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Chipman School Plan 2005/06

Chipman Middle School was a 6-8 school with an enrollment of 602 in 2005/06 that used Lifelong Guidelines and Lifeskills.. To review Chipman'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

Fall 2005

  1. What are your problem statements?
  2. Problem Statement

    Of the 600 students at Chipman Middle School, approximately 250 (38%) are reading below grade level on multiple measures. Within that group, there are a disproportioante number of African American and Hispanic students.

    As our number of Intensive students (REACH) decrease, the Stratgic group is growing. We need to focus on strategies that will enable more of our Strategic students to progress to Benchmark. We need our Strategic classes to be more structured and "strategic" in teaching. We also need to implement structures to support the RSP and SDC students who have not met mastery in the REACH program and are ready for strategic.

    We need to continue to refine the delivery of programs at all levels (REACH, Strategic, Benchmark/Advanced, ELD).

    Of the 6 subgroups designated by the Annual Yearly Progress, only one sbugroup, African American and English Language Learners, did not meet the Annual Measurable Objective for ELA.

    Of the 6 subgroups designated by the Annual Yearly Progress, only one sbugroup, African American and Hispanic, did not meet the Annual Measurable Objective for math.

  3. What are your inquiry questions?
  4. Student Achievement Questions

    • Are students in the intervention and Strategic classes increasing their fluency rates so that they are closing the achievement in fluency? Are students in the Strategic classes inceasing their comprehension as measured by internal assessments? (REACH, Prentice Hall)
    • Are students increasing their knowledge of academic vocabulary across the curriculum?
    • Are the RSP and SDC students in Strategic classes meeting the requirements of those classes? Are we providing academic support that is needed to meet this task?
    • Are we providing the academic support needed to improve the Math AYP scores of our African American and Hispanic students?

    Teacher Practice Questions

    • To what degree are the Strategic teachers using strategies to improve student's comprehension and fluency?
    • To what degree are teachers teaching and reinforcing the academic vocabulary within their grade level and department? (as measured by the local collaborative Vocabulary teaching rubric)
    • To what degree are the teachers using research based strategies to support our African American and English Language Learners in ELA?
    • To what degree are the teachers using research based strategies to support our African American and Hispanic students in math?
    • ?

  5. What are your measurable goals?
  6. Student Achievement Goals

    • 90% of students in REACH will achieve 80% or greater mastery in all components of Decoding over the course of the year and move to a higher level of REACH or Strategic-Benchmark class
    • 90% of students in Strategic will score at least 70% on comprehension assessments from Prentice Hall by Spring
    • Students in Strategic classes whose fluency is measured as Proficient in fall will maintain their Proficient status throughout the year
    • 90% of students whose fluency is measured as basic or lower in both REACH and Strategic will increase their fluency by at least 24% by Spring
    • Chipman students will score at least 70% correct on the Word Analysis and Vocabulary Development on the CST.
    • African students will achieve 4.6% of growth and English Language Learner Students will achive 2.5% in growth to meet the AYP goal of 24.4 percent proficient in ELA.
    • African students will achieve 11.5% of growth and Hispanic Students will achive 10.4% in growth to meet the AYP goal of 26.5 percent proficient in Math.

    Teacher Practice Goals

    • All Core teachers will fully implement identified reading programs and strategies for his/her level as designed by each program and measured by coach's observation.
    • All Chipman teachers will teach academic vocabulary as measured by principal and leadership observation.
    • Math teachers will work with district math coach to identify and implement effective strategies to raise their AYP of our Afro American and Hispanic students.
    • Adminsitrative Practice: As designated by SAIT process, the principal will begin AB 75 training and will have it complete by June 07.

  7. What are your major strategies?
    1. Improve the implementation of all ELA programs. Provide coaching for ELL, Strategic and Benchmark classes while continuing coaching of REACH.
    2. In all classes, refine the teaching of vocabulary.
    3. Continue to refine and implement Integrated Thematic Instruction.
    4. Identify and implement effective practices for working with our Afro American and Hispanic students in math.
    5. Pilot program to guide the transition of REACH and ELL students to Strategic/Benchmark.
    6. Use pacing guides in all ELA classrooms.

Chipman 2004/05 Single School Plan

Chipman 2003/04 Single School Plan

Chipman

2002 2003 2004 2005
Base API 634 650 676 674
Number of Students Tested 532 684 635 573
State Rank 4 4 5 4
Similar School Rank 6 6 6 8
African American  Students Tested 165 224 198 169
African American Students API 567 568 600 609
Asian Students Tested 105 110 110 100
Asian Students API 678 714 754 789
Filipino Students Tested 60 89 97 90
Filipino Students API N/A N/A 720 710
Hispanic Students Tested 72 79 93 93
Hispanic Students API N/A N/A N/A 612
White Students Tested 114 145 115 87
White Students API 717 728 730 715
SED* Students Tested 297 382 439 371
SED* Students API 581 608 635 656
% in Free or Reduced Price Lunch  55 52 65 58
% of English Language Learners  24 23 25 28
School Mobility Percent* 18 33 24 45
Parental Education Average* 2.92 2.86 2.82 2.77
School Classification Index* 154.53 156.99 157.05 153.23

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.

Where no one is left behind

San Francisco Chronicle Editorial, April 29, 2005

IT'S ONE THING to say "No Child Left Behind," it's another to mean it.

With 50 percent of its students once performing below grade level, Chipman Middle School in Alameda held a comfortable spot on California's list of low-performing schools. It would have been easy to stay there, too, had the school's educators decided not to make a change and give their students an actual chance.

But they did -- and on Thursday, first lady Laura Bush paid a visit to Chipman with the goal of making it a national model for schools with at-risk students.

That's a far cry from four years ago when Chipman teachers were sent to research programs to address their students' severe reading deficit.

The team chose to implement the state-adopted REACH method of teaching, an intensive intervention program for grades four through eight for students reading below grade level.

The teachers also agreed to launch a three-tiered core program, which involved identifying "benchmark" students, that is, those who read at grade level, "strategic" students, who read one to two years below grade level, and "intensive" students, who read more than two years below grade level.

The model is based on enabling students reading below grade level to make two years' progress in one year's time by teaching an extended intervention class on comprehension, writing, spelling and "decoding," which is learning how to say the words aloud and comprehending their meaning.

It was an ambitious goal -- and a refreshing one, given that many schools with at-risk students cite budget woes, bigger class sizes and lack of quality teachers as excuses for not implementing more rigorous programs. It's always easier to blame outside forces rather than take them on.

"But not only have we implemented this program," says Principal Laurie McLachlan-Fry, "we've restructured the entire school around it. We've made it even more intensive."

Since implementing all three levels of the program in 2002, state scores for Chipman have gone up. In addition, under the REACH program, reading and writing skills have gone up 8 percent for African-American students and 9 percent for Hispanics. School-wide, there has been a 7 percent improvement.

Now, Laura Bush, building on the president's No Child Left Behind Act, cited Chipman's success in visiting the East Bay school Thursday. "I'm so glad you're in a school that pays attention to reading, because if you can read, you can do every subject," she told the students.

"Mrs. Bush is going across America and highlighting programs that have worked, that have a record of success. Chipman has shown this success," said Susan Whitson, press secretary for the first lady.

Not that it's been easy. Katherine Crawford, who has been a teacher at Chipman for nine years and is now teaching the core program, said the sessions are "draining" and the work is "nonstop," but that nothing has been more rewarding.

"They keep improving and we keep pushing," she said.

And that's the difference.

Teachers at this school care. And in a climate where low-performing schools are seen as the black eye of our educational system, it's refreshing to know that at one school, teachers remain tireless in their efforts and merciless in their demands for a better education for all students.

Making Chipman Middle School a national model is great. But let's not stop at home. Right next door, Oakland high schools have been described as "dropout factories" by a recent study of California schools.

Let Chipman be a model for them, and maybe Oakland, too, will lose its comfortable spot on the list of the low-performing schools.

It might just give the first lady another reason to come back.

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 8, 2005

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.