Freeport Intermediate School

School Information

School Name:  Freeport Intermediate School
School Address:  1815 W. Fourth Street, Freeport, TX 77541
School Phone:  979.730.7240
School Fax:  979.237.6329
Principal:  Kristi Traylor
Principal E-Mail:  ktraylor@brazosportisd.net
Web Address: http://ww2.brazosportisd.net/fis/

Demographics

Number of Students: 506
Number eligible for Free and Reduced Lunch: 417
Percent of Limited English Proficient:  1%
Percent of Special Education: 15%
Racial/Ethnic Numbers:

• White: 105
• Black: 47
• Hispanic: 339
• Asian/Pacific Island: 4
• Other:  11

Student Achievement Data:

7th grade	2008 (State/Freeport)	2009 (State/Freeport)	2010 (State/Freeport)
Reading	88/92	85/83	86/82
Math	80/84	80/73	82/81
Writing	93/95	93/87	95/94

8th grade	2008 (State/Freeport)	2009 (State/Freeport)	2010 (State/Freeport)
Reading	95/97	88/88	91/89
Math	79/81	80/81	81/79
Science	69/74	73/74	78/71
Social Studies	91/95	92/90	95/97

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

Math continues to be an area of focus, especially Special Ed Math. Texas reports each subject by ethnicity. These scores reflect “all students”. Our goal at FIS is to have no achievement gaps between each ethnic group and our economically disadvantaged (76%).

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:

PLCs began in 1995, and have been our area of focus throughout the decade. The master schedule reflects a 90 minute a day planning period for vertical teams and interdisciplinary teams.

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

1. Monitoring student learning on a timely basis.

Assessments: Frequent, timely, teacher-made, and district assessments.
Report Cards/Progress Reports: Every three weeks for Progress Reports and every six weeks for Report Cards.
Failure Conferences: Tribe conferences are conducted, often times with parents, to intervene and plans are discussed and implemented for remediation. Guidance counselors, and sometimes principals meet with students who are failing each six weeks.
Re-grouping During Team Time: Flexible grouping options are implemented to provide re-teaching and enrichment during the last hour of the day.

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

At Freeport, data drives what instruction is provided, to whom, when, and how. We analyze the results from the state tests to look for weaknesses, to make sure the required curriculum is covered, and to tailor future instructional time so that the proper amount of time is spent in each area. To evaluate how well the curriculum is being addressed, teachers conduct ongoing student assessments and share results with colleagues. Often these assessments allow teams to see who has been particularly effective in teaching a skill, which in turn may prompt the team as a whole to adopt or replicate that practice.

To provide additional time to students who need tutorials and enrichment/extensions for those who have mastered the core curriculum as measured by the regular assessments, we have created a “Team Time” hour in the master schedule. The academic teams group and regroup students according to individual needs and assessment results. These team time groups are ever-changing, so students benefit from receiving instruction from a variety of “voices” with various areas of expertise.

Students who are still unable to demonstrate mastery are offered a “pyramid of interventions”. During the spring semester, we offer an extended day program for all students who are in danger of failing or who still need additional time for mastery. Rather than penalizing a student for doing poorly during the school year by requiring him or her to attend summer school, this proactive approach is used to help students before they fail. As a check on progress, team teachers, assisted by counselors, track students who are not demonstrating success. They determine whether the problems are academic or social/emotional. Working collaboratively has proven to be successful in creating high performance of TAKS and has caused a dramatic decrease in failure rates. On average, only two students have been retained each year over the past five years. These retentions have usually been attributed to truancy or failure to attend summer school. Summer school is offered for students who fail two or more core courses; enrollment has declined as a result of the successful intervention offered by the extended day program. In the summer 2000, we served 65 students; in 2001, 39 students; and in 2005, 16 students, all of whom but two, successfully completed the summer school program. Another measure of our success is that enrollment in high school math prep classes have dropped from 10 classes to 2 classes.

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.

Professional Learning Communities

To involve all stakeholders in the campus improvement process, Freeport Intermediate School works in organized cadres to ensure a plan-do-check-act (PDCA) model, based on the Deming model of Total Quality Management and the work of Dr. Rick DuFour.

These cadres were designed to deal with issues that embrace all areas of school improvement, and each cadre is responsible for driving the school improvement plan. Every staff member is required to be on a cadre. The leaders and co-leaders of each cadre comprise the Campus Advisory Team (CAT). Each cadre serves as an advisory in five areas:

• Curriculum and Instruction – focuses on the rigor and relevance of teaching and learning for all students (research and data-based).
• Staff Development – focuses on quality, relevance, certification requirements, and innovative professional development throughout the year.
• Planning – focuses on student and faculty attendance and special projects to promote relevance, rigor, and fun.
• Communication – focuses on effective communication between home and school, intraschool, and school and community.
• School Climate – focuses on student and staff morale, and school wide discipline; developing plans based on student, staff, parent, and community surveys.

The cadres have the autonomy to set up their own meeting times, but the goals established in the Campus Improvement Plan (CIP) are the driving force of their agendas. The leaders and co-leaders of each cadre work as a school leadership team to set the school budget and monitor the CIP. The leaders and co-leaders are chosen by cadre consensus and work collaboratively with the principal to ensure that goals are being met. The Campus Advisory Team meets during a summer retreat to study school wide data in order to set the goals outlined in the CIP. When school in-services begin, it is the responsibility of the leaders to report back to their cadres the information shared at the retreat. At that time, new goals are presented and discussed, and each cadre brings its individual action plan.

These organizational structures create “focused cells” for continuous improvement in almost every critical issue. The key to the success of these cadres is providing leadership training and drawing on the strengths that everyone brings to the table. At Freeport Intermediate School we have succeeded in ensuring that these systems are not “principal co-dependent” can be sustained when the principal is not around.

Transformational changes began to emerge as we started working not only in cadres, but also as interdisciplinary teams and departments. The culture of working in isolation began to dissolve as the culture of teamwork emerged. As a direct result of this transformation, students began to benefit from more creative lessons and from seeing their teachers actually enjoy teaching! Cooperative teaching created cooperative learning, and cooperative learning created lots of risk-taking.

Our collaborative work allowed us to begin to examine and reflect on what needed to be accomplished. Once our mission became clear, we created a laser-like focus on preparing students to use the state test as a tool to help them think more deeply about why and how they learn. We are often criticized for “teaching the test”, but our goal actually is to teach the standards that are clearly outlined and to work collectively to improve student achievement. Our state tests became a means of creating unity of purpose. The test challenged us to reflect intensely on how we taught. We discovered that we often used common practices instead of common sense. Among other things, this reflection prompted us to move away from clustering English language learners and special education students in pull-outs, a practice that delivered dismal results, and to move toward an inclusive model that has created a culture of serving all students, resulting in higher performance and lower failure rates.

Block Scheduling: Welcome to the Tribe!

Freeport Intermediate School implements A/B block scheduling in order to ensure that the core curriculum, consisting of language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies, receives the greatest amount of time for instruction. The implementation of A/B block scheduling has afforded students the opportunity to receive instruction in each of these subjects every day and/or every other day for one and one-half hours. Demographic information, student achievement data, and individual needs of the students became the driving force of this scheduling opportunity. Training in teaching on the block was provided to ensure that the extra forty-five minutes available is utilized for direct instruction and extended time opportunities, rather than time to do “homework”.

As mentioned earlier, the Team Time hour that is scheduled at the end of each day provides additional activities of “real world” learning. Interdisciplinary teams and departments create video presentations ranging from creative instructional motivators to team building and provide the students a sense of family entertainment while learning.

A unique organizational feature afforded teachers is that the core curriculum teachers, or interdisciplinary “tribes”, share a common planning period on “A” days, and each department (vertical team) shares a common planning period on “B” days. This common planning time between interdisciplinary teams and departments is provided in order to facilitate a process of collaborative planning and foster collegiality. Each tribe and department meets weekly, and agendas are submitted to the principal. The approximately 150 students per tribe see instructors as being their teacher, while all teachers demonstrate their expertise as instructional leaders and facilitators in a variety of academic and non-academic settings.

The core of our effort to create a personalized environment that supports each student’s intellectual, ethical, social, and physical development is or tightly knit structure of “tribes”. The structure allows teachers to regularly discuss their students’ academic and emotional needs and ensures that each student is known by several faculty members. The school operates a school-within-a-school by dividing the students into four academic teams: two seventh grade tribes and two eighth grade tribes. Each tribe has its own name, colors, and chant. All teachers in the tribe feel a sense of responsibility and a desire for each student’s success. Elective teachers and support staff attach themselves to a tribe. Students assigned to the tribe are grouped heterogeneously, including Engish language learners, special education students, and migrant students. Gifted and talented students are grouped for core classes so that a differentiated gifted curriculum can be delivered. All others are mainstreamed and are a part of the inclusion team. Special education teachers and paraprofessionals travel to various classes to help provide small group instruction and modifications. Severely mentally challenged students receive instruction in a loving life-skills classroom and are included in the mainstream as much as possible.

Tribes improve student self-esteem by providing a sense of “home’ to students, and a sense of safety, security, and belonging. Cultural differences are set aside, and students and teachers form a lasting bond. The tribe teachers attempt to extend this sense of family to the actual families of each of their students. Often, when parents are unable to come to a tribe meeting because of work schedules, the tribe accommodates the parents by making a home visit after school. If it is impossible to meet, the tribe schedules a conference call and takes written minutes of the conversation. For our team, meeting outside contractual hours is not a problem if that’s what it takes to make the contact. We understand our blue-collar environment often does not allow parents to take time away from work.

Awards and Recognition:

Awards for Freeport Intermediate School

• National Blue Ribbon Award, 2002
• Texas Business & Education Coalition Just for the Kids Honor Roll, 2002 and 2003
• Texas Pathfinder School, 2002-2003
• Texas Middle School Elmer Watson Award for Outstanding Middle School, 2002
• Texas Monthly Five Star School, 2001, 2002
• Texas Mentor School, 2000 through 2002
• NASSP “100 Highly Successful Schools”, 2001

Featured Books, Articles and Publications

• Breaking Ranks in the Middle: Strategies for Leading Middle level Reform (NASSP, 2006)
• Whatever it Takes (National Educational Service, Rick DuFour, 2004)
• From the Inside Out (National Staff Development Council, Joan Richardson, 2004)
• Catalog of Effective Practices for Middle Schools (Texas Pathfinder Collaborative, 2003)
• American School Board Journal, “Turn Around in Texas” (Glenn Cook, 2003)
• Closing the Achievement Gap – No Excuses (Patricia Davenport & Gerald E. Anderson, 2001)
• “No Excuses” ( The Morning Call April, 2001)
• “Schools to Watch: A Second View” (Middle Ground, Teri West, Volume 4- October 2000)
• Education Week: “Put to the Test” (October, 2000)
• “Focus on Minority Children Pays Off (The Press Democrat, April 25, 1999)