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: 913.239.5648
Principal: Dr. Lyn Rantz
Principal email: lrantz@bluevalleyk12.org
Web Address: http://www.psmsband.org/

Demographics

Number of Students: 730
Number Eligible for Free and Reduced Lunch: 6.5%
Percent of Limited English Proficient: .06%
Percent of Special Education: 8%
Racial/Ethnic Percentages:

• White: 83%
• Black: 3.1%
• Hispanic: 1.5%
• Asian/Pacific Island: 7.7%
• Other: 4.3%

Student Achievement Data

Prairie Star Middle School vs. State

PSM/State	Math	Reading	Science	Grade 6 Social Studies	Grade 8 Social Studies
2009-10	98/81	99/86	96/87	none	none
2008-09	98/82	99/85	98/86	none	none
2007-08	97/82	98/84	97/83	99/83	97/81
2006-07	95/79	96/82	none	none	none
2005-06	93/75	95/80	93/70	86/74	79/69
2004-05	82/65	93/77	none	none	none
2003-04	82/65	83/75	85/67	81/65	79/65
2002-03	77/59	88/66	74/62	73/62	70/62

The Measure of Academic Progress is a diagnostic tool given to all students at PSMS in the fall and spring of each year beginning in 2002.  The teachers use this tool to see the effectiveness of their instruction and gauge their pace and overall professional practice.    Students score a score of a RIT on the assessment.  As students increase in their knowledge and basic skills, their RIT scores increase.   There is a projected range and based on the previous score, a student has a target RIT growth they are projected to reach.    Statistically, 50% or fewer students will reach the projected RIT growth.   The professional learning communities have taken pride to consistently have over 50% of its student body meet their target RIT growth every year in both reading and math.

Math (% students meeting target RIT growth from fall to spring)	Grade 6	Grade 7	Grade 8
2009-10	67	58	63
2008-09	67	58	72
2007-08	59	54	69
2006-07	53	55	58
2005-06	68	53	62

 

Reading (% students meeting target RIT growth from fall to spring)	Grade 6	Grade 7	Grade 8
2009-10	65	64	54
2008-09	59	64	58
2007-08	66	63	50
2006-07	62	63	55
2005-06	64	60	54

 

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

Over the past six 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.   Initially, we focused on the minimal standards of achievement and as we progressed in our collaborative culture we realized that all of our students grew in their learning.  Now we are more impressed with our work when a greater number are achieving at the highest level of mastery rather than merely decreasing the numbers who remain below grade level.

 

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.  Each grade level team follows a “weekly wheel” that focuses their area of conversation.  

Vertical content teams meet for 60 to 120 minutes monthly.   Each team spends time at the onset of the school year to develop their Vision Statement, SMART goal, team norms, definition of consensus, as well as agreement on homework policies, etc.

Teams then have PLC time of 45 minutes daily to focus on the following topics:

• Monday:  problem-solving with the intervention Pyramid (Question 4).  Joining the grade level teams are the school’s counselors, special education teachers, school psychologist, and administrators.
• Tuesday:  alternating weeks of technology and Tools for teaching classroom management (instructional issues) and Differentiation with gifted educator (Question 4)
• Wednesday: Team focus on curriculum and assessment (Questions 1 & 2)
• Thursday:  Team focus on curriculum and assessment, and instruction (Questions 1 & 2)
• Friday:   Cooperation and coordination activities

Our special education teachers are part of this collaboration time with the core content teachers three days a week and then meet as a 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 95% indicating that they feel “safe” or “very safe” at our middle school.

Most recently (fall, 2010) the Student Gallup results demonstrated that our students show a great deal of promise in their future. The survey results showed that 70% of the PSMS student body was hopeful towards their future compared to state average of 58 and national average of 53%.    In the area of engagement, the PSMS student body reported that over 77% were engaged while the state’s peers were at 61% and the national was 57%.   Finally, the Gallup poll on wellbeing demonstrated that 86%of our student body was thriving while our state reported 68% and the national average was 65% on the same category.   In fact, not a single student was reported as “suffering” on our Gallup 2010 survey.

These results affirmed to our school community that we are not only educating the academic side of the students but also the whole individual child as well.  

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

1. Monitoring student learning on a timely basis.  
“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.    The 6th and 7th grade PLC teams have a zero policy and therefore work diligently with students to get all learning exercises in before a summative assessment. This policy allows some grace for students on a couple of missing assignments each semester, but them requires extra time and effort before a student is able to turn in a late assignment.  All late assignments are then taken for full credit.    The 8th grade PLC has modified their policy for a full credit up to 24 hours late.   This has been a work in progress and the teachers have found great success in getting all assignments turned in by their students when they work closely to the principles outlined by Rick Stiggins and the Assessment Training Institute.     

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. Our core teachers now track student progress on each learning target through their electronic grade book. Due to an increased effort to focus on learning, all core teachers have begun a move away from a traditional grade book to a reporting system based on Learning Targets.   Each assignment, quiz, and assessment is recorded by learning target and tracked for student mastery.

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 reading intervention problems, math intervention problems, as well as many other opportunities to assist students.   Within the school day we have provided classes that are intensive in nature for math or reading for individual student who need it.    The guided study classes have been customized over to include math focused, reading focused, organization focused, and leadership focused. Students who don’t need one of these ongoing supports are placed in an general guided study support classes and are given general organization, time management, note taking, and study skill instruction.  The guided study classes are flexible and students are able to move between them per grading period.

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 unique, individual students who may need content twice a day or perhaps a different level of content beyond their assigned grade level.

We use a web-based software program that is high interest and based on the Kansas curriculum as a way of reinforcing math and reading skills.  This is used within the school day during guided study or free time and outside the school day.

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, post-secondary readiness, and research based best practices for student learning.   A cadre of teachers was trained by Rick Stiggins at an ETI Institute and has since provided all professional development for the faculty and staff internally at PSMS for a well-balanced assessment program.  Further job-embedded training takes place internally in the areas of diversity, Meta-analysis of student achievement (John Hattie’s work), and writing best practices.      

 

List awards and recognitions your school has achieved
Standard of Excellence Math (grades 6, 7, & 8 and building awards) 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010
Standard of Excellence Reading (grades 6, 7, & 8 and building awards) 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010
Standard of Excellence Social Studies (grades 6 & 8) 2005 and 2008 (not given since 2008)
Standard of Excellence Science (grade 7) 2005, 2009, 2010
Governor’s Achievement Award in Kansas 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 (only middle school in Kansas to have won this award for 5 consecutive years)