Webster Central School District

School Information

School Name: Webster Central School District
School Address: 119 South Avenue, Webster, NY 14580
School Phone: 585.216.0000
School Fax: 585.265.6561
Principal: Adele Bovard
Principal Email: adele_bovard@websterschools.org
Web Address: http://websterschools.org

Demographics

Number of Students: 8,723
Percent eligible for Free and Reduced Lunch: 11%
Percent of Limited English Proficient: 1%
Percent of Special Education: 9.8%
Racial/Ethnic Percentages:

• White: 91%
• Black: 3%
• Hispanic: 3%
• Asian: 3%
• Other: 0%

Schools in District

DeWitt Road Elementary
Klem Road North Elementary
Klem Road South Elementary
Plank Road North Elementary
Plank Road South Elementary
Schlegel Road Elementary
State Road Elementary
Spry Middle School
Willink Middle School
Webster Schroeder High School
Webster Thomas High School

Student Achievement Data

Scale: % at or above proficient on NYS assessments 3-8 and Regents assessments. In 2009-10, there was a change in cut scores by the NYS Education Department. The difference is displayed below as old cut score/new cut score/state average score. Due to this change, the percentage of students demonstrating proficiency reduced in our school and all New York schools. However, Webster's performance in relationship to the state has improved consistently in all areas.

Grade 4	Math	ELA	Science	Social Studies
2007-08	89/83	84/73	95/89	NA
2008-09	92/86	87/79	95/91	NA
2009-10	93/71/63	90/70/60	96/90	NA

 

Grade 5	Math	ELA	Science	Social Studies
2007-08	90/82	91/79	NA	90/83
2008-09	94/87	92/84	NA	95/88
2009-10	94/73/64	92/63/52	NA	96/88

 

Grade 6	Math	ELA	Science	Social Studies
2007-08	90/81	83/72	NA	NA
2008-09	91/84	92/84	NA	NA
2009-10	93/74/64	90/68/59	NA	NA

 

Grade 8	Math	ELA	Science	Social Studies
2007-08	88/73	73/60	93/81	87/66
2008-09	93/83	84/72	93/78	88/72
2009-10	94/70/57	81/70/54	91/80	87/72

 

Grade 11	Math	ELA	Science	Social Studies
2007-08	NA	NA	91/79	95/92
2008-09	NA	NA	90/79	95/89
2009-10	NA	NA	93/79	96/88

An increase in our Graduation Rates and number of students taking Advance Placement courses have been specific goals of our Secondary Schools.  The percentage of students graduating and number of students participating in Advanced Placement courses continue to grow and increase in percentage.

Report Card Graduation Rates by Cohort	2004 Cohort 2008-09 Report Card by August 2008	2005 Cohort 2009-10 Report Card by August 2009	*2006 Cohort 2010-11 Report Card by August 2010
Webster	86	90	92
Schroeder	86	92	93
Thomas	89	93	96

 

	2009	2010	2011
Number of AP Exams	544	1223	1314
Percentage above 3	83	82	81

*We continue to increase student participation in AP courses and maintain our achievement rate.

 

Our District Board of Education Goal #4 is to Extend and Enrich our students.  The graphs below represent our use of Data to show growth and to extend and enrich our student’s experiences.

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.

Effective and sustainable educational leadership must be grounded on a set of firm beliefs that are enduring and unshakeable.  The beliefs must describe a set of working values a group will use to accomplish its daily work with fidelity.

Webster’s District Administration needed to begin by creating our belief statement as a way to commit to working interdependently rather than working in the silos of individual buildings and departments.

We needed to define what leadership looked like in our team and intentionally commit to modeling the four defined attributes as leaders as well as provoking and cultivating these leadership attributes in our faculty and staff.  We understood that great organizations find a way to strengthen the voices of the stakeholders through multiple venues of leadership.  The defining attributes of a Professional Learning Community rhymed beautifully with the work of the District.  Webster studied these concepts as a District in 2006, redesigned our instructional systems and structures in 2007 and we have worked as a Professional Learning Community engaging each teacher in collaborative teams for the past three years

The focus of work in Webster Schools is to Maximize Student Learning Through Effective Collaboration. The organizational structure was completely redesigned to support this work.

Teacher Leadership
The District redesign included moving away from Department Chair positions and infusing 92 Lead Teacher positions: K – 12.  Lead Teachers became facilitators and coaches for teacher collaborative teams.  Each teacher is assigned to a team by grade level at elementary and by working department at secondary.  Each team meets weekly within the school day to review team data, set goals and action strategies, identify best practices, and assess progress.  The flow chart explicitly puts the teacher voice at the heart of the conversation.  Teachers must have the ability to make instructional decisions that are flexible and malleable in response to the uniqueness of their team’s data. Within each school building, the lead teachers meet with the Principal to assess student data from their building and respond to that data. 

Curriculum Supervisors
The Lead Teachers connect to District work and curriculum by working with designated K – 12 Curriculum Supervisors in core content, fine arts, etc. giving the system the ability to work on the horizontal data of individual buildings and departments as well as the vertical data of the K – 12 program.  Curriculum Supervisors shepherd the program from elementary through secondary.  They are subject matter experts and facilitate quality curriculum and assessment work in each content area.

Principals and Directors:
Principals are expected to be strong instructional leaders in their building, working with their leadership team on reviewing building data and setting goals from that review.  Principals connect to District work through the work of an Elementary and Secondary Cabinet.  Elementary and Secondary Principals meet with their respective Director and Superintendent in a cabinet format. The full administrative team meets together to connect its work monthly.
The circular design supports the belief that anyone in the organization with a good idea about maximizing student learning through effective collaboration can gain traction and support from the system.  The collective work of each group in the organization is in the service of student learning.

 

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

1. Monitoring student learning on a timely basis.

2009-2010
A review of the Elementary Building Goals for 2009-2010 indicates that both the use of data to measure student progress in literacy and math, K-5, as well as increasing the effectiveness of collaborative teams, were successfully accomplished.  Multiple measures of data, which were administered with fidelity three times during the year, were used to assess student progress. These measures included NWEA MAP (Measures of Academic Progress), DRA2, and AIMSweb, as well as common formative assessments within grade levels.  Building level teams and grade-level teams identified strategies when individual student data indicated the need for support, re-teaching, and/or additional time, as well as extension and enrichment opportunities.  Students met or exceeded targeted growth rates on various subtests and probes in our assessments.  100% of our teaching staff actively participated in Professional Learning Communities on a regular basis, made possible by adjustments to each building’s master schedule.  Based on best practice research, schedules were reorganized to include a dedicated 90 minutes of literacy instruction and 60 minutes of math instruction. In addition, an hour is dedicated to RTI (Response to Intervention) as a block of time where intervention providers collaborate with classroom teachers to provide quality interventions for all students based on Grand Rounds Data work. 

2010-2011
During the 2010-2011 school year, our elementary buildings are increasing their use of multiple measures by expanding their use of NWEA MAP (Measures of Academic Progress), administering the Literacy/Reading Assessment, in addition to the Math Assessment, to students in grades 3, 4, and 5.  This data will be incorporated into the Grand Rounds/Data Days conversations which happen three times each year.  Each building continues to participate in the S3TAIR validation process (NYS’s Supporting Successful Strategies to Achieve Improved Results).  Seven rubrics are included in this process. Teams have collected artifacts to benchmark progress within each rubric, and external validation teams have observed our September/October Grand Rounds process. Feedback will support our collaborative expertise in applying the Work of the PLC Cycle to increase student learning.

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

The Webster Central School District has implemented Response to Intervention (RTI) for all students. The Webster Central School District’s RTI process includes:

a. Scientific, research-based instruction in reading and mathematics. Instruction in reading, using  scientific, research-based reading programs that include explicit and systematic instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary development, reading fluency (including oral reading skills) and reading comprehension strategies;
b. Universal screenings provided to all students to identify those students who are not making academic progress at expected rates.  
c. Scientific, research-based instruction matched to student need with increasingly intensive levels of targeted interventions for those students who do not make satisfactory progress in their levels of performance and/or in their rate of learning to meet age or grade level standards’
d. Progress monitoring of student achievement, including curriculum based measures, to determine if interventions are resulting in student progress toward age or grade level standards;
e. Educational decisions about student goals, instruction and program services made on data from interventions. This may include referrals for special education programs and/or services.

Implementation of this policy is as follows:

Response to Intervention: Elementary Level:

Our commitment to high quality instruction for all students: Teachers use the gradual release of responsibility model, and the four phases of instruction (modeled, shared/interactive, guided, independent), in order to differentiate instruction for their heterogeneous classrooms. Literacy blocks are 90 minutes long. In addition to this, each grade level’s schedule includes an additional 30 minutes of “flexible instruction time” (we call it “FIT”). During this time a team of support staff, including, for example, literacy specialists, special education consultant teachers, speech, Math TA, etc. provide additional support along with classroom teachers. This creates small, flexible groups of students, receiving targeted instruction (including re-teaching, remediation, and enrichment). There are a variety of instructional resources available. Many teachers are using Fountas and Pinnell resources.  Math instruction is 60 minutes daily.

Universal Screening:  The district uses AIMSweb as our universal screening and progress monitoring tool, and the DRA2 for measuring student growth. We also use Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) from NWEA for literacy and math assessment.

Intervention:  Student growth is reviewed by a building data and interventionist team, three times each year using a “Grand Rounds” process. Each student is reviewed, using multiple measures, including AIMSweb, Measures of Academic progress and teacher data. For those students who are not demonstrating satisfactory progress, this interdependent team creates a new intervention plan and strategies to address the area of need.

Response to Intervention: Secondary Level

Our commitment to high quality instruction for all students:  Students meet in core classes for sixty minutes, in a three out of four day cycle, allowing for flexible grouping and in depth, focused learning opportunities for students.  Teachers use differentiated instructional practices to engage students in learning and frequent formative assessments to monitor student progress.  Using a house system at the middle level, grade level teams meet weekly. These teams create strategies and plans to provide a coordinated approach to support students at all levels.

Universal screening:  At grades 6-8, the NWEA Measures of Academic Progress assessment is used to assess each student’s progress in literacy and math.  This assessment, given three times per year, allows teachers and support providers to receive regular information regarding student progress. This information is used by classroom teachers in goal setting conferences with students and serves as one of several measures used by support teams to make recommendations for interventions.  At the high school level, the MAP assessment is used to provide information about student growth for all students in Algebra, and identified students in literacy.

Interventions:  Each teacher at the middle level has within his/her schedule a 27 minute block to support students requiring assistance at each grade or content area.  A block of time opposite lunches is also provided to support students with homework assistance at our Title One middle school.  At both middle schools, students identified through the RtI process are assigned, during a scheduled block, to receive targeted assistance from math or literacy intervention specialists. Using data, student deficiencies are identified and teachers work with individual students to close learning gaps. At all levels consultant teachers infuse into classroom to support Special Education students, along with others who require assistance.  At the high school level, math labs and literacy specialist, provide additional support to students.

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.

Four Critical Questions of Learning (DuFour, Eaker, DuFour) are the base of work for the District.  These questions serve as a guide for every conversation and become the “mission critical” of our school. The District has engaged in two “quality assurance” reviews with an outside consultant who has conducted focus groups with administrators, lead teachers, non lead teachers, teacher union representatives, and collaborative teams.  She has identified areas of strength as well as areas for growth and worked with the District to identify actions items for improvement in effectiveness of PLC work. In collaboration with the Webster Teacher’s Association, the following chart was developed to provide clarity to the work of each collaborative team.

The Webster Board of Education Goals require a response from every teacher and administrator in our District in the form of a SMART Goal.  Each SMART Goals Template includes a column that identifies the professional learning and development needed by that team to accomplish its work.  This becomes the base for the District’s Professional Development Plan.

Goal Setting Process: Webster Board of Education
BOE

• Goals are set during workshops.  A comprehensive data set is provided to the BOE for their review prior to the goal setting workshop.
• The goals focus points are determined through the lens of district data and define the strategic direction for the District; “ends” not the “means” of the work.
• The Board Goals are the vision for the District toward which the administrators plan.

Superintendent
Using the BOE goals, the superintendent works with the administrative team inclusive of directors/supervisors/ and building administration to set goals that are both action-oriented and define the measurable tenets of each goal focus.

• The administrative team establishes indicators of progress to be monitored carefully as a way to cultivate an expectation and culture of continuous improvement.
• Indicators of progress will focus on results not activities.

K – 12 Content Groups (Professional Learning Communities)

• Supervisors and lead teachers work with each content group to respond to the BOE’s goals with project-oriented work that is results oriented, time bound, and attainable.
• These groups analyze student data as the foundation of their work using the PLC cycle as their guide.

Building Instructional Teams

• Building administration and lead teachers focus on their specific building’s student achievement data and create an action plan for their respective building in response to the BOE’s and District direction.

 

List any Awards and Recognition Garnered by Your School

WCSD was recognized by the State Education Department for its implementation of “Ground Rounds Data Days” in all seven elementary schools: DeWitt, Klem North, Klem South, Plank North, Plank South, Schlegel, and State Road.  WCSD’s systematic use of data to make instructional decisions on behalf of students received praise from the state and led to district recognition as a best practice program.  Schlegel Road, the initiator of the Grand Rounds model, is recognized as a mentor school.

National College Board Advanced Placement List of Distinction 2011. Specific citation for increased student participation in Advanced Placement Courses.

Newsweek.com America’s Top High Schools recognition: Schroeder HS, Thomas HS 2009-2010: Thomas HS 2011

National Blue Ribbon School recognition Plank South Elementary School

Consistently recognized as a “Gap Closing High Achieving District” by New York State Education Department.

WCSD presented the Grand Rounds model at the 2011 Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) Summer Conference.