Inspire


A Principal's Story of a School-Wide Approach to Using Assessment Information

By Jacqueline Herman

Two weeks into my appointment as a principal, I like many other Principals hosted the annual Curriculum Night with the teachers. I thought that perhaps a few parents would come over to chat and introduce themselves, or perhaps challenge a child's classroom placement. I was prepared for the evening, or so I thought.

I was not prepared for the line up of parents and in one particularly challenging case, a grandparent, who was a recently retired principal, wanting to know what I was planning on doing to improve the school's poor performance on the EQAO. I looked at him, said, "Good question" and of course, lost a good night's sleep.

I returned to school with a focus: take another look at the available school data. This included a school entry survey with staff and the school council members, EQAO reports, report cards, discipline records, school goals, long range plans and teacher performance appraisals.

Initially I was doing this analysis by myself. Asking lots of questions, doing walkthroughs, gathering information and basically performing a gap analysis to identify strengths and needs in instructional approaches and resources. While I believed that it was important to take the time to develop a school culture of collegiality and positive rapport, as a trained Reading Recovery teacher and an individual who is passionate about literacy instruction, I felt this sense of urgency to address student learning needs.

The challenge was how to communicate to staff that the overall student achievement trend over 4 years indicated a steady decline in the number of students achieving the provincial standard. In 2002, only 35 per cent of the Grade 3 students were performing at level 3 or above. Of course I heard the standard arguments.... I'm sure you have all heard these, "Look at our kids, they do not have books at home, parents aren't helping us, EQAO doesn't count" and my personal favourite," I'm not going to teach to the test."

What was I to do?

Instead of crying, I invited the division leaders and all interested staff as well as School Council representatives to join the School Action Plan Committee.

At first it seemed an overwhelming task. There were so many areas to address. We began our journey by developing a shared vision. There was no doubt that the teachers were working hard to promote student success. The reality was that we did not have the option of choosing our students. We did however control the learning environment and the teaching. Our knowledge of contextual variables could influence the strategies we chose to use. Through many conversations, we all agreed that our students could be successful given sufficient time and support. Second, if we were able to effectively teach to a targeted skill and the curriculum expectations, student achievement should improve.

We agreed that everyone is responsible for student achievement and student success. Student achievements on the Grade 3 and 6 assessments are not a reflection of the Grade 3 and 6 teachers, but are a reflection of the work of all of the staff in the building. This is a collective and shared responsibility.

What we did next was to identify exactly what we wanted our students to know and be able to do. We decided to focus on improving student achievement in Reading and Writing and align our goals with the overall Board goals. The Board was focusing on implementing a Balanced Literacy program in the primary classrooms. That became our focus. This was a research proven practice and we knew we would receive lots of support from the Curriculum Consultants and Itinerant Literacy Teachers.

Once we determined our goals we had to decide which strategies we would use, who were responsible, the timelines for implementation and what would be our indicators of implementation success.

We are now into the fourth year of our plan, which we modify and revise each year. On an annual basis, teachers are encouraged to align their annual learning plans with the foci of the school improvement plan. There is a strong focus on expanding teacher knowledge of best instructional practices, using the budget to expanding resources (such as levelled texts, magazines for boys), facilitating release time during the instructional day for teachers to plan and evaluate student work together.

Administrative issues are communicated on our school Sharepoint website. Teachers have made a commitment to reading these longer memos in order to allow the majority of meetings to focus on staff development.

Grade level planning is encouraged. This dialogue improves the consistency in student learning and experiences for that grade level. We have found that using jointly written long range plans, similar instructional plans, and evaluation strategies across a grade level reduces the potential for parental complaints. For example, teachers deliver joint curriculum night presentations and send home the same grade level newsletters. As the principal, I have less to read and more time to visit classrooms. I'd like to think that both staff and students know how much I enjoy being in classrooms.

What began as the School Action Plan Team is now the School Literacy/Improvement Team. We strive to meet on a monthly basis. I provide lunch. That must be why we have 12 members! We monitor our plan and make revisions. Through this dialogue, this of creates the monthly staff meeting agenda with the primary focus on professional development. These conversations are continued at the monthly Professional Learning Team Meetings which are facilitated by teacher leaders.

The best way to describe how these teams use data is to provide an example. In September of this school year a review of classroom formative assessment data and EQAO data clearly indicated our students needed to work on their writing skills. The EQAO Item Information reports identified that the writing skill we needed to target was to teach our students to organize their writing and add details to express their ideas in a coherent manner. Based on the analyzed evidence, we now knew what the students needed to learn.

This has become a focus area of instruction across all divisions. Each Professional Learning Team has developed a SMART goal in the area of writing organization. These goals are articulated, recorded and revised each term. Each team is expected to articulate how they will achieve this goal. I support the plan by buying the resources, arranging the workshops or speakers and facilitating release time during the instructional day.

Teachers have collaboratively developed common assessments to determine entry points of achievement for each student. They are encouraged to use the same vocabulary and performance indicators outlined in the achievement charts. Dialogue around rubrics and exemplars to be used is critical to developing consistency and common understanding across the team. The expectation is that both students and parents must have a clear understanding of these standards.

The common assessment is not to be an additional piece of work, but a task that is linked into the curriculum expectations and assessed on the achievement categories. This is definitely an evolving exercise. The questions posed become much more specific as teachers move toward increased knowledge and understanding of the use of assessment and the need for precision in their instruction.

The expectation is that these assignments are jointly evaluated by grade level teachers and more importantly that this assessment information will determine classroom instruction. Recently teachers have established and articulated target goals for each of their students. We have implemented the plan and are continuing the conversations in their PLT meetings.

Student achievements on the assessment tasks (both reading and writing) are tracked on a portable Assessment wall. Recently we have begun to track the information on a simple database program.

Since I am writing about what teachers are doing with data, I asked them what strategies had made them look at the data in a more meaningful manner. Here is what they said:

"When you created the assessment wall, you took the data out of the box. It was an instant visual and I can't wait to move my kids."

It's important to note that the wall is also a good start to a conversation about what we need to do to assist students who are not making progress. Another teacher said, "The classroom data sheet with individual student progress over time made me look at the information more carefully. Some of my students actually are doing better than I thought. I'm thinking about the strategies that I need to continue. I'm worried about the students who are not making progress with their reading".

Overall, teachers feel that the ongoing staff development and having the opportunity to visit other classrooms and schools with colleagues to dialogue and see best practices is essential.

As Rick Dufour advocates, principals play a key role in demonstrating their commitment through their actions. We show what we value by what we do, not what we say. We help students by helping teachers to teach more effectively. Having said this, teachers know that part of Teacher Performance Appraisal Process will be linked to specific observations and conversation with regard to assessment data and literacy implementation.

My challenge is to be an effective manager in order to create a safe, orderly school environment. Being able to facilitate such an environment allows teachers to focus on instruction and learning thus maintaining the integrity of the classroom.

It also means ongoing collaboration. Once you open this conversation, you also need to be open to all staff suggestions. Teachers will ask that you schedule large blocks of time for instruction. It may mean that you need to eliminate previously established procedural practices. For example, you may want to maximize learning time by eliminating PA announcements. Staff (principal, secretary, teachers, and educational assistants) who need to be contacted on a regular basis communicate via walkie talkie.

We now have a pattern of upward growth on our EQAO scores. Our data patterns have shown that as our students achievements improve in the areas of reading and writing, there is a corresponding improvement in Math achievement.

76 per cent of our Grade 3 students are now achieving at or above the provincial standard in reading and Mathematics. These scores have been sustained for two years.

While we have not yet established that same pattern at the Grade 6 level, our good news story is that 65 per cent of the students met the provincial standard, compared to only 36 per cent when these same students were in Grade 3

Recognizing the importance of using data is easy. Analyzing and transforming data to information, knowledge and subsequently wisdom is a demanding and complex process. Using evidence based decision making to focus instruction requires commitment, passion, collaboration, time, energy and enthusiasm. In the final analysis however, the investment is definitely worth the effort. As school leaders we are in a position to be powerful and positive change agents in the lives of society's greatest resource – our children.

Jacqueline Herman is the principal of St. Francis of Assisi Elementary Catholic School