Bay Farm Single School Plan 2005/06

Bay Farm Elementary School was a K-6 school with an enrollment of 546 in 2005/06. To review Bay Farm's state Academic Performance Index scores since 2000 click here.

Disclaimer: Single School Plan were hand typed and transcribed from source documents. Please pardon the typos as the webmaster is a poor typist. While an effort was made to spell acronyms, here is a reference guide for those acronyms.

Single School Plan Components

What Did You Learn from 2004/05 Cycle of Inquiry?

1. Looking at your data what general trends do you see? What does the data tell us about how the focus group did? How much progress did they make? How does this compare to growth of other subgroups? Is the student achievement gap closing?

Bay Farm students continue to achieve at high levels. Students in every target group continue to improve over time. It appears from our test analysis that over time all students in basic, below basic, and far below basic move to proficient (3 year matched review). Our program and interventions for these students continue to make a difference in student performance. Our overall API score is now 947, an increase of 12 points from last year to our highest level ever. We are determined that every student succeed at their maximum potential so even though overall we are a high performing school our students can do better. We continue to address all of our students at their individual level of performance and provide instruction to increase their individual skill levels. We do notice a trend that we will begin to aggressively address this year involving our students who perform in the advanced level. Some of our students are scoring in the lower levels of this grouping and over tiem slip back into proficient. To address this current condition we will continue to maintain our successful intervention programs for at risk students and lower performing students, but additionally will beign to develop a more rigorous challenge program to assure students performing in the advanced level continue to increase their performance. We also need to address our writing program and a establish a more consistent instructional program for students across the grades.

2. What evidence/data do you have regarding the level of implementation of the teacher/instructional practice and/or schoolwide practice that you planned in your last Cycle of Inquiry? Include information about what was not implemented as well as what was implemented.

We continue to explore high leverage activities and strategies to maintain our high levels of performance. We also are continuing to search for more specific and individualized targeted assessments to better identify specific skill needs especially for our higher performing students. Currently our district wide assessments are limited in the depth of data they provide to develop specific specific targeted instruction for this identified group. Our Leadership Team, grade levels, staff and SSC continue to direct our energies toward a common goal of continually improving every student's academic performance.

3. What evidence do you have that your focus on these students has positively impacted their learning?

Parent surveys continue to indicate that our community feels that Bay Farm students receive a comprehensive and challenging curriculum. Performance data indicates that each year students are increasing in numbers toward our goal of 90% proficient and above, in fact, at many grade levels we have achieved this goal and beyond. Our matched scores over time indicate that students who were basic and below and have been in our program over three years move into the proficient level and beyond. Our performance data and API increase show continual improvement and consistent performance throughout the K-6 program over time. Student surveys and self assessments continue to show that our students see themselves as capable, eager learners and that they strive to extend their learning and progress academically and socially.

4. Is there anything else you learned in examining your data that will inform your revised problem statement?

Measures Applied now allows us to review more specific data over time. We have discovered what seems to be a significant/important trend wiht major impact on student performance. We see that our advanced scores are actually in the lower band and soem students from year to year slip between proficient and advanced. We want to address this trend, solidify performance in the higher band of the advanced level, and assure that our higher performing students continue to achieve at higher and higher levels of performance. Most students are proficient/above when tested using AUSD required assessments. Grade levels continue to look at formative assessment data to go deeper in skill instruction.

Fall 2005

1. What are your problem statements?

Student Achievement Problem Statements

• We need to continue to assure that all target groups continue to increase their skill level and performance over time.
• We need to address advanced students who seem to slip back to proficient level and provide targeted instruction to raise their performance levels.
• We need to develop more systematic intervention program for students in grades 4-6.
• We need to find targeted skill assessments for student in language arts.
• We need to complete piloting and adopt a consistent writing program for K-6.
• We need to establish and implement next steps for Life Skills schoolwide implemenation.

Teacher Practice Problem Statements

• We need to continue to carefully correlate activities and assessments to the standards.
• We need to identify essential activities for student improvement among the potential activities throughout the Houghton Mifflin Reading program.
• We need to identify the best strategies to benefit struggling students and develop deeper understanings for advanced students.
2. What are your inquiry questions?

Student Achievement Questions

• What are the specific skill areas at each grade level we need to address to improve student performance especially for at risk and advanced students?
• What modifications to the teaching timelines of content and skills by grade level need to be made to assure instruction is completed prior to the assessment windows?
• Which specific writing strategies and skills need to be addressed at each grade level to assure student improvement?
• Which skills should be addressed in the intervention program to assure student improvement?
• What are our next steps with Life Skills schoolwide?

Teacher Practice Questions

• Which assessments provide the best data to improve instruction for targeted students?
• What additional assessment tools do we need?
• What will an intervention program for 4-5-6 students look like?
• Which specific skills and strategies do we need to implement that will challenge our advanced students and maintain increased performance?
• While we wait for adoption of a writing program are there strategies and activities we can provide to our students to establish a more consistent writing program?
3. What are your measurable goals?

Student Achievement Goals

• All students K-6 will meet/exceed grade level standards in their core curriculum and each target group will increase their group performance.

Teacher Practice Goals

• All teachers will utilize targeted assessments and successful teaching strategies and will differentiate instruction to maximize student learning and develop deeper understandings.
4. What are your major strategies?
1. New: Challenge plans for reading and math will be developed and implemented for identified 4-5-6 graders to provide chalenging activities that promote deeper understandings both within the classroom and beyond the school day.
2. New: Identified teachers will attend the summer ITI/Lifeskills intensive and will develop an implementation plan proposal to be discussed and modified by grade level teams and implemented next fall
3. New: Additioanl materials and resources will be ordered as necessary to extend implementation of LIfeskills, Step Up to Writing, Interevention and Challenge.
4. Grade level teams will meet regularly to anlayze performance data, identify performance gaps and skill weaknesses, develop instructional timelines, monitor Houghton Mifflin Reading implementation and develop student student action plans to increase student performance within target groups for reading and math.
5. Teachers will work at grade level with site reading coaches to develop smart plans for targeted instruction in specific skill areas and to differentiate activities during Universal Access time.
6. Grade level teams will target writing instruction by identifying and teaching specific writing strategies that increase student performance. Identified teachers will complete pilot Step Up and share promising practices with staff.
7. Leadership Team will review curricular schoolwide concerns across grade levels to maintain schoolwide consistency in student performance, and will monitor Lifeskills implementation.
8. Additional activities and programs will be selected and implementd based upon identified grade level analysis in basic skill areas.
9. At Risk students, ELL and Challenge students will be invited to participate in "Leaping Higher" program to provide intervention support after school and at home.
10. The Media Center library will provide a book collection that reflects student interests, reading levels, unit themes, state standards, recreational reading lists, etc. It will maiximize check out hours, motivate recreational reading and provide literature, library skills, online technology lessons that support core curriculum.
11. Additional curriculum supplies and materials will be identified at grade level and purchased to support student achievement of grade level and school wide goals.
12. A Coordinator stipend will be allocated to oversee the SSP, facilitate meetings, collect and coordinate data, publish written plans and coordinate purchases.
13. Technology will be used to support curriculum implementation, assessment, and to develop student technology and information literacy skills.
14. Duplication services will be utilized to efficiently provide student work materials for classroom assessments/activites.
15. Community surveys will be implemented as developed by SSC to gather input from the community regarding major activities and programs.
16. Identified teachers will attend trainings and conferences to support professional development in core curricular areas.

Bay Farm 2004/05 Single School Plan

Bay Farm 2003/04 Single School Plan

Bay Farm

4 Year District API Base Data

Definitions

School Mobility Percent - Represents the percentage of students attending the school for the first time.

Parent Education Average - The average of all responses where "1" represents "Not a high school graduate", "2" represents "High School Graduate", "3" represents "Some College", "4" represents "College Graduate" and "5" represents "Graduate School".

School Classification Index - A mathematically computed index using other non academic API components to create indicator of similar demographics and school environment to be used for similar school rankings.

Disclaimer: All data has been hand created. If there are questions about the validity of the data, please contact the webmaster.

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Last modified: February 20, 2006

Disclaimer: This website is the sole responsibility of Mike McMahon. It does not represent any official opinions, statement of facts or positions of the Alameda Unified School District. Its sole purpose is to disseminate information to interested individuals in the Alameda community.