continuous improvement process plan · curriculum in social studies. we found that students were...
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Kirkland Middle School
430 – 18th Avenue
Kirkland, WA 98033
425-936-2420
http://www.lwsd.org/school/kirkland
Continuous Improvement Process Plan
2016 - 2017
Deborah McCarson, Principal
Julie Dixon, Associate Principal
Lake Washington School District
2016 - 2017
1 Kirkland Middle School
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Activity
Location
Description of School --------------------------------------------- Page 2
District Performance Targets ------------------------------ Page 3
School Performance Over Time ------------------------------- Page 5
CIP Reflection: Evaluate Outcomes ------------------------- Page 6
Annual School Goals---------------------------------------------- Page 9
Strategies to Accomplish Goals ------------------------------- Page 13
Parent, Family, and Community Involvement ----------- Page 16
2 Kirkland Middle School
DESCRIPTION OF SCHOOL
Provide a description of the school, its performance history, demographic make-up,
academic focus, school culture focus, and parent/family/community engagement
strategies.
Kirkland Middle School (KiMS). We just completed our fifth year as a 6-8 Middle School
with wonderful results. We serve approx. 580 students, and are small enough to know our
students well. This fact in turn supports the important concept of a more personalized
educational environment for our middle level students. Through our peer mentor program,
each sixth grader is matched with a 7th or 8th grade mentor to help them navigate the first
few months of Middle School. We continued our school-wide Bully Prevention Program and
will continue the program during our Panther Pride meetings during Panther Time at the
end of each day. We have added the Safe School Ambassador Program and trained 30
students who are instrumental in helping establish a positive school climate and shaping
behavioral norms on campus. We still enjoy our extensive building remodel which supports
and promotes our emphasis on grade level and content teaming and collaboration among
staff and students. Our elective offerings include: Game Design, STEM, Design and
Modeling, Band, Orchestra, Choir, Select Choir, Drama, Debate, Journalism, Team Sports,
Digital Media, Art, Pottery, Spanish, Study Skills, and Leadership.
As always, our focus is on providing every student with the opportunity to progress,
advance and experience personally challenging work. Our students must be prepared to
meet the challenges of an ever changing world that is increasingly more complex.
3 Kirkland Middle School
DISTRICT PERFORMANCE TARGETS
Indicators Note: Indicators based on
state assessments
District
Baseline
Performance
2014-15
District
Current
Performance
2015-16
District
Target
Performance
2018 8th Graders’
on Track for
Success
% of 8th graders meeting or
exceeding state standards in
Literacy 81.1% 81.7% 92.0% % of 8th graders meeting or
exceeding state standards in
Math 71.5% 73.6% 85.0% % of 8th graders meeting or
exceeding state standards in
Science 83.4% 86.5% 93.0%
Grade 6-8 Literacy and Math Data based on the Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBA) and
reported on the OSPI Washington State Report Card (http://reportcard.ospi.k12.wa.us/).
Process to determine District Performance Targets: Lake Washington School District developed a strategic plan for implementation in 2013-
2018. Part of the strategic plan includes Student Learning Milestones and indicators of
student success. Many of the indicators are measured based on state testing results. A
process was implemented to set performance targets for each indicator. For the 2014-15
school year, the state adopted the Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBA) to measure
student progress in Math and English Language Arts. Due to this change the district
made adjustments to the 2018 performance targets in these areas. The performance
targets were set based on the 2015 SBA results.
4 Kirkland Middle School
SCHOOL PERFORMANCE OVER TIME
2014-15 2015-16
2016-
17
2017-
18
2018-
19
2019-
20
2020-
21
6th Graders’ on
Track for
Success
% of 6th graders
meeting or
exceeding state
standards in
Literacy
83.3% 76.9%
% of 6th graders
meeting or
exceeding state
standards in
Math
79.0% 77.1%
7th Graders’ on
Track for
Success
% of 7th graders
meeting or
exceeding state
standards in
Literacy
85.6% 86.3%
% of 7th graders
meeting or
exceeding state
standards in
Math
80.8% 88.4%
8th Graders’ on
Track for
Success
% of 8th graders
meeting or
exceeding state
standards in
Literacy
84.2% 84.6%
% of 8th graders
meeting or
exceeding state
standards in
Science
91.0% 84.6%
% of 8th graders
meeting or
exceeding state
standards in
Math
83.1% 75.4%
5 Kirkland Middle School
CIP Reflection: Evaluate Outcomes
2015-16 CIP Goals and 2016 Outcomes:
Data:
Goal Achievement
(Achievement Level Descriptor)
Literacy:
6-8 ELA
6th -Grade – 113/154 which is
73% of students to show
clear to high growth
7th Grade – 2.76/5 student
score on CARS assessment
Critical Thinking/ Inference
Strand 8th Grade- 8th
Grade – 90% of students will
perform at 75% accuracy or
better, on the
Comprehension and
Summarization measures;
Comprehensive Assessment
of Reading Skills (CARS) and
Upfront magazine
assessments.
6th Grade – 77% met the established
target of clear to high growth. 5%
showed no growth overall.
7th Grade – 2.76/5 was class average
score on final assessment
8th grade -Students are still
inconsistently showing evidence of
at or above standard performance in
the areas of main idea, and
summarization.
Math:
6 Math
80% of students would
achieve 80% accuracy on
vocabulary by the end of the
year
Goal was met as 84% of students
achieved at least 80% accuracy.
7th Math 80% of students would
achieve 80% accuracy on
vocabulary by the end of the
year
Goal was not met as 77% of students
achieved at least 80% accuracy.
8th Math 80% of students would
achieve 80% accuracy on
vocabulary by the end of the
year
Goal was not met as 75% of students
achieved at least 80% accuracy.
Science:
8 Science
70% of 6th, 7th and 8th graders
will meet or exceed standard
in procedural writing.
42% of the 8th graders, 72% of the 7th
graders and 76% of the 6th grades
met or exceeded standard.
Achievement
Gap
We expect that our Hispanic
students will reach 54%
proficiency in ELA and 51%
proficiency in the Math
We exceed our target in this area.
Our Hispanic students reached 69%
proficiency on the ELA portion of
the SBA, and 72% proficiency on the
Math SBA as reported Spring 2016.
6 Kirkland Middle School
portion of the SBA in Spring
2016
College and
Career
Readiness
Our goal was to increase the
number of students that
choose Level 4 / Challenge
/Honors work from 3% from
first to second semester.
Goal was met with 10% of students
choosing Challenge / Honors, an
increase of 7%.
School
Effectiveness:
Goal was to complete Safe
School Ambassador Program.
Program a success, with additional
training scheduled and implemented
for 22 new 6th graders Oct. 2016
Attendance and
Discipline:
Students with 4+Tradies
We selected the tardy
portion of our attendance as
our goal because we noticed
that the number of students
late to school and late to
class were at an
unacceptable level. In the
school year 2014-2015, there
were 67 students (11.2%)
who had 4 or more tardies
per quarter/ 10+ for the total
year. We worked toward
reducing them by
In 2015-2016 instead of going down
as hoped that number increased to
90 students (15.2%). This may be
due to an added emphasis by staff to
hold students accountable for
arriving on time.
Narrative Reflection
Process:
Click here to enter text.
Literacy:
6-8 ELA
6th Grade –77th% of all 6th grade students met the
target established for clear – high growth in drawing
conclusions and making inferences (CCSSRL/RI 6.1).
5% (8 students) overall, demonstrated no growth. All
were due to below level reading skills, limited
vocabulary and poor comprehension of main idea.
These students had difficulty making connections and
developmentally only stated the obvious details.
Inferential thinking is largely based on experience and
exposure so it will need to be a continuing focus and
practiced through the years.
7th Grade Overall, students demonstrated an increased
ability to identify and correctly support inferences in
appropriate grade level passages. Students also showed
gains in their ability to make inferences on across
7 Kirkland Middle School
curriculum in Social Studies. We found that students
were accurately identifying inferences, but could not
explain or support the reasoning to support them.
8th Grade - We viewed evidence from three UPFRONT
current events tests and four CARS reading skills
assessments. At this point we are noticing many
inconsistencies. Benchmark 3 appeared to give
students much difficulty, especially with word
meaning. Though we have worked on these topics in
class, and after some improvement, students are still
inconsistently showing evidence of at or above
standard performance in the areas of main idea, and
summarization.
Math:
6-8 Math
Overall we had 77% of math students achieve at least
80% accuracy. In general, we were very pleased with
the growth demonstrated in each grouping. The
biggest gains were from students starting in the
Critical and Struggling Groups as they had plenty of
headroom to grow. As noted in prior log entries, the
department enhanced instruction and assessment to
increase focus and rigor on vocabulary. We are pleased
with our progress and would like to refine and continue
this goal into next year, especially as we adopt new
curriculum.
Science:
8 Science
Students in all grades demonstrated improvement with
a range of 84% - 97% overall growth. The
improvement shown by the 6th graders was 96.7%
overall. 6th graders started the year with less exposure
to procedure writing and we expected to see greater
gains in their skill level after a year of focused practice.
7th graders started the year with a baseline of skills
gained from 6th grade instruction in procedure writing.
7th graders demonstrated the most improvement over
all three grades with 97.2% growth from pre to post
testing. They demonstrated that they continued to
improve upon their procedural writing skills, which
resulted in greater proficiency after an additional year
of practice. 8th graders did not perform as well as
expected, however 83.9% of the 8th graders
demonstrated overall improvement. We felt this was
because the directions varied from grade to grade
putting the 8th graders at a disadvantage when
compared to 6th and 7th graders. The plan was to
differentiate the directions in order to be
developmentally appropriate for each grade level. The
6th graders were given a materials list and the
8 Kirkland Middle School
experimental question was reviewed prior to writing
their procedure. The 7th graders were given a
materials list prior to writing their procedure. The 7th
graders also had performed a very similar experiment
in class and could draw upon direct experience with the
question. The 8th graders were only given the scientific
question and provided with a few guidelines for
experimental boundaries, such as no testing of water,
no use of an alcohol burner, etc. In hindsight we
discovered that by not providing a materials list, we
inadvertently introduced additional variables into the
scenario, which negatively affected the results.
Students not only had to write a procedure, but first
had to process how to devise the experiment, develop
their own materials list and think through the
experimental process. The variation in the procedures
was evident and we realized the error that was caused
by making the directions for each grade level different.
Challenge Group: Our goal was to increase the
procedural writing scores of our challenge group
students from a Level 1 to a Level 4. These students
had achieved a Level 4 on the ELA literacy SBA, yet
only scored a Level 1 on the procedural writing pretest.
Our results were: 34% of the 6th graders in this group
achieved the goal of scoring a Level 4 on the post test.
41% of the 7th graders in this group achieved the goal of
scoring a Level 4 on the post test. 33% of the 8th
graders in this group achieved the goal of scoring a
Level 4 on the post test. While these percentages
initially seemed low, we also acknowledge that only 6%
of the students in this group failed to make any
progress. 94% of the group increased their score
overall. Sub Group: Our sub group students were
identified from a combination of their Literacy SBA
score and their procedural writing pretest score. In
both tests these students scored at a Level 1. Our goal
was to increase their procedural writing scores by at
least one level from pre to post test. Our results were:
88% of the 6th graders improved a minimum of one
level. 69% of the 7th graders improved a minimum of
one level. 60% of the 8th graders improved a minimum
of one level. We were very pleased with the progress
demonstrated by this sub group of students.
Achievement Gap Focused instruction using building wide SIOP
strategies in our intervention and general ed. classes
provided support for all of our students.
9 Kirkland Middle School
College and Career
Readiness
We will continue to collect data on the number of
students choosing to complete Honors/Level 4 work in
6-7-8 ELA, and encourage students to step up to the
challenge. This year we will focus on 100% completion
of Career Cruising requirements by all of our 8th
graders.
School Effectiveness: Very successful first year of our Safe School
Ambassadors program. We will be more intentional
with “Family” meeting time this year.
Attendance and Discipline: Our increase in number of students with 4 or more
tardies might be explained by the fact that teachers
were putting more emphasis on holding students
accountable for their
tardies.
ANNUAL SCHOOL GOALS
2016-17 Annual School Goals: SMART Goals
Literacy:
6th Grade ELA – Focusing on CCSS 6.4, students will increase their
ability to correctly evaluate, use and identify literary devices and
figurative language using a teacher created Figurative Language
Summative Assessment measure. 40% of 6th graders will show high
growth, being able to evaluate the author’s use of several types of
figurative language. 50% will show clear growth and be able to
explain the meaning of various forms of figurative language. This will
result in 90% of students being at standard when measured.
7th grade ELA – CCSS 7.1 and CCSS 7.2. By the end of the
instructional period, we hope to see a 7th grade average score on the
CARS Assessment in the 2 identified strands to be raised to a 3 in
Critical Thinking/ Inference and a 3.5 in Summarizing.
Using the Inference short response passages, we expect to see all
identified Level 2 (SBA) students responding at a Level 3 and all
identified SBA Level 3 students responding at a Level 4 using our
teacher - created rubric.
Using the Summarizing short response passages, we expect to see all
identified Level 2 (SBA) students responding at a Level 3 and all
10 Kirkland Middle School
identified SBA Level 3 students responding at a Level 4 using our
teacher - created rubric.
8th grade ELA - R1-8.1 Our goal is for 80% of identified students to
perform at or above standard (75% accurate) on the comprehension
and summarization tests as measured by CARS by April 2017
Math:
6-8 Math
80% of KiMS students will be proficient in demonstrating
understanding of grade-level appropriate mathematical
vocabulary. Vocabulary proficiency requires a student to demonstrate
understanding of at least 80% of the vocabulary word bank of 60
word. 95% of all students will show growth over the year. After the
baseline is established, grade level teachers will group students into 4
growth groups: Struggling (0-69), Approaching (70-79), Grade Level
(80-89), Masters (90-100) and set growth targets per groups.
Science:
8 Science
At the beginning of the school year 4.5% of the 8th graders tested at
grade level or above on scientific vocabulary. Our goal is to increase
this to 80% of the 8th graders being at standard or above by March
2017.
At the beginning of the school year 0.5% of the 7th graders tested at
grade level or above on scientific vocabulary. Our goal is to increase
this to 80% of the 7th graders being at standard or above by March
2017.
At the beginning of the school year 18% of the 6th graders tested at
grade level or above on scientific vocabulary. Our goal is to increase
this to 80% of the 6th graders being at standard or above by March
2017.
In addition, our goal is to have 95% of our students demonstrate some
growth by March 2017.
Achievement
Gap We expect that our Hispanic students will reach 55% proficiency in
ELA and 60% proficiency in the Math portion of the SBA in Spring
2017. We also expect Special Education student in the area of math to
have a combined Student Growth Percentile score moving from a 42
in 2016 to 50 Median SGP in 2017. College and
Career
Readiness
We expect a 100% completion rate of Career Cruising requirements by
all of our 8th graders
School
Effectiveness:
We will increase by 6% the number of students choosing to complete
Honors/Level 4 work in 6-7-8 ELA over the 2015-16 school year.
Attendance:
Implement 2016-2017 revised late policy which notifies parents by
email when a student reaches 3 tardies in the semester and requires a
parent meeting and consequence when the student reaches 4.
11 Kirkland Middle School
Teachers shared with all students the revised late policy the first
week of school and also shared with parents during our curriculum
night.
Teachers and other school personnel are present consistently in
hallways encouraging students to be on time.
Discipline: The majority of our school discipline deals with students’ attendance-
see above.
Annual School Goals: Academic
Science:
1. Describe the process the school used to determine annual school goals. Our team began
by discussing where we felt there were gaps in knowledge or skills in our current
students. This discussion also included our previous two years of CIP experience.
2. Describe why these goals were selected. Two years ago for our CIP goal we focused on
vocabulary development which resulted in our highest overall increase in student
achievement to date, as measured by MSP results. Last year we decided to work on
higher level thinking skills and chose to focus on procedural writing. Our MSP test
scores indicated that our students demonstrated less improvement when compared to a
vocabulary focus. We have decided to establish a vocabulary goal again this year to
compare this year’s student achievement results with the achievement results from the
past two years
3. How are we ensuring that all students are receiving challenge and rigor? We are
using a variety of methods for instruction and practice to reach a broad range of skill
levels. We use Quizlet and a number of strategies outlined in the Vocabulary for the New
Science Standards book we purchased for our team members. 4. How are we ensuring
that students receive the necessary intervention?
We will provide weekly vocabulary practice, work with individuals who are struggling
and provide additional challenge for those students who are excelling. We use small
group as well as individual settings to provide these interventions.
5. Describe how you will progress monitor your Academic Annual School Goals. We will
include vocabulary in our formative assessments as well as the summative assessments
we give at the end of units.
ELA:
1. Describe the process the school used to determine annual school goals.
After reviewing PGE results from the 2015—16 academic year, Smarter Balance
Data and current year CARS assessments each grade level determined a specific
reading skill focus given the current cohort data.
2. Describe why these goals were selected.
12 Kirkland Middle School
Each ELA grade level team determined that there was a specific strand of reading
skills students required additional focus on and instruction in.
3. How are we ensuring that all students are receiving challenge and rigor?
Students are given opportunities to select Level 4 assignments and achieve at an
Above Standard level on all major assessments. Differentiation occurs in reading
selections, question types, and critical thinking skills.
4. How are we ensuring that students receive the necessary intervention?
Through use of student data, we have identified students who may need
additional support in order to gain mastery of Social Studies and Language Arts
content, as well as boost reading skills. Intervention takes place through
modification of assignments, continued data tracking and leveled reading.
5. Describe how you will progress monitor your Academic Annual School Goals.
Each grade level has chosen benchmark assessments directly tied to their
academic SMART goals.
During math content meetings in the fall of 2016, math department members decided to
set a goal based on mathematical vocabulary for the 2016-2017 school year. The rationale
for focusing on vocabulary is that vocabulary is essential for understanding and
communicating mathematics. Vocabulary helps students to decipher directions and
speak about mathematical process steps. Vocabulary is built into lesson planning as well
as assessments, insuring that all students have equal access. Several options may be
offered to students to aid in the understanding of vocabulary: using Quizlet, making
flash cards, formative assessing during lessons, Haiku quizzes, etc. The math
department compiled 35 vocabulary terms common to all students in all grade levels.
Then, smaller teams compiled 25 additional terms relative to their particular course (6th
grade math, 7th grade math, 8th grade math, algebra, and geometry). The first baseline
assessment was given in October with additional assessments to follow in January and
March. Compilation of data in relation to all Kirkland Middle School mathematics
students will take place in early spring.
Annual School Goals: Achievement Gap
We used information from our 2016 SBA, and looked at the outcomes from last year’s
goals and determined that we would continue to focus on the success of our Hispanic
students, in both Math and ELA. We are also interested in seeing how the addition of a .4
ELL FTE will impact our results this year.
Annual School Goals: College and Career Readiness
13 Kirkland Middle School
It is important to us that our 8th graders get a solid start on their academic and career
planning using the district adopted Career Cruising software. It also supports our feeder
high schools if all of our students have meet expectations for completion of the 8th grade
requirements.
Annual School Goals: School Effectiveness Encouraging students to take on additional challenge, be it in the form of product,
process or content is a goal of our LA/SS department. By increasing the number of
students who choose the Honors/Level 4 work the students will be better prepared for
more rigor as they move through our system. We will offer an Honors designation on the
report card for students choosing this option and then revisit at the semester with the
goal of identifying additional students that didn’t take advantage of the opportunity at
the beginning of the year. This will allow students that many not have been comfortable
at the beginning of the year to now challenge themselves further. Note challenge options
are available to any student at any time.
Annual School Goals: Attendance Attendance (tardies) is our biggest discipline issue. During a weekly attendance meeting
Counselors, Attendance Secretary and Associate Principle meet and review data and
discuss possible solutions to individual attendance issues. A full review will be done at
the semester and adjustments made as necessary. Review year data will take place in
June 2017 to determine if goal has been reached.
Annual School Goals: Discipline See above
INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES AND REQUIRED RESOURCES
Goal Area Literacy Strategy to
support goals 6th Grade ELA – The focus of novel and short story studies will be on the
author’s use of language. Students will identify literary devices and be given
explicit instruction in how to evaluate the author’s use and effectiveness of
language.
7th Grade ELA – In both LA and SS teachers will use explicit instruction in
making inferences and summarizing. In SS, the focus of responses to text
questions will require these reading skills be used. Also in summative unit
assessments, students will use these reading skills to demonstrate mastery
of reading content.
14 Kirkland Middle School
8th Grade ELA - In 8th grade Language Arts, instruction on “making
inferences and drawing conclusions” is explicitly throughout the year in
short stories and novels, especially while reading Flowers for Algernon,
Fahrenheit 451, and To Kill a Mockingbird. In Social Studies, “making
inferences and drawing conclusions” is imbedded daily instruction, class
work, and assessment.
Professional
Learning
needed
As a ELA Department, information on SBA scoring reports, measures used
to determine the student achievement against standards using SBA scoring.
Resources
needed CARS Assessment, NY Times student magazine, teacher created
assessments in Summarization, Inference, Literary Devices/ Figurative
Language Responsible
individual or
team
6th – 8th grade ELA teams
Goal Area Math Strategy to
support goals To deepen student understanding and retention of key mathematical
concepts and vocabulary, KiMS math teachers will emphasize, improve, and
integrate vocabulary instruction throughout the year. We will use Quizlet,
Haiku quizzes, notes, starter problems, word wall, vocab posters, and the
inclusion of vocabulary on content assessments to work towards our goal of
80% of KiMS students achieving 80% accuracy or better on vocabulary
assessments.
Professional
Learning
needed
Review of using Haiku for assessments.
Resources
needed Establishment of Quizlet accounts
Responsible
individual or
team
: I Amy trimmed the core words down to 35, Monica adjusted 7th grade terms,
Kevin & MaryEllen adjusted 6th grade terms, Anne adjusted 8th grade terms
and Amy adjusted lists for Geometry and Algebra terms. Each math
department member was responsible for administering the baseline
assessment by October 20 and will be responsible for administering the
same assessment in January and in March.
Goal Area Science Strategy to
support goals 6th-8th grade teachers will use a variety of instructional practices to focus on
vocabulary development such as the use of Quizlet, vocabulary games,
explicit instruction on terminology, word webs, classification of words by
topic, etc. Professional
Learning
needed
Resource Book: Vocabulary for the New Science Standards-Marzano, Rogers
and Simms
Planning meetings for new science adoption materials.
15 Kirkland Middle School
Resources
needed Teacher created vocabulary assessments for pre and post testing, Quizlet
accounts, word list from McGraw-Hill curriculum resources, materials for
vocabulary games and activities Responsible
individual or
team
6th-8th grade science teachers
Goal Area Select one Strategy to
support goals With the addition of .4 ELL FTE we have added two co-teach classrooms-
one with a 6th grade ELA teacher and one with a Safety Net teacher.
Counseling hand scheduled students into classes to make sure we had the
max number of students needing ELL assistance in both of these classes. Professional
Learning
needed
SIOP training is scheduled for 6th grade ELA teacher and new ELL teacher
(Safety Net teacher was previously trained). All staff received training on
English Language Proficiency Standards- introduced in August and
revisited during Oct. full day LEAP using district developed PowerPoint. Resources
needed Planning time for teachers to meet and plan, we have a variety of student
needs in both of these classrooms, it is far from a one size fits all solution. Responsible
individual or
team
The entire staff is responsible- they are all our students. We will continue to
incorporate training on ELPS, and offer SIOP training to other staff
members when it is available.
16 Kirkland Middle School
PARENT, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT
Strategies to involve parents, families, and the community in the Continuous Improvement
Process
The Principal meets with PTSA leadership every other week to share CIP progress and
answer questions regarding programs and initiatives. At each PTSA general membership
meeting the principle report is a standing item, which always contains pertinent CIP
information. Newsletters go out to families once a month and contain information reported
out by grade level content areas. We also survey our parents to determine their interest in
order to better serve our school community. with PTSA leadership every other week to
share CIP related progress and answer questions regarding programs and
initiatives
Strategies to inform parents, families, and the community about the Continuous
Improvement Process
Family and community involvement- KiMS works with many community organizations that
support our staff and students in a variety of ways: Kirkland Kiwanis, City of Kirkland,
Kirkland Parks and Recreation, Kirkland Youth Council, Pantry Packs, and YES. Parents
are involved as volunteers in classrooms, our health room as well as serving as walk-abouts
during lunches and before and after school. We also offer evening study/organizational
skills, and technology parent nights outside of our regular PTSA general membership
meetings and parent coffees. The more connected we are to our community, the more
opportunities we have to share our goals and progress on a regular basis.
We