Woodlawn Middle School

School Information

School Name:  Woodlawn Middle School
School Address:   6362 RFD / Gilmer Road, Long Grove, Illinois 60047
School Phone:  (847) 353-8500
School Fax:  (847) 949-8237
Principal:  Greg Grana
Principal E-Mail:  ggrana@district96.k12.il.us

Demographics

Number of Students:  675
Number eligible for Free and Reduced Lunch:   6%
Percent of Limited English Proficient:  4%
Percent of Special Education:  13%
Racial/Ethnic Percentages:

• White  78%
• Black  1%
• Hispanic  6%
• Asian/Pacific Island  14%
• Other  1%

Student Achievement Data:

School Scores

	(School/State)
	2004-05	2005-06	2006-08	2007-08
Reading	84/67	89/73	94/79	94/76
Science	90/74	93/75	94/81	94/79
Math	84/54	85/54	97/78	97/80

About the Tests

In 2004–2005 Illinois used the Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT) to test students in grades 3, 5 and 8 in reading and math and students in grades 4 and 7 in science. The ISAT is a standards–based test, which means it measures how well students are mastering specific skills defined for each grade by the state of Illinois. The goal is for all students to score at or above the state standard. New testing began in the 2005-06 school year.

Please feel free to comment on any aspect of the data that you feel is particularly significant.

At Woodlawn our first foray into the PLC journey began with data retreats and training teachers how to better understand and use data. This was in 2002–2003 when the primary data sources we had were state and standardized achievement tests. We soon recognized the need for more formative data sources and started to learn about common and benchmark assessments.

It was through a cycle of looking at student achievement data, determining what strategies would be needed to improve student performance, and then working together to implement those strategies, that we began to see our students do better on all measures.

Since we started our PLC journey we have been able to see our achievement improve each year. Our students take placement tests during their 8th grade year. Every year we have seen more students place into advanced classes and fewer students need remedial classes. As another mark of significant progress, this year more than 90% of all our students at each grade level met or exceeded state tests in all subject areas tested.

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.

As teachers started developing common assessments to be administered at specific times, the need for more collaboration and team decision–making skills became apparent. We worked at getting better at real collaboration in teams. Informal teacher leaders began to take on facilitation roles as team leaders.

Teachers became more willing to talk about what we were learning with other schools and teachers. Visits by school personnel who wanted to learn more gave teachers a chance to share their experiences and successes.

Another success is the fact that each teacher team has developed a SMART goal which is connected to our School Improvement Plan. Our School Improvement goals were developed based on the results of multiple data sources, both related to student achievement and to survey data. And, we continue to examine our survey data as well as our achievement data regularly as teachers feel that we can continue to see improvement.

In the future we plan to continue to develop additional common assessments and to determine the need for other interventions. We also are tightening our curriculum framework to reflect power standards so that we are clearly communicating our curriculum to all constituencies.

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

1. Monitoring student learning on a timely basis.

We administer common benchmark assessments quarterly in all subjects. We use a software program to provide almost instantaneous turn-around to teachers so that they can see the results in time to help students. We are currently working on ways to get students more involved in their own assessment of progress so that there will be more motivation to improve.

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

As we got better at looking at data, we soon realized that answering question #3 "What will we do when kids can't..." was an important issue to take up. We designed our first pyramid of interventions by listing all of the interventions currently in place. We prioritized and categorized them, and then just used the pyramid during the first year to see how it worked as it was currently written. This was our way of systematizing our interventions. Since we now had common assessments to tell us when kids weren't learning, we were able to see the gaps in our pyramid pretty clearly.

This led us to develop small intervention groups in the areas of math and writing. Students are required to attend intervention study halls after school whenever they fail a benchmark common assessment. These intervention programs are small groups and the support students are given is specific to the areas of failure on the common assessment.

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.

As teachers started developing common assessments to be administered at specific times, the need for more collaboration and team decision-making skills became apparent. We worked at getting better at real collaboration in teams.

As we got better at using common assessments to assess student progress, teachers soon realized how important the decisions they were making as team were. If they wanted students to perform well on the assessments they had to make sure that their students had opportunities and experiences to learn the material. Thus, the decisions the teams were making had a clear impact on what was happening in classrooms. Teachers realized that they needed additional facilitation skills and decision-making strategies to assure that all team members were part of their decisions. Teacher leaders were provided facilitation skill training. Where, at one time, norms were developed to make sure everyone got along, now norms were being revisited to make sure decisions and work products were the best quality the team could produce. Teachers talked about what would happen when norms were violated and how they should approach building consensus.

List any Awards and Recognition Garnered by Your School

Woodlawn Middle School was featured in the Journal of Staff Development in their winter, 2006 volume. The article “A Steadily Flowing Stream of Information Gives Teachers Much-Needed Data” describes our journey to write and use common assessments.