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

 

Demographics

Number of Students:  499
Number Eligible for Free and Reduced Lunch:  29.71%
Percent of Limited English Proficient:  0.6%
Percent of Special Education:  26.6%
Racial/Ethnic Percentages:

- White:  78%
- Black:  7%
- Hispanic:  8%
- Asian/Pacific Island:  1%
- Other:  6%

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

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 and NRT measures over the past five years.  When comparing data from year 2003 with 2007, 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 two 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.

 

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

A Professional Learning Community involves educators working together to analyze data, determine instructional strategies, write lesson plans, and implement the plans.  This is what we have done in implementing our intervention block this year at Challenger 7.  We started off with all faculty members reading the book I’ve DIBEL’d Now What? by Susan Hall.  Staff development was provided by Susan Hall in order to develop the shared knowledge base for further collaborative efforts.  When students were DIBEL’d and later on progress monitored, a team of teachers met as a Professional Learning Community to identify skill weaknesses and determine the groups and materials best suited for each child’s intervention.  Intervention strategies were shared based on their merit as well as methods that proved to be unsuccessful.  The latest DIBELS data has indicated a positive impact on student reading skills as a result of the Professional Learning Communities. 

In an effort to develop a Professional Learning Community in which all teachers are responsible for the education of all students, and not just the regular education students, we have implemented an inclusion model at Challenger 7 this year.  All resource exceptional education students are serviced within the regular classroom, and the fulltime varying exceptionalities students are serviced within the regular classroom as much as the students’ needs allow.  Successful inclusion relies on a Professional Learning Community in which all teachers collaboratively plan for and teach a shared group of students.  Our teachers involved in this model were trained in the co-teach model.  Although our FCAT math, reading, and science results for this school year have not yet been released, our writing scores, which have been released, indicate that Professional Learning Communities have a positive impact on student learning.  Below are listed our fourth grade exceptional education students’ writing scores with 3.5 being considered on grade level by the state:

Fulltime VE Inclusion Student  #1	3.5	Resource Inclusion Student  #1	4.5
Fulltime VE Inclusion Student  #2	2.5	Resource Inclusion Student  #2	4.0
Fulltime VE Inclusion Student  #3	3.0	Resource Inclusion Student  #3	3.5
Fulltime VE Inclusion Student  #4	2.5	Resource Inclusion Student  #4	4.0
Fulltime VE Inclusion Student  #5	4.0	Resource Inclusion Student  #5	4.0
Fulltime VE Inclusion Student  #6	1.5	Resource Inclusion Student  #6	4.0
		Resource Inclusion Student  #7	3.0
		Resource Inclusion Student  #8	3.0
		Resource Inclusion Student  #9	4.5
		Resource Inclusion Student  #10	4.5

 

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

1. Monitoring student learning on a timely basis. 

- 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 a data notebook 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 DIBELS 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.

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 DIBELS 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.  The students are pulled during the day from their activity class for reading and are provided additional support in groups of five or fewer by a retired teacher.  Data is analyzed collaboratively with the classroom teachers to determine on what skills to focus.  Math is set up the same way; however, it is done after school hours.

- Challenger 7 wrote a grant with two other elementary schools in our feeder chain this year to conduct a three-week Saturday Science Camp.  This camp targeted the big 11 standards assessed on the FCAT as well as students working below grade level who needed extra time and support.  The Port St. John schools, of which Challenger 7 is a member, also work together collaboratively.

- Challenger 7 offered Spring School for seven days and Summer School (SOAR) for thirteen days to students in reading and math who were working below grade level and in need of additional time and support to gain grade level status.

- 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.

- As a result of a four period activity rotation with some grade levels only having three classes, one of the activity teachers may have an extra period with no students.  These teachers are scheduled to support students in the regular classroom according to need.  For example, the art teacher in her “free” period worked with fourth grade students needing extra writing support.  This one-on-one proved to be highly effective.

- 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 budgeted $10,000 from the day care money specifically for the 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

- Environment Award