Evaluation of Canterbury Elementary School’s Reading Program

Canterbury Avenue Elementary School is made up of 887 students. The school does not

have a cohesive literacy model that is used. Teachers use different assessment tools to monitor

their students’ progress. For the purpose of this report, the data used came from the yearly

state assessments used by the Los Angeles School District. In 2016-2017 Canterbury

Elementary administered the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress

(CAASPP). In 2017-2018, Canterbury administered the Smarter Balanced Assessment

Consortium (SBAC). A majority of the school’s funding comes from 3 different student

populations: Socioeconomically Disadvantaged make up 84.1%, English Learners make up

19.7%, and Foster Youth make up .1% of the student population (2017-18). In the 2016-17

school year, 41% of the students(resident/magnet) Met/Exceeded the Standards in English

Language Arts (ELA). The district goal for the following year school was 44%. In 2017-18

Canterbury Elementary failed to meet those goals and only 38% percent of the students

Met/Exceeded the Standards.

Canterbury Elementary Comparison Data Chart (created by school personnel):

SBAC English Language Arts (ELA) Results for 2017-2018

Culture of Literacy

In the past 4 years, Canterbury Elementary School has seen a steady decline in

achievement levels. The school has also seen a decline in enrollment numbers as well as SBAC

Scores. The school used to be a California Distinguished School and was considered to be one

of the top public schools in the area. Ever since the change in leadership, Canterbury’s

achievement has started to decline. Prior to this change in leadership, Canterbury was thriving.

Students were being bussed in from surrounding areas due to the success. The previous

principal had instilled a strong team environment between teachers and leaders. Teachers

used to be required to have grade level planning meetings, teacher-to-teacher observations

with feedback, data analysis requirements to drive instruction, and needs based professional

development.
 Canterbury Elementary School has not had effective leadership throughout the school.

The principal leads in a Delegative (Free Reign) Leadership style. The teachers have free reign

to make decisions of how they will teach and evaluate the literacy program they are teaching.

The school has adopted the Benchmark Reading Program two years ago, but not all teachers

are using it. Teachers have been given the choice (by the principal) to use any Reading Program

as long as they cover the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Teachers have no

accountability and are given the option to teach at their will with the only requirement being

that they follow the CCSS. Some teachers are able to function well in this type of environment,

but others require additional support and direction to be most effective at their jobs. The lack

of informal observation visits also presents issues of accountability. When there is lack of

leadership and accountability many teachers do not live up to their responsibilities and fail their

students. This type of failure prevents students from learning the important skills needed to be

successful in their educational journey and on the SBAC.

Budget cuts have also affected the Culture of Literacy at Canterbury Elementary. There

has been a change in the Curriculum Coordinator’s role due to these budget cuts. Instead of

concentrating on one position, she now wears many hats: She holds two full time positions

along with heading others smaller positions. Her two full time positions consist of being the

Curriculum Coordinator and the Reading Specialist. She is also in charge of the monthly student

award ceremonies, student council, and behavior program. Having the burden of two full time

positions causes her to be inefficient and unavailable to provide proper support for the

teachers. The lack of time does not allow her to fulfill her duties such as providing in-class
support, evaluation of school literacy data, parent involvement education, professional

development, and intervention for at-risk and struggling readers.

Due to this merge of roles (Curriculum Coordinator/Reading Specialist), the principal chose

to have the Teachers Assistant’s teach intervention to struggling students during the English

Language Arts (ELA) period. Pulling out the students during ELA causes two major issues for

these students: They are not receiving direct instruction from their certificated teacher and

they are missing out on vital instruction time which will set them back even further. The

classroom teachers should be the ones teaching intervention to the students. The principal also

determined that they would use the funding received for intervention to implement a boot

camp starting four weeks prior to the SBAC testing. Why wait until four weeks prior to SBAC

testing to provide support for the students? The school has their SBAC scores from the

beginning of the school year and should use the data to start intervention at the beginning of

the school year to be more effective.

Lens of a Reading Specialist: Evaluation of SBAC/CAASPP Results and Impact of Culture of

Literacy

The Culture of Literacy at Canterbury Elementary School seems to be reflected in their

SBAC/CAASPP scores. For the 2017-2018 school year, only 27% of third graders Met/Exceeded

the Standards and 73% of the students scored at the Standards Not/Nearly Met. Those are

extremely low-test scores, especially for a school that used to be regarded as one of the top in

the neighborhood. During my evaluation and teacher interview, I gained some insight as to

possible reasons why test scores may have declined. The 2017-18 school year was the first year

that these students were required to take the SBAC and they are not used to taking tests on the
computer. Many of these students have had very limited exposure to using a computer. The

entire school only has two rolling carts with laptops for the students to use, which means only

two classrooms can use them simultaneously. There are two computer labs which are available

for the lower grades to use. The labs are used at the minimum requirement by most teachers.

Canterbury Elementary recently began implementing the requirement of computer lab once a

week. Another possibility for the low-test scores is the lack of effective teachers. Third grade

teachers were specifically pointed out as not possessing the qualities of effective/strong

teachers. These veteran teachers are not open to change and unwilling to adapt to new

curriculum and methods of teaching in order for these students to be successful. Third grade is

a crucial year for students because their writing requirements move from writing sentences to

being able to write a paragraph. Many of these teachers are not challenging their students and

are teaching simplistic material that is not grade level appropriate.

For the 2017-2018 school year, 37% of fourth graders met/Exceeded the standards and 63%

have not met/nearly met the standards. In fourth grade there is an ongoing intervention during

ELA. The high students are sent to a magnet teacher’s classroom to receive instruction and the

mid-level students are split up between the two 4th grade teachers to receive instruction. The

students are grouped according to ability and are taught using a program called Language. The

lowest group focuses on phonemic awareness and phonics. These students are pulled out of

the classroom to receive this instruction which causes them to miss two hours of 4th grade ELA

daily. That is a huge chunk of ELA instruction being missed. This means they are missing grade

level instruction time to learn the material that they are being tested on for the SBAC.
 Fifth grade students show the best SBAC scores from the three grade levels evaluated. This

may be due to the stronger sense of fifth grade teachers’ Culture of Literacy. For the 2017-

2018 school year, 51% of fifth graders met/exceeded the standards and 49% of the have not

met/nearly/met the standards. In fifth grade four out of the five classrooms are run similarly.

Three out of the five classrooms teach the Benchmark Reading Program that the school has

adopted. The teachers in this grade level tend to have planning meetings and exchange ideas to

modify instruction to match the needs of their children. Students in 5th grade are also assigned

and required to read 5 books from compiled list and write a report. The 5th grade teachers are

more conscious in exposing their students to the use of computers by providing additional

computer time. They give practice tests on the computers to increase the familiarity of this

type of test taking.

If I were the Principal…

If I were the principal, I would implement the following three steps to help 3 rd grade move

closer to their expectations:

1. Require teachers to use the adopted research-based Benchmark Reading Program and

have proper grade-level planning meetings

2. Assess and begin intervention at the beginning of the school-year

3. Provide support (& targeted professional development) for the teachers and hold them

accountable

I believe the school is lacking an overall sense of leadership, consistency, and an effective

intervention plan. The Benchmark Reading program was adopted but not made mandatory to

use. The program was created to vertically align at the different grade levels with the intent of
building on prior knowledge and delve into topics with more depth as the years progress. This

longitudinal instruction cannot be effective if teachers are using different programs in their

classrooms. Proper leadership is also needed to keep teachers accountable and have the

support needed to be successful. As a principal I would lead using a Participative Leadership

style. This style is seen as most effective because the leader offers guidance while still allowing

for input from teachers. Guidance would be offered by conducting more informal visits in the

classrooms and providing feedback to the teachers. Grade-level planning meetings would be

required so that teachers can receive support from their fellow peers and have a more cohesive

alignment of what they are teaching within their classrooms. As principal I would also assess

the roles of the staff to ensure that they are not responsible for a list of overwhelming duties

that would prevent them from being effective at their job. The Reading Specialist would only

handle one full time position. I would not merge two full time positions. This would allow for

the Reading Specialist to be available to support the teachers and students in their literacy

programs and run an effective intervention program. Students would be assessed at the

beginning of the year. Data would be evaluated, and an intervention plan put in place to help

struggling/at-risk readers. I feel that the combination of implementing the Benchmark Reading

program school-wide (with proper assessments and interventions), enforcing grade-level

meetings, and having the proper Support/Professional Development will be a great start for a

recipe to success for Canterbury Elementary School.