By Amy Nelson
Austin School Principal
AUSTIN - The next several months will be a flurry of activity for Austin K-12 School. The staff will be participating in action research in an effort to meet the high school accreditation requirements, as well as aligning that plan with the K-12 school improvement plan as required by the federal No Child Left Behind mandate.
The staff will meet over the next several months to complete the process, including identifying needs, analyzing testing and other school data, investigating the reasons for the priority needs, developing an action plan based on the results of our findings and lastly agreeing on an implementation and monitoring plan with methods for measuring effectiveness. According to Dino Nappi, site coordinator of the accreditation team, "The process allows the staff, as a Professional Learning Community, the opportunity to gather local demographic and student data, and analyze it to locate areas of student academic growth or areas that need to be addressed more readily."
The accreditation and school improvement plans address enhancing processes that are already in place, as well as creating new systems to meet student needs. The plans focus on giving teachers and other building personnel the resources, techniques and strategies needed to bring about significant improvements in student learning. Nappi has spent hours upon hours pouring over the school data to prepare for the accreditation site visit this fall. He had to take mounds of information and create a concise report. "After going through this process, I realized that there is a wealth of information available to educators that can be used to 'focus in' like a laser beam on student achievement indicators, so we can better meet their academic needs. It reminds me of former presidential candidate Bill Clinton's quote, "It's the economy, Stupid. It really is the data," indicated Nappi.
Upon completion, the plans will include target area goals for student learning identified as priorities by our school improvement team. The goals are focused around staff working collaboratively to develop higher-yield instructional strategies and techniques and to utilize data to drive instructional decisions. In addition to outlining the goals, the plans also offers a timeline, an estimation of resources and the parties responsible for follow through and monitoring.
The primary purpose of the plans is to improve student learning through a more refined curriculum and enhanced instructional strategies, hence school improvement. It is the teams' belief that if the activities and solutions outlined in the plan are implemented, the improvement in student mastery will be notable. It is the teams' goal to become a recognized school of excellence according to the State of Nevada annual targets under No Child Left Behind.
Austin School has been able to remain in good standing to date. Accreditation occurs every six years and Austin High School received their accreditation report and had favorable markings in 2005. In addition, in recent years, Austin has received recognition for "High Achievement" for having over 70 percent of the students above the 50th percentile in math and reading on the state-mandated tests. In order to become an "Exemplary School," the highest level of distinction, 80 percent of the students and subgroups must perform above the 50th percentile.
It is Austin School's goal, through the accreditation and school improvement process, to make the jump to the next level of school, staff and student performance.
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