January 12, 2012Peabody Middle SchoolPeabody Middle School

Yardley Farquharson, PrincipalYardley Farquharson, Principal

STUDENT DEMOGRAPHICS Grades 6 and 7 Enrollment: 597 students Ethnic Representation 94% African-American 3% Hispanic 1.5% White 1.5% Other Student Subgroups 76% FRL 7% SWD 3% LEP Teacher Indicator (Attendance) Total No. of Teachers: 55 Teacher Attendance: 95%

SCHOOL PERFORMANCE Year 2 of Transformation Not Accredited Did Not Make AYP Three-Year Data Trends* English: 64% to 76% Math: 47% to 49% History: 63% to 71%

* 2008 through 2011

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WHAT THE SCHOOL WHAT THE SCHOOL DOES WELLDOES WELL

WHAT THE SCHOOL WHAT THE SCHOOL NEEDS TO IMPROVENEEDS TO IMPROVE

Raise achievement in mathematics

Improve the quality of teaching and learning

Help students play a greater part in their own learning and the life of the school

Commitment of the leadership to improve the school

Improvement in student performance on the English and History SOLs

Strong content area knowledge of teachers

Strong achievement levels of SPED students

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Establishment of the Peabody Learning Community in grades 6 and 7 known as PRIDE (the target population for this community are students who are off-track for on-time graduation due to multiple grade retentions and/or failing the SOLs on multiple occasions)

Intense focus on the alignment of resources with school improvementneeds

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Creation of a school-wide professional learning community that fosters a school culture of continuous learning

Creation of a new system of teacher and administrator appraisal that will recognize top performers and expedite final employment decisions for non-performers

Creation and maintenance of partnerships to support extended learning

Creation of an improved process for ensuring ongoing parent and community involvement

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Incentive pay for teachers and paraprofessionals in the grades 6 and 7 PRIDE learning community

Contract with External Lead Turnaround Partner

Extended learning opportunities for students

Professional development opportunities for teachers and administrators 9

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FEDERAL REQUIREMENTS IMPLEMENTATION LEVEL Creation and Use of District Team High Enabling School Autonomy Full Principal and Hiring Teachers High Stakeholder Engagement Partial Creation and Use of School Team High Leading Change High Evaluating, Rewarding, Removing Staff High Professional Development Full Learning Time Full Reforming Instruction Partial

Need for clarification of roles for all LTP team members

Initial reluctance of teachers to voluntarily become a part of the small learning community

Difficulty in establishing an effective procedure for managing the Indistar plan to ensure buy-in from stakeholders

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Raise student achievement in Mathematics by:

Ensuring that students have a secure grasp of basic concepts before attempting to move on

Revising work regularly that has been completed in previous weeks to aid students’ retention of mathematical concepts

Placing more emphasis on teaching the technical language of mathematics so that students understand what they are being asked to do

Improve the quality of teaching and learning by ensuring that all teachers:

Share specific lesson objectives with students in ways that ensure that students understand what they are to learn, and then assess how far they have succeeded

Use a wide variety of teaching strategies and effective questioning techniques to actively engage and maintain the interest of their students

Plan and deliver lessons to specifically meet students’ different learning styles and achievement levels 12

Help students to play a greater part in their own learning and the life of the school by:

Providing more small group problem-solving, collaborative, independent and investigative learning tasks

Establishing a functioning student council to encourage student voice and increase involvement in the development of the school

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Provide status report on the 25 RPF Indicators/Indistar Plan and the MOU with the External Lead Partner

Conduct third and final School Quality Review

Identify accomplishments and establish plan for Indistar Plan goal maintenance and expansion

Identify goals that remain unattained and devise action plan and timelines for completion

Identify supports that will be necessary to continue and/or develop within the school and at the division level to help ensure long-term continuous improvement

Conduct a debrief of the three-year LTP process with all key stakeholders to identify “lessons learned” and “next steps”

Based on the previously identified actions, complete the school improvement plan for 2013-14

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