TSMS opened in the 2018-2019 school year.  The master schedule was created to maximize collaboration among academic teams.  A unique period called Express was embedded within the school day to offer time for teachers to be able to intervene or enrich student learning.  From the beginning, emphasis was placed on the four critical questions, and an instructional cycle was provided as a road map (see Figure 1).  The staff was comprised of teachers from diverse backgrounds with great variability of experience and understanding of PLC principles.  In year two the school adopted a mission, vision, and collective commitments (figure 2) and took large strides prior to a rezone which impacted staffing as well as the emergence of COVID leading to a premature ending to the school year. 

In year three of the school, 2020-2021, despite having to weather a rezone and the innumerable challenges posed by the pandemic, TSMS was beginning to hit stride with its ‘Right Work’ practices.  This year included abundant obstacles from learning how to cope with hybrid learning, contact tracing, and so many other hardships from that season.  Nonetheless, the special circumstances also accelerated academic team members’ reliance upon one another.  Combining classrooms, sharing students, and having intentional conversations about essential learning outcomes were becoming far more consistent practices.  During this school year, administration divided up the school’s teacher leadership team into two distinct bodies so that the logistics of running a school did not monopolize the attention of the team whose central focus was improving instruction and firming up the implementation of PLC principles across all departments. 

 In Summer 2021, TSMS partnered with Solutions Tree and had a consultant come and do a one-day workshop with a large percentage of the staff representing all departments in attendance.  The training was largely validating in that it affirmed many of the great structures in place that were conducive to PLC success (i.e. remediation period, protected collaborative planning, leadership organizational framework, etc).  Likewise, it was also stretching us as the staff encountered thoughtful reflection opportunities regarding the alignment of grading with standards mastery and the best ways to utilize Express.  School leadership also invested a lot of time into finding ways to provide students with disabilities access to better standards mastery support at the same time as continuing to support their growth in various skills deficit areas.  While it was suggested by the Solutions Tree consultant that TSMS apply to be a PLC Model School, the 2021-2022 school year would prove to be a critical year of growth, making the Big Ideas of PLCs much more maturely and uniformly ingrained.  The faculty embarked on several simultaneous book studies that worked concurrently to move the school forward.  The PLC Leadership team consisting of department chairs, instructional coaches, and administration met monthly to unpack Leaders of Learning (Dufour, Marzano) while continuing the ongoing business of reporting out on obstacles and successes of each department.  Core academic teachers worked through Taking Action (Buffum, Mattos, Malone) as each department took turns presenting highlights and takeaways during specially allocated time at faculty meetings.  Related Arts teachers worked through Marzano’s The New Art and Science of Teaching (differentiated further for Fine Arts) and our Mental Health Team (consisting of counselors, social worker, nurse, and school psychologist) continued to lead the charge through our school-wide journey to becoming a Trauma Informed school and accessing resources such as Help for Billy.  Student Support Services worked through Best Practices at Tier III (Rogers, Smith, Buffum, Mattos).  Administration tried our best to keep up with all the studies simultaneously while also using resources from Big Book of Tools for Collaborative Teams and  Best Practices at Tier II (Sonju, Kramer, Mattos, Buffum) to plan and support other professional development initiatives throughout the school year.  Consequently, many of the best practices occurring in the building were becoming much more systematic and intentional. 

In 2022-2023, with COVID squarely in the rearview and a high teacher retention providing a tailwind of positive momentum, TSMS set its sights on a few specific areas of improvement and dug in.  Much of the PD focused on differentiating between types of intervention sessions driven by specific student needs (Standards Deficits, Skill Deficits, Previewing/Launching, Extensions).  Core Academic teams were tasked with working together to offer exclusively intervention or extension remediations or activities based on essential standards.  Collaborative teams, each week during their protected planning meetings, recorded what specific data sources they were analyzing and how this data informed action (remediation sessions needed, student assignments to various sessions).  Meanwhile, teachers continued to bolster Tier 1 practices to serve as “prevention.” A renewed and deliberate focus was placed upon students with disabilities and making sure SSS mapping not only accomplished the delivery of services required in students’ IEPs but also attempted to maximize opportunities for GenEd teachers to work with those same students on standards mastery.  Members of the PLC Leadership team attended a September RTI at Work Conference in Orlando and came back with a reinvigorated commitment to doing the right work.  Many academic teams were relentless in their unpacking of standards, their priority claiming of students, and upping the game of high impact intervention and extension methods.  Several teams, in particular, began focusing more on critical question #4 in meaningful ways. 

 

1. Monitoring student learning on a timely basis.

In Williamson County Schools, every core academic course has a created Scope and Sequence to help guide teacher pacing throughout the year.  Furthermore, a district mandate of seven common formative assessments are to be given throughout the school year that completely assess each standard.  Items for these assessments are vetted by district leadership and stored in a bank accessed by the required assessment platform.  At TSMS, teachers are given site-based PD time to collaborate with their academic teams (and vertical teams in departments) to take a deeper dive and identify essential standards.  Likewise, they create their team-specific pacing guides using the district scope and sequence and State Blueprint that breaks down standards percentages as tools to guide this work.  The standards deemed by TSMS teacher teams as essential are then prioritized for the purposes of remediation whether during our daily Express sessions or other available times throughout the day.  All assignments/assessments in our 30% formative grading category are to be common among all members of the academic teams.  Additionally, all unit assessments or projects in the 50% summative category are common among all members of academic teams.  Gradebooks have become a consistent topic of PD and leadership team discussions as we continue to take strides towards having grades be a true reflection of student mastery of standards and demonstrate a predictive alignment with standardized test performance. 

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

At TSMS, teachers maintain the autonomy to establish proficiency thresholds for essential standards and work together to ensure the necessary interventions, remediations, or extensions that weekly data checks reveal are offered and populated with the students needing them.  Each week teachers meet during their protected collaborative planning block and are to discuss a recent data source (quiz, test, bellringer, exit ticket) to help determine needed sessions and students based on the progress of student learning shown.  While operating within a universal, school-wide framework, the approaches departments use to maximize Express as well as appropriately differentiate within other periods of the day are unique.  For Express, each department has a priority day within each week where they can trump other departments who may also be looking to claim the same student(s).  Since some students are needed by multiple content teachers, and others have skills deficits that also require intervention, TSMS continues to brainstorm and implement creative solutions within the confines of the school day to get all kids what they need.  Our 7^th grade science department, for example, will periodically throughout the course of a unit, preemptively share students among all the teachers and mix into strategic groups based on formative data collected ahead of larger assessments.  This way, more differentiated intervention or extensions can take place through class time after all students have received foundational Tier 1 instruction but before summative unit assessments.  7^th/8^th ELA teachers used TCAP Writing Practice Assessments to create groups of students to target specific aspects of writing support and better maximize/differentiate the intervention efforts. 

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

For the highest performing collaborative teams in the school, the focus on student learning (and data that measures the extent of that learning) is unwavering.  Teachers come prepared to their weekly collaborative meetings with data, weak points and celebrations for various standards defined, and corresponding student needs classified for further discussion.  While all teams at TSMS regularly examine on a weekly basis how to support students who are struggling to master essential standards, in recent years, more teachers have been exploring intentional methods of stretching students with extension opportunities after demonstrating proficiency of standards.  Instructional Focus documents, particularly in math, have helped our teachers further disaggregate the extent to which students are mastering standards and may benefit from further intervention or extension.

Instructional coaches and/or administration rotate through collaborative team meetings to offer guidance, support, troubleshoot solutions to revealed obstacles, and offer praise and celebration to teams as they focus on the right work.  The PLC Leadership Team for the school, comprised of department heads, instructional coaches, and other academic team leaders meets monthly to speak about the successes and challenges each department is experiencing as well as report on progress being made towards academic team SMART Goals and whole school School Improvement Plan goals set at the beginning of the year.  This core team continues to be the engine that drives forward best practices for Tier 1 and beyond, discusses PD/support that is needed just in time, and keeps at the forefront the collective commitments and goals of the school.  

 

Achievement Data Files

• tsms-math-achievement-21-23-graphs.docx
• tsms-achievement-data-template-2021-2023-8593.xlsx
• tsms-science-achievement-graphs-2021-2023.docx

Additional Achievement Data

In 2020-2021 (BASELINE) – TSMS beat district achievement average in 2 of 13 areas (7th Science TCAP, Algebra EOC)   

In 2021-2022 – TSMS beat district achievement average in 3 of 13 areas (6th Math, 8th Science, Algebra)

• TSMS had highest achievement rate in Algebra of any middle or high school in WCS 
• TSMS was one of just three WCS middle schools that had a higher achievement rate in every single subject compared with 2020-2021.
• TSMS beat the district average increase (or decreased by less) in 9 out of 13 tested areas.
• Additional 2022 Achievement bright spots:
  • 6th Math - TSMS made 15% increase; Only two schools made greater increase
  •  6th Science - ***TSMS showed higher achievement percentage increase than every other WCS middle school (6 didn’t grow or decreased); TSMS achievement increased 13% compared to 2% - more than 6x the district average!
  • 7th ELA - TSMS made 17% increase; Only two schools had greater increase; Quadrupled students who were EE (exceeded expectations)
  • 7th Social Studies - 30% into EE, more than district avg, highest percent of EE of any subject or grade level at TSMS; EE Up from 11% year prior, nearly tripled from previous year.
  • 8th Science - Beat district average with more kids in EE, ME (meeting expectations), and overall; 80% of students EE + ME; Only two schools grew by higher percentage; Increased in EE and ME from last year

In 2022-2023 – TSMS beat district achievement average in 7 of 13 areas (including Algebra)

• *TSMS had highest achievement rate in Algebra of any middle or high school in WCS for second year in a row.
• TSMS beat the district average achievement percentage increase (or decreased by less) in 11 out of 13 tested areas shown in table below:

Subject	District	TSMS
6th ELA	Decrease 7%	Decrease 5%
7th ELA	Decrease 3%	Decrease 6%
8th ELA	No change	Increase 9%
6th Math	Decrease 2%	Increase 8%
7th Math	Increase 5%	Increase 21%
8th Math	Increase 2%	Increase 18%
ALGEBRA	Decrease 1% EE	Increase 5% EE
6th SCI	Decrease 1%	Decrease 1%
7th SCI	No change	Increase 3%
8th SCI	Increase 3%	Increase 6%
6th SS	Decrease 3%	Increase 10%
7th SS	Decrease 2%	Decrease 5%
8th SS	Decrease 1%	No change

• Additional 2023 Achievement bright spots
  • 6th Math -Beat district achievement average by 10%; TSMS was 1 of 3 WCS middle schools who exceeded the 2022 achievement percentage (the other two schools increased by 1%, TSMS increased by 8%); TSMS had 2nd highest in district percentage of students exceeding expectations.
  • 6th Social Studies - Overall the district achievement average decreased by 3% from year before while TSMS achievement percentage increased 10%; TSMS increased their achievement percentage more than every other middle school in the district.  TSMS also the only school in the district to demonstrate an increase from 2022. 61% of students meeting expectations was most in the district (this does not include those who exceeded expectations).
  • 7th Math - 21% Achievement percentage increase from 2022, no other WCS middle school increased their achievement percentage by more; More than 4x the increase percentage of the district (5%)
  • 7th Science - One of just four WCS middle schools to increase achievement percentage from 2022; Rate of achievement increase was 3rd highest in the district.
  • 8th ELA - Outperformed 2022 achievement percentage by 9% which was a greater increase than every other middle school in the district but one.
  • 8th Math - WCS average decreased by 2%, TSMS increased by 18% ; Increased achievement percentage more than every middle school in the district but one; Comparing cohort – when in 7th grade math had 51% Achievement compared to 71% in 8th grade math in 2023.
  • 8th Science - Beat the district achievement percentage by 8%; Doubled the achievement percentage increase of the district (6% to 3%); 65% of TSMS students met expectations (highest in the district); 86% total (65% ME +22 EE) ranked 2nd highest achievement percentage in the district.

In the first year of assigning report card grades by the State of Tennessee Department of Education, TSMS was designated an A.  5/11 Middle Schools in WCS received an A, with only two others besides TSMS getting a 5 in all three components used in the formula (Achievement, Growth, and Growth of 25 % highest need students).  

The State of Tennessee has not yet officially announced Reward Schools recipients for 2022-2023, however with the recent release of the criteria being used, TSMS is optimistic it will be given this designation for the first time in school history.   The State’s announcement is anticipated in February and TSMS remains hopeful based on the growth and achievement data produced over the last three years, and in 22-23 in particular.  Preliminary analysis done at the district level projects TSMS to be one of four WCS Middle Schools this year to be named a Reward School.  

Files

• figure-2--tsms-mission-vision-collective-commitments-docx.pdf
• figure-1--tsms-instruction-and-assessment-cycle.pdf