Lemon Road Elementary School

 

School Information

School Name: Lemon Road Elementary School
School Address: 7230 Idylwood Road, Falls Church, VA 22043
School Phone: 703.714.6405
School Fax: 703.714.6497
Principal:  Dr. Carolyn Carter Miller
Principal email:  carolyn.miller1@fcps.edu
Web Address: None

Demographics

Number of Students: 289
Number Eligible for Free and Reduced Lunch: 25.5%
Percent of Limited English Proficient: 23.4%
Percent of Special Education: 23.1%
Racial/Ethnic Percentages:

- White: 44.1%
- Black: 10.4%
- Hispanic  19.0%
- Asian/Pacific Island: 19.0%
- Other: 7.9%

 

Student Achievement Data:

Update on Testing Performance

At Lemon Road it has been a belief and a shared value that all children can learn and we maintain high expectations for the entire learning community. We have always been a school where a total school approach has been our normal operating procedure and our focus has been teaching strategies that are effective with students, regardless of their ethnicity, level of language development or economic status. Differentiation was based solely on level of achievement.

With the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 guidelines and our need to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), we have consciously paid attention to our subgroups and the progress of these students. We have seen consistent improvement in the progress of all students in the areas of English and Math; with particular focus on our Hispanic, Students with Disabilities, Economically Disadvantaged and Limited English Proficient students. Our Black subgroup is too small and their results are not reported at the state level. We have made A.Y.P. for all three years.

English – Lemon Road percent passes compared to state percent passed

	All	Hispanic	Students with disabilities	Economically disadvantaged	Limited English proficient
2006-07	80/85	68/72	57/62	67/73	70/67
2007-08	91/87	87/81	88/67	89/77	88/79
2008-09	92/89	90/84	95/73	89/81	91/83

 

Math – Lemon Road percent passes compared to state percent passed

	All	Hispanic	Students with disabilities	Economically disadvantaged	Limited English proficient
2006-07	80/80	82/71	52/58	68/67	76/70
2007-08	82/84	71/75	76/65	61/73	77/75
2008-09	91/86	86/79	95/71	85/77	88/79

 

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

Lemon Road is one of the smallest schools in Fairfax County Public Schools with our average enrollment in the 290 – 300 range. Realizing that approximately 25% of our students are eligible for free and reduced priced lunches, 23% are LEP, and 23% receive special education services, as a staff we made the commitment to work together to meet the needs of all students, with special focus on any students in these subgroups who are not making expected academic progress. We had developed and introduced a Pyramid of Intervention during the 2006 – 2007 school year. It took time for our staff to become proficient in utilizing this pyramid; but as we became more skilled and began making better decisions about how staff members would support the students as they moved up the pyramid, we saw significant achievement growth for our targeted subgroups. Positive results came when we stopped departmentalizing the staff with the LEP teachers only working with the LEP students and the Special Education Teachers only working with the students with I.E.P.s.

 

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

Lemon Road teachers were introduced to Power Standards seven years ago. We studied, Power Standards: Identifying the Standards that Matter the Most by Larry Ainsworth(2002). During the summer of 2004, ten of the 14 classroom teachers on staff met with the reading, math, and Special Education specialists to analyze the Virginia Standards of Learning to make the determination what students at each grade level needed to know and be able to do the first day they walked into their classrooms to be prepared for their grade level reading and math curriculums. The first grade teachers met with kindergarten and second; second grade met with first and third. This vertical team planning continued through the sixth grade, with the sixth grade teachers meeting with the fifth. The discussions between and among grade levels were rich and passionate. It was a tedious task to examine the Virginia Standards of Learning to determine which standards were “essential” and which were “nice to know.” We used Ainsworth’s identification criteria to identify our Power Standards for each grade level. Power Standards were selected when they were found to have endurance, leverage, and readiness for the next level.

Lemon Road teachers have been organized in vertical teams of K/1, 2/3, and 4/5/6. Because we are a small school, there are only two teachers per grade level which limited the discussions and limited the exchange of ideas and strategies.  Our K/1 classes are multiage and each of the four teachers on the team has a mix of kindergarten and first grade students. The second and third grade teachers loop with their students thereby all four teachers are familiar with the second and third grade curriculums. They are able to share strategies and have identified concepts that are introduced and repeated in the second and third grade curriculums. The 4th grade is our only stand alone grade and the emphasis at this introduction to the upper elementary is a focus on study and test taking skills. Students are assigned more independent projects, they identify their own learning goals, and they work in teams to study and support each other so that everyone experiences success. The fifth grade teachers loop with their students to sixth grade; and the two year experience adds much to our sense of community as it extends the time that students and teachers work and learn together. Because teachers, especially in the second year, know the strengths and weaknesses of their students, they can provide enrichment and remediation when needed, without losing time during the normal “getting to know you” period common in the single year classroom.

Another reality of our small size is the necessity to select and maintain only teachers who are not only committed to the principles of our Professional Learning Community, but are also effective in the classroom. Our interviews are conducted by teacher teams and our questions are constructed to get to the heart of our beliefs. One powerful question is, “What is the primary cause of student achievement?” Our belief, and research by Dr. Douglas Reeves will support, that a good teacher has more influence on student achievement than any other variable. When a teacher has not been able to meet professional expectations whether because of attitude, skill, or knowledge, it is the responsibility of the administration to offer assistance and then counsel that teacher out of the classroom. Students deserve quality teachers everyday and can not lose a year of learning because of an ineffective teacher. It is very hard to have these difficult conversations with often very nice people, but it is critical if we truly believe our motto, “Children First!”

 

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

1. Monitoring student learning on a timely basis.

Our vertical collaborative teams meet one hour weekly with release time during the instructional day. During these meetings teachers present the Power Standards, their pacing guides, and S.M.A.R.T. goals they are focusing on for the next nine weeks. They administer common assessments and Fairfax County online assessments (eCarte). The teachers have been developing a bank of common assessments over the years directly matched to the Power Standards. This year our school division has required each SOL grade level to administer at least two online eCart assessments. Our teachers made the decision they would continue to administer their own paper-pencil common assessments as well as administer the quarterly eCart assessments mandated by Fairfax County Public Schools. They post their assessment results to our school server and the results are discussed as a team. School-wide writing assessments are administered three times a year and are team scored. Student test scores are charted and students not meeting benchmarks are identified and specific learning goals are established. Students exceeding expectations are also identified and enrichment lessons and activities are planned to meet their needs.

Test data is studied so that teachers spiral down to identify the specific skills the students need to learn so that the students can be successful. Students monitor their progress as well and identify areas where they need are achieving, and those areas where they need support. Class achievement grades are posted for spelling and math assessments There is healthy competition between the students in each class to outscore one another on common assessments as they are posted each month. In the classrooms they form study groups and peer coaching sessions to support each other so that the class as a whole can improve. Another benefit of making assessment scores public is a structured opportunity to focus on results. There is healthy collaboration among teachers as they share successful instructional strategies and professional insights. Teachers send home interims every four weeks so that parents are aware of student progress and areas of strengths and weaknesses.

 

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

Our schedule was organized so that each grade level team had 30 minutes three days a week for remediation and enrichment. Mondays are only ½ days in Fairfax County Public Schools, and this is the only day we have pull-outs at Lemon Road for Band, Strings, and Gifted and Talented classes. Our LEP teacher uses this time for a math class where he introduces math vocabulary that the students will encounter during the week. This assistance has been expanded this year to include science and social studies vocabulary. This class is open to LEP, Special Education, and general education students who would benefit from this support. In the 4/5/6 grade level classes, no new material is introduced on Mondays and students use this time for skill practice, remediation, and acceleration.

A practice that we have found very effective has been Lunch and Learn. The lunch period for fifth and sixth grade students has been extended by fifteen minutes so that students can get their lunches and return to their classrooms to work on specific skills. When students take an assessment, they are allowed to retake any assessment where they scored less than 80%. Before they can retake the assessment, they must identify the area where they need help, and plan how they are going to get the help. They can plan to come to Lunch and Learn and work with a teacher, or a peer who understands the concept, or go to the computer lab and review using technology, or study independently. Third and fourth grade teaches offer a modified version of Lunch and Learn with a less formal structure.

Our business partner, BB&T Bank, provide mentors for many of our students, and several Lemon Road staff members also mentor individual students. We recognize the importance of relationships for student success and these mentoring relationships have been beneficial for students. They know that there is another adult in the building who cares about them as an individual and will consistently check in with them to make sure they are okay.

During the months of February, March, and April, Saturday School is offered twice a month for students in grades 3 – 6. Teachers volunteer their time to come to school for three hours to work with invited students on specific skills.

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

Our collaborative team planning time is scheduled so that the specialists (math, reading, LEP, SpED, counselor, PE, music, and art) are part of the teams and are aware of the targeted students and their needs. Lemon Road teachers have used available publications to learn new skills and improve our performance in the classroom. The entire staff has read Professional Learning Communities at Work by DuFour, DuFour, and Eaker and Whatever It Takes by DuFour, DuFour, Eaker and Karhanek These books have been the foundation for the work we do at Lemon Road and have helped us establish norms, shared values, and adult behaviors that yielded higher levels of achievement for all students. Most importantly, they have taught us first and foremost, to return to the Essential Questions: 1. What do we want our students to learn? 2. How will we know if they have learned it? 3. What will we do if they don’t learn?  4.What will we do if they already know it? How we responded to those questions has been the foundation of the culture shift from a school with a collection of individuals who were friendly with their colleagues and working their hardest to teach their own students  to a Professional Learning Community where we are committed to collaboration that ensures learning for all.

We have also read:

• Accountability for Learning by Reeves
• Instructional for All Students by Rutherford
• Classroom Instruction that Works, Marzano, Pickering, Pollack
• Learning by Doing by DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, Many
• The Art and Science of Teaching by Marzano
• Understanding Response to Intervention by Howell, Patton, Deiotte

 

The experience of reading and discussing these books have helped us sustain our PLC and has been a invaluable as new teachers join our Lemon Road family and are inducted into “how we do business around here.”

 

List awards and recognitions your school has achieved

- Dr. Carolyn Miller was selected as a Top Rated Principal in 2009 by members of the Fairfax County Federation of Teachers.

- Lemon Road teachers were selected by Delta Kappa Gamma International Sorority as an Exemplary New Teacher in Fairfax County Public Schools in 2007 -2008 and again in 2008 – 2009.

- Lemon Road won the Bronze Award from Healthier Schools USA for implementing a plan to foster healthy eating habits for Lemon Road Elementary students.

- Lemon Road was awarded $1000.00 in grant money to develop and maintain our Learning Gardens that are the foundation of our Environmental Study goals.