenges presented during COVID-19. 

Collaborative teams receive feedback from administrators using the planning feedback form.  This rubric is based on the HRS framework and focuses on the areas of norms, resources, backwards design, utilization of assessments and data, professional capacity and relationships. This rubric takes each collaborative team from pre-initiating to sustaining. This helps staff to measure and track their growth and area of improvement as a collaborative team.  

Achievement Data Files

• k2-eoe-centennial.xlsx
• centennial-3-5-data.xlsx

Additional Achievement Data

At Centennial, we have a current student population of around 500 students, a decrease of almost 100 students prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore the number of students in any given subpopulation is small which impacts the overall percentages for those groups. Starting in 2017-2018 our demographics began to change leading to an increase in the number of students represented within specific subpopulations: Economic Disadvantaged, English Language Learner (ELL) and Special Education. In 2016-2017, district Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) reports did not include a separate program file with Special Education, English Learner, or Economic Disadvantaged disaggregated. Starting in 2017-2018, the district NWEA reports included these separate program files with each subpopulation group. 

The MAP test administered in first grade is the K-2 Growth Test. The NWEA national norms for first grade changed in 2020-2021 in that same year, higher level content was added to the K-2 test. MAP contains content that is above a first-grade level to allow students to answer questions to determine the limit of a student’s content knowledge. Since the updated norms happened the same year as the additional high level content, the new norms do not reflect the added rigor of the K-2 test. Therefore, first grade norms are now likely a bit high taking into account that the additional content would lower the scores of traditionally higher performing students.  The first grade scores for 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 reflect these updates to MAP.  

An additional note about the MAP data in 2020-2021 is that students in all grade levels were administered the beginning of year MAP at home due to all students learning virtually the first three weeks of school. Many students were provided assistance from a caregiver at home and for most students, the beginning of year scores did not accurately reflect their academic knowledge. There was a decrease in the scores in middle of year administration once students returned to school and did not have assistance on their MAP assessment.

Trends from our MAP data:  

• At Centennial, traditionally underperforming subpopulations scored higher than those same populations district wide. 

• Our students consistently perform higher than the district in almost all grade levels and content areas, despite the change in norm standards in first grade for 2020-2021. 

• Our students in K-2 were impacted by Covid-19, however there was no decrease in performance in all contents shown in 2020-2021.

• At Centennial, traditionally underperforming subpopulations scored higher than the same subpopulations district wide.

For STAAR assessments, in the years 2016-2017 many of the subpopulations in grades 3-5 were masked due to there being 10 or fewer students in that subpopulation in the grade level assessed.  Starting in 2017-2018 and moving forward, more subpopulation scores, but not all, were available because our school demographics began to change leading to more diversity and a need for more collaboration. The change in our subpopulations showed the need for even more targeted instruction to meet the needs of all students. In 2018-2019 collaborative teams quickly responded to this need by consistently analyzing and using student data to drive instruction with the implementation of Common Formative Assessments (CFAs) and regularly scheduled data meetings. 

For the STAAR data, one important note needs to be taken into consideration.  For the year 2020-2021 our Math data was greatly impacted district wide internet outages.  Causing the testing platform to crash after every math question. 

Trends from our STAAR data:

• Due to the lack of STAAR testing in 2019-2020 cohort data can only be tracked for the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 school years. 

• English Language Learners (ELL) students in the 3rd grade cohort in 2018-2019 showed an increase in Reading when the same cohort took STAAR in 5th grade in 2020-2021.

• SPED students in the 3rd grade cohort in 2018-2019 showed an increase in math when the same cohort took STAAR in 5th grade in 2020-2021.

• Special Education and ELL students in the 4th grade cohort in 2020-2021 showed an increase in Reading when the same cohort took STAAR in 5th grade in 2021-2022.

• Special Education students in the 4th grade cohort in 2020-2021 showed an increase in Math  when the same cohort took STAAR in 5th grade in 2021-2022.

• Economically Disadvantaged and Special Education students in the 3rd grade cohort in 2020-2021 showed an increase in Math and Reading when the same cohort took STAAR in 4th grade in 2021-2022.

 

2016-2017

• Accountability Rating: Met Standard with Distinction Designations in Academic Achievement in Science

• PISD Education Foundation Grant Award

• 2016 Honor Roll School-Educational Results Partnership

• Spelling Bee District Qualifier

• Science Fair District Qualifier 

• Golden Apple Award (100% staff participation)

• MARS Award (More than 50 Male members) 

2017-2018

• Overall Accountability Rating: Met Standard with Distinction Designations in Academic Achievement in Mathematics, Postsecondary Readiness, and Comparative Closing the Gaps 

• 2017 Honor Roll School-Educational Results Partnership

• Spelling Bee District Qualifier

• Science Fair District Qualifier 

• Golden Apple Award (100% staff participation)

• MARS Award (More than 50 Male members) 

• Healthy Zone School distinction 

2018-2019

• 2018 - 2019 Overall Accountability Rating: A with A ratings for Student Achievement, School Progress, and Closing the Gaps, and with Distinction Designations in Post Secondary Readiness. 

• A Top-Five Finalist (Excellence in Teaching) in 2019 for Elementary Teacher of the Year for Plano ISD 

• PISD Education Foundation Grant Award

• 2018 Honor Roll School-Educational Results Partnership

• Spelling Bee District Qualifier

• Science Fair District Qualifier 

• Golden Apple Award (100% staff participation)

• MARS Award (More than 50 Male members) 

2019-2020

• Golden Apple Award (100% staff participation)

• MARS Award (More than 50 Male members) 

2020-2021

• State designations/distinctions were not awarded

• PISD Education Foundation Grant Award

• Spelling Bee District Qualifier

• Golden Apple Award (100% staff participation)

• MARS Award (More than 50 Male members) 

2021-2022 

• 2021 - 2022 Overall Accountability Rating - B with A ratings for Student Achievement, School Progress and Academic Growth, and with Distinction Designations in Academic Achievement in Mathematics

• Spelling Bee District Qualifier

• Science Fair District Qualifier 

• PISD Top 100 Support Staff Employee Award

• Golden Apple Award (100% staff participation)

• MARS Award (More than 50 Male members) 

Files

• copy-of-sst-protocol-and-meeting-agenda.pdf
• copy_cfa-protocol-__-centennial-exemplar.pdf
• elar-unit-1-bigpicturecalendar--35-days.pdf
• mtss-process-flowchart.pdf
• centennial-collaborative-planning-cycle-rubric.pdf
• math-ie-plans--4_11-4_22.pdf
• reading-level-progress-monitoring-2022-2023_centennial.pdf
• 21-22-4th-grade-i_e-reading-groups-1.pdf
• centennial-s-instructional-playbook-8-24.pdf
• centennial-master-schedule-21-22.pdf
• extended-planning-schedule-21-22.pdf
• math_science-vt-agenda--oct-20_2021-1.pdf
• esl-goal-setting.pdf