Prairie Star Middle School

School Information

School Name:    Prairie Star Middle School             
School Address:  14201 Mission Road
                          Leawood, KS  66224

School Phone:   913-239-5600
School Fax:       913-685-7620
Principal:           Dr. Lyn Rantz
Principal email: lrantz@bluevalleyk12.org

Demographics

Number of Students:  591
Number Eligible for Free and Reduced Lunch:  4.31%
Percent of Limited English Proficient:   .56%
Percent of Special Education:       9.18%
Racial/Ethnic Percentages:

• White     83.7 %
• Black     3.75%
• Hispanic            1.31%
• Asian/Pacific Island .4%
• Other  11.24%

Present Student Achievement Data in at least three points to demonstrate trends – for example, three consecutive years or the first, third, and fifth years.

Scale: % at or above proficient School vs State

 

	Math (Prairie Star/State )	Reading (Prairie Star/State )
2006-07	95/79	96/82
2005-06	93/75	95/80
2004-05	82/65	93/77
2003-04	82/65	83/75

 

	Science (Prairie Star/State )	6th grade SS (Prairie Star/State)	8th grade SS (Prairie Star/State )
2005-06	93/70	86/74	79/69
2003-04	85/67	81/65	79/65
2001-02	74/62	73/62	70/62

 

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


Over the past three years, our PLC teams have been able to adjust our instructional and assessment practices to bring more students to proficiency and to exemplary educational performances. One example of our focus on the essential key learnings was our increase in math at the seventh grade. The school demonstrated an increase of competency on every indicator as set by the state of Kansas from 2006 to 2007.  Not only did the percent of students at standard increase, but every essential learning target improved as well.   

 

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


PSMS implement concepts of a Professional Learning Community in the fall of 2004.  The key components initially emerged as a focus on the first question of “What do we want students to learn?”. Beginning with the fall of 2005 the four corollary questions have been the guiding questions for our work. In the fall of 2005 the staff began weekly collaboration around the second question of “How will we know if they have learned it” and developed a Pyramid of Interventions.  In the spring of 2006 our PLC teams spent time discussing and coming to consensus on our School’s Improvement Plan (SIP).   This document serves as our foundation for all of our efforts.  As a building of educators we have taken great pride in studying our data collaboratively and using the data to continually improve. 

Currently, Professional Learning Communities at PSMS are ingrained and immersed in every aspect of our culture.  Every teacher is a member of two PLC teams.  Horizontal or grade level teams meet daily for 45 minutes and vertical content teams meet for 60 to 120 minutes monthly or bimonthly.   Each team spends time at the onset to develop their Vision Statement, SMART goal, team norms, definition of consensus, as well as agreement on homework policies, etc.  Three times a week the grade level PLC teams have sacred planning time to focus on the first two corollary questions: What do we want students to know” and “How we will know they have learned it?”  During these PLC meetings teachers of the same content and grade level work together to study the curriculum, develop clarity of the essential learnings, and develop formative and summative assessments.  PLC grade level teams collaborate one day a week to respond to the third and fourth questions of “What will we do when they do not learn it” and “What we do when they already know it? 

Our special education teachers are part of this collaboration time with the core content teachers. Additionally, the special education teachers have SPED PLC time two days a week to collaborate on instructional tools and strategies specific to working with students with disabilities.  

All teachers have an electronic and networked diary map complete with essential question, standards, content, skills, and assessments for their content.  Great strides have been made in improving instruction and assessment alignment through the study and dialogue from our maps. Teachers are eager to share their practice and their results and move our success forward for each student. Specific topics of study such as vocabulary, study skills, assessment alignment with learning targets, and curricular areas that span across the core and exploratory (fine and practical arts) areas frame the conversations and have enabled the staff to focus their dialogue with one another.

Teachers use formative assessment tools at the onset of curricular units to assess what learning targets are already mastered by each student.  Academic experiences for students are then differentiated in content, process, or product. Essential learning indicators are monitored throughout a period of time and evaluated for progress.

Our academic records serve as viable evidence that our PLCs are successful vehicles of school improvement, and on track to reaching our School’s vision statement and SMART goals.   

Additionally, survey feedback indicates that our students feel connected to school with over 95% involved in some sort of extra curricular activity and over 92% indicating that they feel “safe” or “very safe” at our middle school.  

 

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

1. Monitoring student learning on a timely basis.  
   PLC teams collaborate at the conclusion of each school year on transition plans for every student. Intervention plans are developed collaboratively and put into place for the first day of school. Before school begins every staff member is provided a list of “their” at-risk students his/her academic record, past and current intervention plan as well as the student’s math, reading, and guided study teacher.  Throughout the year as new concerns arise, teams are able to move students into intervention support programs as needed. 

PLC teams meet weekly with counselors, administrators, and the school psychologist to identify and problem solve any student at risk or not learning.   

The school and Parent-Teacher Organization have partnered up to provide a bus one day a week that transports students’ home after PACE (after school tutoring) program.    All PLC teams shave a zero policy and therefore work diligently with students to get all learning exercises in before a summative assessment. 

Our district provides a secured online access to teacher’s grade book which allows our parents to stay current on their specific student’s assignments and assessment progress.    

2. Creating systems of intervention to provide students with additional time and support for learning.
Our pyramid of interventions is at the center of the problem solving table and discussion.  Within the pyramid there are four levels: classroom, team, building, and district interventions.  The PLC teams utilize specialized guided study classes (similar to study hall) as well as learning labs, reading intervention problems, math intervention problems, as well as many other opportunities to assist students.  

The intervention program is all within the school day with the exception of PACE, a before and after school tutoring program ran by teachers.  A late bus is provided for any student of PACE one day a week.

Teams of teachers have developed flexible academic plans for individual students who may need content twice a day or perhaps a different level of content beyond their assigned grade level.   
Our school provided a twenty hour summer math camp for students who demonstrated a deficiency in math or otherwise needed a jump start to their school year.   Teachers worked with them in small groups on basic math foundation skills and were able to make a positive connection with the students in early August.

3. Building teacher capacity to work as members of high performing collaborative teams that focus efforts on improved learning for all students.
Our school’s Leadership Team meets weekly to collaborate around our School Improvement Plan and our SMART goals.  Teams of teachers have been developed, and trained on our school initiatives of Assessment FOR Learning and Curriculum Mapping.  Each PLC Team has a representative on both initiative cadres who facilitate and support the initiative training, and support in their horizontal and vertical PLC.  

 

 List awards and recognitions your school has achieved
Standard of Excellence Math 2005 and 2006
Standard of Excellence Reading 2005 and 2006
Standard of Excellence Social Studies 2005
Standard of Excellence Science 2005

2006 Governor’s Achievement Award