Mount Eagle Elementary School

School Information

School Name: Mount Eagle Elementary School
District Name: Fairfax County Public Schools
School Address:  6116 N. Kings HWY, Alexandria, VA 22303
School Phone: 703-721-2100
School Fax: 703-721-2197
Principal: Brian Butler
Principal E-Mail: Brian.Butler@fcps.edu
Assistant Principal: Dawn Hendrick
Assistant Principal E-Mail: Dawn.Hendrick@fcps.edu

Demographics

Number of Students:  286
Number eligible for Free and Reduced Lunch: 75.27%
Percent of Limited English Proficient: 54.91%
Percent of Special Education: 16.36%
School Based Gifted Services: All students receive some form of accelerated service support through the Advanced Academic Resource Teacher
Mobility Rate: Fairfax County Mobility Rate 22.26%
Racial/Ethnic Percentages:

White 5.82%
Black 20%
Hispanic 60.36%
Asian/Pacific Island: 9.45%
Other 4.36%

Narrative:

Mount Eagle Elementary School 2008-2009 School Year:

Mount Eagle is a Title I School in Fairfax County Virginia. Mount Eagle is in the third year of their journey as a true Professional Learning Community under the leadership of administrators Brian Butler and Dawn Hendrick. The majority of the students are minorities, so minority students must learn if Mount Eagle is going to meet the goals outlined by No Child Left Behind. We achieved success by following current research best practices in education and applying what we know about Professional Learning Communities. We know from experience that minority students can learn when the adults in the building are learners and share their expertise in collaborative teams. We incorporate the assessment and data gathering practices of schools like Elizabeth Vaughan, so that we can understand in detail exactly which information each student understands and does not understand. We use this information to identify students having difficulty learning right away. We collaborate to reteach and plan interventions so that no child "falls between the cracks". Although we are proud of the 2009 Standards of Learning test results, much more work needs to be done in order to continue to ensure that “all students” at Mount Eagle are successful

View Leveraging Knowledge–2008 document from Office of Educational Planning, Department of Accountability FCPS.

 

Student Achievement Data:
NA = data not yet available or no data

 

Grade 3
Percent of Students Passing State Assessment (school/state)
Year	Math	Reading
2006-07	76.5/89	50/65
2007-08	88.5/89	82.4/84
2008-09	90/NA	86/NA

 

Grade 4
Percent of Students Passing State Assessment (school/state)
Year	Math	Reading
2006-07	74.1/81	71.4/87
2007-08	57.1/84	65.2/88
2008-09	97/NA	94/NA

 

Grade 5
Percent of Students Passing State Assessment (school/state)
Year	Math	Reading
2006-07	80.6/87	63.2/87
2007-08	88.9/88	73.9/89
2008-09	97/NA	94/NA

 

Grade 6
Percent of Students Passing State Assessment (school/state)
Year	Math	Reading
2006-07	66.7/60	75/84
2007-08	53.5/68	75/85
2008-09	91/NA	92/NA

 

Overall Reading Performance
Percent of Students Passing State Assessment (school/state)
Year	All	Black	Hispanic	White	Students with Disabilities	Dis-advantaged	Limited English Proficient
2006-07	68/85	77/76	58/72	NA/91	57/62	62/73	61/67
2007-08	82/87	82/78	83/81	NA/91	81/67	81/77	84/79
2008-09	92/NA	80/NA	94/NA	87/NA	92/NA	91/NA	95/NA

 

Overall Math Performance
Percent of Students Passing State Assessment (school/state)
Year	All	Black	Hispanic	White	Students with Disabilities	Dis-advantaged	Limited English Proficient
2006-07	75/80	86/68	66/71	91/85	59/58	70/67	70/70
2007-08	70/84	66/73	60/75	NA/88	53/65	63/73	65/75
2008-09	92/NA	81/NA	95/NA	100/NA	100/NA	94/NA	93/NA

 

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

Standards of Learning 2009 Test Results (Data from spring 09 Tests):
Math – 92.89% Pass Rate
English - 92.19% Pass Rate

We had two totally new grade level teams at grades 4 and 6 and the data reflects the collaborative efforts and teaching quality of these staff members. Our fourth grade team was an extremely humble and dedicated team who constantly asked questions and used data to adjust their instructional practices while our sixth grade team supported a brand new extraordinary teacher who asked for assistance and shared her practice with all staff. This teacher won the prestigious “Fairfax County Public Schools First Year teacher of The Year Award”. She was supported by a full-time teaching assistant in her class, as well as reading, math, ESOL, technology teachers, as well as the school counselor. The huge jump in scores is a testament to an increased level of communication around formative data and getting the right people in the right seats on the bus, who were totally aligned with Mount Eagle’s mission, vision, values and goals as a professional learning community. The challenge now is to sustain and build upon the good work that is taking place and to continue to look at what is not working and adjust accordingly.

 

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

Mission Statement:

At Mount Eagle Elementary School, we believe that all kids can learn. We have high standards of learning that all students are expected to achieve. Our mission is accomplished in a safe, inclusive environment in which learning is paramount and cultural diversity is valued. Students, staff, and community support enable students to master challenging academic materials. Our shared educational purpose including common knowledge, common language, and common expectations are the keys to our academic success.

Mount Eagle Guiding Questions:

Here at Mount Eagle each teacher asks the following five guiding questions as they collaboratively plan all instruction:

1. What is it we want all students to learn?
2. How will we respond when they know it?
3. How will we respond if they don't learn?
4. How will we respond when they already know it?
5. How do we engage in relevant pedagogy and professional development to ensure that we are collectively answering these questions?

 

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

1. Monitoring student learning on a timely basis.

Monthly Common Assessments in Math, DRA given to all students to assess reading levels and to monitor learning. Quarterly SOL like assessments are given to students in grades K-6 to assess learning in reading and math. Teachers meet to discuss mini-formative assessments on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, in their team meeting formats. Teams co-score writing, reading and math assessments to ensure inter-rater reliability. Grades K-1 participate in the Eagles Nest Reading Program which gives incentives for students to monitor and improve their reading level. Students are celebrated at assemblies.

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

Collaborative Team Meetings look at ways of assisting teachers by giving strategies and guidance around instructional practices and ways in which students learn. Identified students are required to take part in the SOL After School Support Program and/or the Eagles Wings Tutoring Program. Students, who do not meet the initial Kindergarten benchmarks, work with a retired teacher and Instructional Assistants during the school day to support closing this Phonological Awareness Gap. In 2006-2007 Mount Eagle began preliminary work on building a Pyramid of Interventions in order to collective answer questions 3 & 4 of our Guiding Questions. This system of time and support (Pyramid of Interventions) has been adjusted since the original framework was developed, and continues to be a work in progress. A framework of this system can be seen below. All staff members collaborated to develop this system, and as 0f 2009 we continue to monitor and adjust as needed. This remains our biggest challenge, but also our biggest reward when done well and consistently.

Mount Eagle’s School-Wide System of Time and Support:

• The process should ensure students receive the intervention in a timely fashion–at the first indication they are experiencing difficulty and/or if they are excelling.
• The process should direct rather than invite students to devote the extra time and take advantage of additional support.
• Most importantly, students should be guaranteed they will receive this time and support regardless of who their teacher might be.

The math program at Mount Eagle is facilitated by our SUM (Step Up Math) teachers, who focus their energies around a variety of initiatives to enhance students’ achievement. It is a good example of how time and support are included during the school day. See details of the Mount Eagle math program.

Our master schedule provides team members a common time for planning during the school day. Allowances are also made for vertical articulation at designated times during the year. Vertical articulation has provided an opportunity for staff to align instruction that will meet the needs of our students. It also allows staff time to discuss strategies and techniques that have worked well for their students.

We continue to monitor the progress of our students using various ongoing assessments to set appropriate goals for our students and staff. At grade level meetings, teams always use our “Five Guiding Questions” as a framework for conversations. By having a structured format to guide our discussions, we have been able to more effectively meet the needs of all students (GT, special needs and average learners).

We will continue to modify the delivery of instruction, instructional planning and the way we support the needs of our staff and our community in order to accomplish our mission statement. Our balanced literacy program for reading has made such a positive impact on the way that we think, plan, and teach here at Mt. Eagle. It has really allowed teachers the flexibility to focus more on the learning of their students.

Ongoing assessments are analyzed more frequently and used to guide the planning for instructional needs of our students and training for our staff. In the summer Mount Eagle holds a site-based three-week intervention and enrichment program which focuses on improving and extending student understanding and achievement in the areas of language arts and math. The Medical Model of diagnosing and prescribing will be used, as students will be constantly assessed in a formative manner both formally and informally on a daily basis. The information gathered from these formative assessments will give teachers information to guide and/or redirect their instructional practices.

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

The schedule allows for daily common planning time for grade level teams. Math and Reading Specialists meet with grade level and vertical teams to plan, talk about and model different instructional strategies implementation (starting the dialogues of formalizing Marzano’s Strategies), assess those strategies as they relate to student learning, develop common assessments, analyze results of common formative assessments, target individual students for additional support or acceleration, and access those staff members whose positive student results on formative assessments were directly related to research based instructional strategies. Grade level teams meet bi-weekly with the administration to focus on student learning.

The itinerary for all meetings is focused around the questions:

1. What is it we want all students to learn?
2. How will we respond when they know it?
3. How will we respond if they don't learn?
4. How will we respond when they already know it?
5. How do we engage in relevant pedagogy and professional development to ensure that we are collectively answering these questions?

When planning staff development, the focus is to develop common language, common knowledge, and common expectations as we focus on learning. As an administrative team, the goal has been to develop a school wide reading program in which all staff members are able to firmly grasp an understanding of the districts expectations in terms of the reading workshop. The entire staff took a balanced literacy class, and used the guiding questions, to develop a deeper understanding of the teaching-learning process.

An article, written by Mount Eagle Title 1 Step up Language Arts teacher (SULA) Mary Davis, was published in the May 2007 Fairfax County Public Schools’ Title 1 Connection newsletter, gives the reader an idea of how the process evolved.

 

Awards and Recognitions:

- Listed as a school that has shown promising practices by FCPS for showing strength in reducing the achievement gap among Black Students, January 2008
- Title 1 School with 100% Highly Qualified Teachers
- Language Arts and Math are reinforced and supported by specialist teachers in art, music, physical education, library, and technology. These specialists wrote an article entitled "Fine Arts Team Strengthens Cross-Curricular Learning", which was publishes for ASCD EXPRESS in the summer of 2007.
- Achieved State Accreditation, 2003-08
- Eagles Wings Tutoring Program won Fairfax County Public Schools Partner of the year in 2004 and continues to serve as one of our school partners
- Coast Guard Volunteer Tutors serves as a school partner
- Brian Butler, Nancy Sprague Leadership Award – Outstanding First year Principal Nominee, 2008 (as a first year principal in 2006-2007)
- Dawn Hendrick, Virginia Educational Association Outstanding Assistant Principal Nominee, 2006-2007
- Apple Federal Credit Union Technology Grant (Art Teacher and Technology Specialist)
- After-School Enrichment Program Highlighted on FCPS Television Station for “Closing the Opportunity Gap”
- Three Nationally Board Certified Teachers on Staff
- Tara Murphy, Fairfax County Public Schools First Year Teacher of The Year Winner, 2008-09