Standard 1: Mission, Vision, and Core Values

1f. Develop shared understanding of and commitment to mission, vision, and core values within the school
and the community.

Activity: School Improvement Team Vision Statement

Time: 15 hours

Description: As a member of the School Improvement Team, the vision statement is evaluated
and edited each year. Teachers across grade levels collaborate to create a vision for the entire
school, including staff and students. At the beginning of the school year, we come back refreshed
and with new ideas for the school year. The vision anchors the entire school improvement plan.

Reflection: Getting to work on the vision statement for the school was a great experience. It
showed unity across the entire school. Having a common goal promotes collaboration and
motivation. “The vision of Yough Glades Elementary School is to empower all students to be
responsible, confident, and self-sufficient members of society that display good character needed
to achieve their lifelong goals.” This vision statement acts as the building block for all goals and
instruction with the school. The vision statement should be modeled and supported by the leader
in every way. All school goals are determined by the principal to support this vision.

Artifact: Vision statement from the School Improvement Plan

Standard 1: Mission, Vision, and Core Values
1f. Develop shared understanding of and commitment to mission, vision, and core values within the school
and the community.

Activity: Master Schedule Planning

Time: 6 hours

Description: The master schedule received an overhaul from the county level this school year.
There was more emphasis placed on cross-curricular instruction for science and social studies.
This new movement was to make time for more intervention and the new phonics program,
Orton Gillingham.

Reflection: The new schedule was not well received by many teachers because it took away
precious science instruction time. The county believed that science, math, and health should be
integrated to fit into the schedule. After having concerns myself, I went to my principal to see if
she would approve my desire to look at other school’s master schedules. I hoped that this might
help us to improve the current master schedule. I was able to contact principals from other
schools and they agreed to share their master schedules. Some schools were smaller than Yough
Glades, so their schedule was not something we could attain. The master schedule at Broad Ford
was the most useful. I was able to offer suggestions to possibly improve our schedule and also
address concerns that many teachers brought to my attention. Scheduling is a detail-oriented task
that fall on administration.

Artifact: Suggestions for master schedule

Master Schedule Notes

- Putting math RTI directly after math instruction

- Resource at the end of the day for older students
- Keeping math and reading before lunch
- Providing a time for science instruction
- Integrating social studies with reading and writing
- Having Orton Gillingham integrated with reading intervention groups
- Science and math block back to back
- Having intervention groups be cross-grade level
o 4th and 5th graders grouped together for intervention services
- Health and second step in a rotation
Standard 10: School Improvement
10j. Develop and promote leadership among teachers and staff for inquiry, experimentation and innovation,
and initiating and implementing improvement.

Activity: Chesapeake Bay Grant Writing

Time: 4 hours

Description: The Chesapeake Bay Grant is a grant provided to schools for educating students on
healthy watersheds. Being at a school located on a water source, I decided to apply for the grant
to further our outdoor education through a green house. Two other teachers and I collaborated on
writing our request to receive the grant.

Reflection: Grant writing is a long and tedious process. The Chesapeake Bay Grant was
requested to assist in outdoor learning. Our goal was to build a greenhouse to plant native species
of plants. Once planted, we wanted to transplant these grasses to the riverbank to help prevent
the spread of runoff. This was a grant that would not just benefit my fifth graders and their Trout
in the Classroom program but could be used in all grade levels. As the writer of the grant, I was
put in charge of looking for standards for all grade levels that would correlate to the grant. I also
took the lead on itemizing a budget in our request.
Standard 10: School Improvement
10d. Engage others in an ongoing process of evidence-based inquiry, learning, strategic goal setting, planning,
implementation, and evaluation for continuous school and classroom improvement.

Activity: SIT Team Member

Time: 15 hours

Description: The School Improvement Team is in charge of creating a document that represents
the whole school and its goals. As a team member, I was able to help create these goals and
develop the plan for reaching them. I also put data into the plan to show a baseline, along with
progress monitoring data along the way to show growth.

Reflection: I have been a member of the School Improvement Team for five years. Each year I
enjoy seeing the whole school’s data. It allows me to see the group of students that are coming to
me in the following years. I also like to look at the data as a whole for all students. It shows
trends and identifies areas of weakness and strength for the whole school. I learned that leaders
should have a vision for their school. All work that goes into operations and planning should
reflect your goal.
Standard 10: School Improvement
10d. Engage others in an ongoing process of evidence-based inquiry, learning, strategic goal setting, planning,
implementation, and evaluation for continuous school and classroom improvement.

Activity: MISA Data Analysis

Time: 6 hours

Description: As a fifth grade teacher, state testing is always on my mind. MISA or the Maryland
Integrated Science Assessment is a newer standardized test that has been around for about three
years. This was the first year that more detailed results were presented. Since MISA is a test of
standards from kindergarten through fifth grade, it was important that results were shared with
all teachers. My job was to analyze the data and identify standards for each grade level where at
least half of the students missed on last year’s MISA test. I broke the data down by subtopic and
grade to share with my principal. This data helped all teachers know which areas need more
focus when teacher. I also gave sample questions for each grade from the new science series that
corresponded with the standard.

Reflection: Data collection and analysis was a time consuming process. This information was
new and not easy to understand. I had to use many standards to report back with useful
information. This data helped with school improvement because the test was a reflection back on
all teachers even though it was taken by fifth grade students. We also started using a new science
series this year, which was helpful to use in correspondence with MISA data. My findings helped
to guide teachers through the new series and identify areas of need. I was glad to be able to look
at the data myself since it benefitted my students who will take the test. My principal was
appreciative of my results and analysis.
Standard 10: School Improvement
10d. Engage others in an ongoing process of evidence-based inquiry, learning, strategic goal setting, planning,
implementation, and evaluation for continuous school and classroom improvement.

Activity: Capstone PBIS Behavior Data Analysis

Time: 15 hours

Description: My capstone project allowed me to analyze behavior data. I then looked for any
correlation in behavior referrals since the implementation of the PBIS program. Since this was
only the second year of implementation for PBIS at Yough Glades, data was key in decision
making. Team members felt that we were not doing enough to decrease behaviors. My data
analysis gave information about behavior and influenced our decisions as we plan for the next
school year.

Reflection: My capstone project allowed me to look at behavior in another way. As a classroom

teacher, I always viewed logging behavior as something that never was looked at or used. Once I
was able to see the data that had been collected by teachers, I realized how useful it truly could
be in making decisions. From this data, I was able to present information about areas of focus for
behavior reteach. I was also able to see times of day when more support for students is needed.
As a leader, I now understand the importance of consistency in behavior tracking. One thing I
realized throughout this process is that teaching the procedure for documenting behavior should
be explained to all staff. Teachers were documenting behavior in all different formats, which led
to data that was not accurate from previous years. We also had many teachers not sure of how to
document which led to many behaviors being labeled as “unknown.” Leadership means having
consistency in procedures so that data is useful and accurate.

YG Powerschool Data
As of March 2020

Top three documented tier one behaviors:

1. Disrespect
a. Students with most offenses:
i. Lariah Kitzmiller 9 (needs special consideration due to significant
improvement)
ii. Robert Johnson 7
iii. Hunter Jordan 7
iv. Eli Wright 6
v. Gage Beckman 5
vi. Aven Hardesty 5
2. Disruption
3. Physical aggression

Top three documented responses to tier one behaviors:

1. Verbal Warning
2. Time in/out
3. Offer Choices

Top three areas for inappropriate behavior:

1. Bus
2. Classroom
3. Unknown (we need to drill down on who is logging unknown and what it really means)

Discipline by time (number one time for behavior)

1. After school - what does this mean? Who is logging after school? This doesn’t make
sense to me. Does this indicate bus referrals?

Discipline by day of the week

1. Tuesday is the day with the most discipline data. What can we do Monday afternoon/
Tuesday morning to reduce this?