Challenger 7 Elementary School

 

School Information

School Name:  Challenger 7 Elementary
School Address:  6135 Rena Avenue, Cocoa, FL  32927
School Phone:  321.636.5801
School Fax:  321.631.3208
Principal:  Carol Mela
Principal email:  melac@brevard.k12.fl.us
Web Address: http://www.challenger.brevard.k12.fl.us/

Demographics

Number of Students:  494
Number Eligible for Free and Reduced Lunch:  43%
Percent of Limited English Proficient:  0.06%
Percent of Special Education:  25%
Racial/Ethnic Percentages:

- White:  83.6%
- Black:  7.2%
- Hispanic:  3.6%
- Asian/Pacific Island:  1.0%
- Other:  4.4%

 

Student Achievement Data:

Percentage of students passing FCAT test for grade level 3 and above at school level/state level:

Grade: 3	Math (School/State)	Reading (School/State)	Writing (School/State)	Science (School/State)	Social Studies (School/State)
2003	78/62	78/62	N/A	N/A	N/A
2005	83/68	82/67	N/A	N/A	N/A
2007	84/74	90/69	N/A	N/A	N/A
2009	97/78	87/71	N/A	N/A	N/A

 

Grade: 4	Math (School/State)	Reading (School/State)	Writing (School/State)	Science (School/State)	Social Studies (School/State)
2003	66/55	79/60	86/70	N/A	N/A
2005	77/64	83/71	81/74	N/A	N/A
2007	91/69	86/68	88/60	N/A	N/A
2009	80/75	89/74	89/85	N/A	N/A

 

Grade: 5	Math (School/State)	Reading (School/State)	Writing (School/State)	Science (School/State)	Social Studies (School/State)
2003	63/51	72/57	N/A	N/A	N/A
2005	70/57	83/66	N/A	N/A	N/A
2007	73/59	92/72	N/A	63/42	N/A
2009	79/62	85/71	N/A	71/46	N/A

 

Please comment on any aspect of the data that you believe is particularly significant.

Challenger 7 has scored well above the state average on all FCAT measures over the past six years.  When comparing data from year 2003 with 2009, there has been a significant increase on all measures in the percentage of students on or above grade level on the Sunshine State Standards FCAT.  The most growth over the five-year period has occurred within the last three years when PLC’s have been more fully implemented.  Professional Learning Communities promote a team approach to educating all children.  This collaborative effort is reflected in our high assessment results that include our exceptional education population that makes up over one-fourth of our population.  Also, improvement can be seen across all grade levels as a result of an emphasis on school-wide goals as opposed to isolated improvements.  Because our scores seem to have stabilized over the last couple of years, we are focusing on improving the achievement of our higher level students while still intervening with our below grade level students and raising them to grade level status.  In order to accomplish this task, our PLC’s this year are focusing on differentiated instruction.

Please present additional information that indicates your efforts to build a professional learning community have had a positive impact on students and/or teachers.

The key to a successful professional learning community is involvement by all members.  Teachers have to be willing to take risks and share their successes and failures.  They need to take on leadership roles and learn from one another instead of the administration always leading.  This is what is happening at Challenger 7 this year as a result of the growth involved in PLC’s over the past few years.  In our efforts to target our higher level students, we are focusing on differentiated instruction.  Teachers are using online resources and the books, The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of all Learners and How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-ability Classrooms by Carol Tomlinson to learn about various differentiated strategies.  The teachers are also implementing two strategies within their own classrooms and sharing the results with their colleagues on an in-service day designated for this purpose.  As the administration conducts walk-thus, it is evident that professional learning is ongoing within the classrooms.  Teachers are using such differentiated strategies such as Think Tack Toe boards, compacting, ability grouping with advanced projects, choice menus, etc.  The higher level students are being challenged at a much higher level.  Although we do not have the assessment results to support the implementation of differentiation, we know this year’s FCAT scale scores will be higher due to an increase in our Level 4-5 students. 
Under the leadership of a new superintendent and knowing that professional development is the key to student achievement, our School Improvement Plan is totally centered on PLC’s focusing on the improvement of instruction.  All teachers meet on a weekly basis to share in professional learning experiences as outlined in the plan.  The School Improvement Plan is attached to see how PLC’s are planned throughout the year to support school goals

 

Please elaborate strategies you have found to be effective in the following areas:

1. Monitoring student learning on a timely basi.. 

- Grade level Professional Learning Communities meet weekly at Challenger 7 to discuss strategies for improvement, analyze data, and determine courses of action to better meet student needs.  The team approach provides each teacher access to the ideas, materials, strategies and talents of the entire team. 

- Subject specific Professional Learning Communities, such as for reading, writing, science, and math meet on a monthly basis to review school-wide assessment results (on school and district required assessments) and determine school-wide goals. 

- Each teacher maintains his/her data in a program called A3 Vision which is a compilation of all of the indicators related to a child’s academic growth.  Patterns, strengths, weaknesses, and students with similar skill needs are determined using this data.  Student progress is monitored on a weekly basis and adjustments made to differentiated intervention groups as needed. 

- Progress Monitoring Plans as well as Individual Education Plans are developed immediately for those students who demonstrate skill weaknesses in a subject area or show a processing deficit.  The plans outline deficiencies and identify strategies for implementation.  Professional Learning Communities are made up of all of the personnel who impact the students’ learning.  Together they determine what strategies are needed based on the students’ deficits.

- All students’ progress is continuously monitored through a variety of assessments.  The FAIR is administered three times a year with progress monitoring occurring every three weeks.  The Scholastic Reading Inventory is administered three times a year to monitor each child’s comprehension.  District required assessments in reading, math, and science are administered once every nine week period with school level assessments administered weekly.  A school-wide writing is administered four times a year with students writing to a prompt and being scored by the classroom teachers on a weekly basis.  The administration also administers timed writings following instruction based on identified weaknesses.

- An RtI process is in place in which students needing extra support are assessed and their skill weaknesses targeted with intervention.  The students’ progress is monitored, and intervention adjusted as needed. 

2. Creating systems of intervention to provide students with additional time and support for learning.

- In order for intervention to be effective, it is important to build it into the master schedule and provide all “extra” personnel to support the intervention.  Challenger 7 has scheduled a thirty minute intervention reading block at Grades K-2.  This is additional time outside of the 90-minute reading block.  Activity teachers, administration, and exceptional education teachers are scheduled to assist with intervention.  Students are progress monitored every three weeks using FAIR to determine the effectiveness of the intervention.  Instructional strategies and groupings are adjusted according to student need.  The Phonics Screener and/or Phonological Awareness Screener are also used to pinpoint student strengths and weaknesses.  Professional Learning Communities meet to discuss all progress monitoring results and share strategies that have produced positive results.  Teachers support all students, not just those on their roll.  Each teacher’s strengths are utilized to benefit the students. 

- Challenger 7 has implemented an Academic Support Program in which students working below grade level are provided additional time and support in reading and/or math.  This class is offered during the September/October intersession to provide immediate assistance.  A student’s Professional Monitoring Plan identifies the skills to be targeted during instruction.

- Because Challenger 7 has implemented an inclusion model to service our exceptional education population, additional support can be provided within the classroom setting by both the regular education teacher as well as the exceptional education teacher.

- Challenger 7 has implemented a reading lab for the last two years based on the Carbo methodology for additional support for students working below grade level in reading. The Carbo method is based on modeling, the utilization of materials just above a child’s reading level, repetition, and student accountability.

3. Building teacher capacity to work as members of high performing collaborative teams that focus efforts on improved learning for all students.

- High performing collaborative teams are a direct result of lots of staff development.  Challenger 7’s School Improvement Plan is focused entirely on professional development of the teachers. 

- For a Professional Learning Community to work, collaborative teams must feel nonthreatening and willing to share.  When hiring, grade level teams assist with the interview process.

- The fifth and sixth grade classes at Challenger 7 are not self-contained, but rather teachers share students.  This reinforces the concept of collaborative teams because the teachers all have a stake in the performance of all students.  No longer are they isolated but rather are encouraged to collaborate to help their students succeed.

- The principal and assistant principal promote Professional Learning Communities and play an active role in the collaborative effort.  They share in the education of the students and share ideas with others.  They also create the time in the schedule for collaboration to occur both within grade levels and across grade levels. 

- As a collaborative team, school wide objectives are set that target grade level goals.  For examples, we have determined the required standard for our fourth grade writing.  Based on this objective, curriculum mapping is used to plot expectations at each grade level so that this objective can be met.  All teachers are responsible for a child’s writing over several years (especially since we do not have a high mobility rate).  Discussions across grade levels are often held identifying strengths and weaknesses in the continuum as well as suggestions for improvement.

- In creating the master schedule for this school year and the next, the exceptional education teachers, some regular education teachers, the guidance counselor, the speech/language pathologists, the district inclusion resource teacher, the staffing specialist, and the administration all worked collaboratively identifying each student’s needs and matching them with each teacher’s strengths.  Because of everyone’s input and the collaborative approach, we were able to develop a schedule focused at improved learning for all students.

- An instructional thread that binds all teachers at Challenger 7 from kindergarten to sixth grade is that they all teach the same thinking maps thought processes.  All teachers were trained on thinking maps, and they collaboratively promote continuous cognitive development as they are applied in increasingly sophisticated ways.

- Part of an effective Professional Learning Community involves teams designing formative assessments based on the needs of the students in which data is collaboratively analyzed and strategies shared, implemented, and revised.  Since our district provides lots of assessments, most of our teams utilize these resources to meet this need.  The McMillan McGraw Hill math series permits our teams to generate assessments specific to the skill weaknesses of the students to be used as progress monitoring.  My fourth grade teachers use these formative assessments to guide their instruction.  As a school we also create writing prompts specific to our students’ needs and together score and analyze the results in order to determine our instructional focus.  The process of creating a formative assessment and the academic benefits of this process are still being developed at Challenger 7.

List awards and recognitions your school has achieved:

- FCAT Annual Report A – (Challenger 7 has been an “A” school every year!)
- AYP
- Golden School Award
- Florida School Recognition Award
- Five Star Award
- Excellence in Visual Arts Award
- Governor’s Fitness Champion School
- School Age Child Care Gold Key