Encinal High School Plan 2006/07

Encinal High School was a 9-12 school with an enrollment of 1,146 in 2006/07. To review Encinal'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 2006/07 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?

There are still a significant number of students reading below grade level as measured by both the CST in ELA and the results of the 8th grade reading assessments (GRADE) done for placing incoming 9th grade students’ courses.

The results from the California Standards Test – English Language Arts, (CST ELA) were disappointing. The Achievement Gap between Asian/Asian American students, Filipino students and White students is still noticeably greater than their African American and Hispanic counterparts, and in fact has remained stagnant. For example, when comparing for CST ELA scores for 2007, at or above Proficient, African American students scored at 22% and Hispanic students at 29%. However, examining the same test scores, Asian students score at 49%, Whites at 52%, and Filipino students at 40% at or above Proficient. Overall as a school, Encinal has 40% of its students at Proficient or better for the ELA assessment.

Again, as in previous years, there is little decrease in the achievement gap in ELA and possibly a slight increase.

Math scores reveal even more disappointing overall results.

As we look at trends in Math courses, we see participation from Hispanic and African American students diminish as the courses increase in difficulty. For the CST’s in Math, the tests administered were, from lowest to highest, General Mathematics, Algebra, Geometry, Algebra II, Summative High School Mathematics. For African American and Hispanic students there was a significant over-representation in the lowest level course, in contrast to a statistically significant under-representation in the highest level courses. Of the students tested in General Mathematics, 48 (66%) were Hispanic and African American. Yet, of the 79 students tested in the highest group, only 6 (8%) were African American and Hispanic.

In 06-07, 73 9th grade students were tested in General Mathematics (6th and 7th grade Standards). Only 3 (4%) scored Proficient or better. Of the students enrolled in this course, 48 (66%) were Hispanic and African American.

There were 253 students tested in Algebra 1. Overall, only 28 (11%) scored proficient or better. Of the students tested, 110 (44%) were identified as Hispanic and African American. Of that group, only 8 (7%) were identified Proficient or higher.

In Geometry, 219 students were tested. Overall there were 48 (22%) of these students that scored Proficient or higher. In the targeted subgroups, there were 73 (33%) students tested. Of these students, 10 (14%) scored Proficient or higher.

Algebra II is a course most likely taken by college bound students. There is a precipitous drop-off of students enrolled in this course. However, the drop-off is even greater for our target groups. The number of students tested in Algebra II was 121. Of that total 48 (40% ) were Proficient or better. Only 21 (17%) of the 121 students enrolled are Hispanic or African American and of that group, only 2 were Proficient or better. The evidence suggests that even if African American or Hispanic students do make it into higher level courses, their success is far less than their Asian and White counterparts.

The Summative Math test is administered to students enrolled in Pre-Calculus and Calculus. Overall, 39 (49%) of the 79 students tested scored Proficient or better. However, only 6 of the students tested were Hispanic or African American. None of the targeted sub-group members were identified Proficient.

Clearly the evidence shows that there is still a great deal of work that needs to be done to close the Achievement Gap at Encinal. From the courses enrolled in, to the success in those courses, there is significant discrepancy between our African American and Hispanic students and the rest of the school.

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.

Encinal has been involved in the Strategic Instruction Model (SIM) for the past several years. It has been an integral part of our school focus with many teachers receiving additional training and support to implement the strategies. The SIM teachers, Department Chairs, Special Education teachers, and a few selected teachers have participated in 5 days of SIM training over the summer and meet monthly for coaching and further training. They are participating in walk-through observations in other teachers’ classrooms to share best practices, and are working with the District SIM coordinator, Sylvia Kahn, to coordinate assessment, and evaluation of the program. Encinal has also used one of its sections to release a teacher to assist with coordination of the SIM courses.

SIM has been an integral part of Encinal’s Literacy program for the past 2 years. All incoming 9th graders are assessed using multiple assessments, GRADE and 8th grade teacher recommendations and placed in their English classes. Using this data, students in need of interventions are identified and placed in support classes.

This Fall, Encinal incorporated FUSION as the reading program to address the needs of our incoming Freshmen who were reading substantially below grade level. In previous years, Encinal used REWARD/REACH, but those programs were considered lower level than needed. The original plan was for 6 sections of interventions, but testing numbers only filled up 5 sections. The lowest readers were placed in linked English classes and have the same English teacher for their support class.

Empirically, there seems to be evidence to support that many teachers are adhering to the program with fidelity. 3 new instructors were brought up to speed to teach FUSION. The teachers participated in summer and support training. They work with an on campus coordinator, though the position has not been as encompassing as in past years.

This year an additional support class in Math was included. The district switched to Algebra I as the default 9th grade math course. A linked course using SUCCESS MAKER software is being offered to the lowest level math students. Students were placed in the program instead of 9th grade science. Many of the students are already in Literacy support classes and therefore had already given up an elective.

There was confusion as to the placement of incoming 9th graders in this course, so not all students were successfully served. It will be addressed in the coming year so that there may be additional sections of SUCCESS MAKER added to the Master Schedule.

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

Looking at the scores from the CST’s, we were not as successful as we would like to have been. While the students haven’t lost much ground overall, there still are indications that we are not making an impact on the achievement gap at Encinal. The API did not increase like it had in previous years. Prior to last year, Encinal had been experiencing double digit growth on its API, but last year Encinal lost API points. Overall, Encinal’s API dropped 13 points from 714 to 701 in 2006-2007.

The largest drop was in the Filipino student population with a drop of 65 points, which is in contrast to the 56 point growth the previous year. A disturbing figure was the 27 point drop by the highest scoring group, our Asian student population which dropped 27 points from 791 to 764. The only groups to see any gains were White and Hispanic students. The Hispanic students saw a gain of 17 points and the White students increased by 1 point.

There hasn’t been sufficient analysis to determine the drop in API. While the intervention programs were in place last year, there doesn’t seem to be any follow up data to measure the students who were placed in the program from previous years.

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

The current emphasis has been to focus on what we are currently working on with the SIM coaching and expanding it across the curriculum. This year will continue to focus on perfecting the SIM Academic Strategies, bringing additional teachers up to speed, and bringing counseling into the mix to help support the students at greatest risk for not passing the CAHSEE, at risk for truancy and other issues, guidance for planning beyond high school, and ensuring that students don’t fall through the cracks.

In addition, there is work being done to expand the remediation in the Math department. Currently they are working with a coach to help standardize practices and tests. There will be an effort to better identify students who could benefit from Math interventions in 9th grade.

Access to rigorous curriculum needs to be for all students. Pathways into true college-preparatory courses needs to include our lowest served populations.

The school has faced some major hurdles this year with the change in Principals, the loss of the Head Counselor position and severe budget cuts. The impact of adding additional support classes is being placed on the Master Schedule. Currently the support classes are enrolled at 20/1 but taken from the schedule as a 35/1 course which nets in a loss of 90 seats from the Master Schedule. If additional classes are added next year, there needs to be support to help fund these classes. Many classes in the current schedule are impacted because of the addition of extra support classes. Our ability to provide remediation could be severely impacted by budget constraints and the necessity to cut vital programs to provide this support.

Fall 2007

1. What are your problem statements?

Problem Statements

Student Achievement Problems

Teacher Practice Problems

2. What are your inquiry questions?

Student Achievement Questions

Teacher Practice Questions

3. What are your measurable goals?
4. What are your major strategies?

Encinal 2006/07 Single School Plan

Encinal 2005/06 Single School Plan

Encinal 2004/05 Single School Plan

Encinal 2003/04 Single School Plan

Encinal High School

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 8, 2007

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.