Charter School for Applied Technologies (K-12)

School Information
School Name: Charter School for Applied Technologies (K-12)
School Address: 2303 Kenmore Avenue  Buffalo, N.Y.  14207
School Phone: 716.876.7505
School Fax: 716.876.9758
Superintendent: J. Efrain Martinez
Superintendent E-Mail: emartinez@csat-k12.org
Web Address: http://www.csat-k12.org/csat/site/default.asp

Demographics
Number of Students: 1,630
Number eligible for Free and Reduced Lunch: 82%
Percent of Limited English Proficient: 3%
Percent of Special Education: 12%

Racial/Ethnic Percentages

• White: 40%
• Black: 36%
• Hispanic: 19%
• Asian/Pacific Island: 1%
• Other:4%

The Charter School for Applied Technologies (CSAT) opened its doors in September 2001 to 708 students in kindergarten through sixth grade.  Since then, it has grown steadily and, with 1,610 pupils, is now the largest charter school in New York State.  With the addition of a 12th grade in 2007-08, CSAT became one of only two state charters to offer a comprehensive K-12 experience.

Admission to CSAT is free and open to all students eligible to attend public school in Erie and Niagara Counties.  Each year, a lottery is held to determine enrollment for kindergarten and any other grade level that has openings. 

CSAT’s student population is diverse and drawn from 16 different school districts throughout Western New York.  That said, nearly 90 percent of its students come from the Buffalo Public Schools. 

Present Student Achievement Data in at least three points to demonstrate trends.

CSAT’s New York State Math & English Language Arts Assessment Results Compared to the City of Buffalo Public Schools
(85% of CSAT’s students come from the City of Buffalo)

	3rd Grade		4th Grade		5th Grade		6th Grade		7th Grade		8th Grade
	CSAT	Bflo.	CSAT	Bflo.	CSAT	Bflo.	CSAT	Bflo.	CSAT	Bflo.	CSAT	Bflo.
2005-06 Math	66%	40%	58%	47%	51%	27%	38%	27%	15%	22%	36%	17%
2006-07 Math	90%	43%	90%	44%	80%	38%	77%	38%	58%	29%	58%	26%
2007-08 Math	96%	67%	95%	54%	84%	51%	77%	49%	79%	50%	81%	34%
2008-09 Math	98%	76%	80%	64%	94%	62%	92%	57%	90%	64%	89%	58%
2009-10 Math	43	28	74	31	58	32	70	30	70	32	59	26

	3rd Grade		4th Grade		5th Grade		6th Grade		7th Grade		8th Grade
	CSAT	Bflo.	CSAT	Bflo.	CSAT	Bflo.	CSAT	Bflo.	CSAT	Bflo.	CSAT	Bflo.
2005-06 ELA	51%	37%	45%	38%	54%	35%	36%	31%	28%	27%	30%	21%
2006-07 ELA	66%	35%	55%	40%	63%	39%	44%	35%	38%	27%	34%	34%
2007-08 ELA	73%	47%	72%	43%	76%	53%	51%	44%	66%	44%	32%	28%
2008-09 ELA	82%	49%	73%	54%	78%	57%	78%	64%	75%	62%	74%	43%
2009-10 ELA	48	28	57	28	41	26	44	32	45	26	41	27

CSAT’s New York State Regents Exams Results vs. City & State Averages

2009-10 Assessment	CSAT	Bflo.	NYS
English	93	62	83
Algebra	95	41	72
Global History	82	41	70
US History	92	66	83
Living Environment	84	52	78
Earth Science	81	36	74
Spanish	96	84	95

 

Please feel free to comment on any aspect of the data that you feel is particularly significant. 

CSAT is a public charter school that draws 85% of its enrollment from the City of Buffalo Public School District. Also, 82% of its student body lives at or below the poverty level, qualifying for free/reduced-price lunches from the federal government. Simply put, there is no other school in New York with its size, diversity and poverty level with even comparable results as far as student achievement goes.

The Professional Learning Communities (PLC) model was instituted at CSAT prior to the 2005-2006 school year.   Between then and 2008-09, student results on state exams increased by an average of 36% in English (up to 77%) and 44% in Math (up to 91%).  In 2009-10, the New York State Board of Regents raised the bar for all schools, changing the method for determining which students were “at grade level.”  When state assessment scores were released in the spring of 2011, they were dramatically lower across the board.  CSAT was no different.  ELA scores for the school were reported at 46%, while Math was at 62% (down 31% and 29% respectively from the previous year).  It’s important to note, though, that all of CSAT’s students didn’t suddenly forget how succeed.  This statement is backed up by the fact that the City of Buffalo’s scores, for comparison, fell 27% and 33% respectively, to 28% proficiency on the ELA assessment and 30% proficiency in Math.  See chart below.

Effect of 2009-10 NYS Scoring Change

District/Assessment	2008-09 Avg.	2009-10 Avg.	Change
CSAT-ELA	77	46	-31
CSAT-Math	91	62	-29
Buffalo - ELA	55	28	-27
Buffalo - Math	63	30	-33

Even with lower scores on state assessments, the performance of CSAT’s urban youths rivaled that of many of the region’s suburban schools districts.

This scoring change did not affect Regents exams, though, and, CSAT’s high school students outperformed both city and state averages on seven of those assessments.

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

CSAT’s PLC philosophy states that it is not good enough to be a good (or even great) teacher… principal… coordinator… without being a good collaborator.  The willingness of individuals to collaborate with each other is one of the major determinants of the school’s effectiveness and efficiency.  The staff has bought into the fact that teaching-team members can learn from one another, thus building their store of shared knowledge and developing/transferring wisdom in a culture of sharing and collaboration.

The philosophy:

• Focuses on collaboration.
• De-emphasizes the success of individuals.
• De-emphasizes seniority, rank, and ownership.

What is committed to students:

• They will learn the same essential knowledge.
• Their learning will be monitored on an ongoing basis.
• They will be given extra time and support in a systematic way as soon as it is needed.
• They will be given multiple opportunities to learn.
• They will be judged according to the same criteria.
• They will be provided with examples of quality work to assess their progress.

The PLC Process at CSAT:

Common Planning.
CSAT’s teachers are responsible for not only the students in their individual classroom, but all of those in their particular grade level. Grade-level teams meet daily for the purposes of common planning, creating units based upon state standards, creating formative and summative assessments, analyzing data, determining responses to learning. K-8 teams are afforded two 45-minute planning periods each day; 9-12 teams have one.  

With an approach based on learning (vs. teaching), student progress is measured carefully and regularly.  Essential learning is presented to students as “I can” statements. Using assessment data, students determine what they are able to do, thus deciding to participate in extension or intervention activities. Data, designed to guide instruction, is collected from common formative assessments and is monitored closely.  If it is seen students are struggling, classroom teachers share the data with the team to determine what can be done differently to boost results.

Creating a Common Assessment.
Common planning time is also used by teams to examine curriculum and break it down into units. Once the units are identified, team members work together to create one common assessment that will guide them through their teaching. This approach allows teachers to stay on the same page and encourages constructive conversation about student performance.

Creating an Answer Sheet.
As part of the assessment process, the team creates a corresponding, answer sheet. CSAT has developed proprietary software to help teams analyze data to a deep level, thus informing their instruction in powerful ways. We called this software eDoctrina® and it has proven so powerful as to be offered free of cost to any school and/or district wanting to use it. Please visit www.edoctrina.org to access this tool.

All common assessments follow NY state format with a series of convergent answer questions (multiple choice, true/false, etc.) followed by open-ended questions. One team member would enter the common assessment in the software and with an easy click tie each question to the performance standard being measured. The program develops answer sheets for each student. After the assessment is taken, the teachers scan the answer sheets using the school’s copiers and access all kinds of reports disaggregating the data in a variety of ways. The decisions of intervention strategies, areas mastered, re-teaching needs, and extension activities are made in real time.

Teaching the Unit.
With a focus on learning and not teaching, CSAT’s educators are given the liberty of selecting the delivery method they believe most appropriate for instruction.  That said, given how closely the data is monitored, it is critical that, however they get there, students must reach a certain level of standard-mastery (as determined by the team).

Taking the Assessment.
Students take the exam at the end of the instruction of each unit.
 
Scanning the Assessment.
Team members scan the assessments into the school’s proprietary data-collection package, eDoctrina, which gives them easy-to-follow reports that help them quickly identify and target areas of student weakness/strength. The data shows you not only how the students learn, bought also how well the teacher taught the unit.

Analyzing the Data.
At this point, team members meet and review the reports. With the data in front of them, teachers can get a great view of what’s actually happening in his/her classroom.  He/she can “drill down” to the individual item level, conducting an analysis that allows them to view the number and percentage of students selecting each response, along with the standards that each question was linked to, helping them further plan instruction. Or they can review class comparison reports that identify groups of students that have done significantly better/worse on a question or standard, compared to the rest of the grade level.

Either way, these reports help the educators identify and share effective instructional strategies with the rest of their team.  By generating and analyzing student standards themselves, teachers have a clear vision of which skills specific students need help with.

 
Formative Assessments

Another practice that has supported CSAT’s PLC model and helped drive student achievement is the use of frequent, formative assessments. Team-generated formative assessments help teachers gauge the effectiveness of their instruction, allowing the teachers to adjust (when needed) in order to promote student learning.

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

1. Monitoring student learning on a timely basis.

As mentioned, CSAT’s teachers are lucky to have a powerful and flexible tool to support them in the eDoctrina assessment and planning tool.  It was internally developed and is utilized daily by educators to help them in the areas of standards identification, unit/lesson planning, assessment data and goal setting. 

Its evolution has allowed CSAT to offer eDoctrina to other schools/districts that could benefit from it.  Currently, the tool is being used by a number of charter and traditional public schools in several states.

eDoctrina® has a number of capabilities used by CSAT teachers.  Some that support the PLC process include:

• Development of “Power Standards.”  Standards are ranked in each of the four categories listed below.  Each standard’s ranking then gives educators a good idea about which are most important (“power standards”) and, thus, should be focused on.
  • Endurance.  Will the standard/skill matter to the student in 10, 20 or 30 years?
  • Readiness.  Must the students master the standard/skill to be prepared for the next level of learning?
  • Leverage.  Does the standard support multiple content areas?
  • High Stakes.  Will the standard/skill be on a state assessment

• Common Assessments.  eDoctrina® helps grade-level teams easily create common, standards-based tests.

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

As a charter school, CSAT has the ability to offer its students/teachers an extended school day and school year.  Each year begins in August and includes 190 student-contact days.  Each day runs about 7.5 hours. 

Younger students benefit from Guided Reading, a special workshop block to identify and assist students that are not performing at grade level.  In each session, the reading coach works with groups of students (generally 4 or less) to work on a common text or skill. The groups are not static and young people move around within the groups based on their reading level/needs.

Older students have something called a “STAR (AIS) Period.”  It is a regularly scheduled period that occurs at the end of middle school and high school students’ day in which teachers work closely with youths who are struggling with particular units.  Having a grasp of each student’s level of achievement via data, the teacher can pull him/her into an intervention period to review the points of essential learning.  The length of time a student is pulled (one day, several days, several weeks, etc.) is at the discretion of the teacher.  Upon completion, the student re-takes the quiz/exam to demonstrate their ability.  If problems are seen again, the process is repeated.

There is a Guided Study Hall period for high school students.  It is an alternative period of study (in addition to intervention) that is flexible with his/her schedule.  During this time, students complete work or homework that is owed as well get additional help with classes they are struggling in.

Also, the school’s Student Support Team provides early interventions for students not making adequate yearly progress.  It includes teachers, psychologists/counselors, and staff members who provide additional support in the areas of behavior, health, academics and attendance.

3. Building the capacity of teachers to work as members of high performing collaborative teams who focus the efforts of their team on improved learning for students.

Ensuring every PLC is represented on the building leadership team, vertical articulation after every staff development day, ensuring every instructional staff member is on a horizontal and vertical PLC

 

List any Awards and Recognition Garnered by Your School

• Listed as New York State Rapidly Improving/Gap Closing School/District for five-straight years (2005-2009…still awaiting 2010 rankings), an honor that applauds CSAT’s efforts with traditionally underserved students.

• Listed by the New York State Education Department as “Charter School in Good Standing” for every year the school has been open (2001-2009…currently awaiting 2010 rankings).

• CSAT’s high-school graduation rate of 100% ranked it at the top of the latest New York State Education Department report on graduation rates for the second year in a row. CSAT is one of only six high schools of its size to have a 100% graduation rate in all of the New York State, and the one with the highest level of poverty (82% students receiving free/reduced lunches).

• The high school recently graduated all 93 of its seniors again this year, although an astounding 100% graduation “three-peat” will not be official until the state releases graduation rate data in the spring of 2012.
  
• Its four high school classes have posted a combined graduation rate of 99% (338 of 342 students). This compares to Buffalo Public Schools’ most recent published rate of 47%.

• In 2008, then New York State Regents Chancellor Bob Bennett called CSAT “the best charter school in the state.”

• That same year, former U.S. Assistant Deputy Secretary of Education Doug Mesecar referred to CSAT as a “model charter school” on a visit to the school.