local literacy plan 2015-16 - academia cesar chavez ... web viewlocal literacy plan. 2015-16. table...

Academia Cesar Chavez Charter SchoolLocal Literacy Plan

2015-16

Table of Contents

Introduction........................................................................................................................................................... 1-2

Executive Summary............................................................................................................................................ 2-4

Curriculum.............................................................................................................................................................. 4-5

Instruction................................................................................................................................................................... 5

Assessment............................................................................................................................................................. 5-6

Intervention and Support................................................................................................................................ 6-7

Professional Development............................................................................................................................9-10

Parent Engagement....................................................................................................................................... 10-11

Communication System for Annual Report........................................................................................11-12

Mission, Vision, and Core Values

MissionAcademia Cesar Chavez is dedicated to providing a quality dual-language education that prepares critically thinking, socially competent, values driven, and culturally aware bilingual and biliterate learners by advocating Latino cultural values in an environment of familia and community.

VisionThe Vision of Academia Cesar Chavez is to create an educational center that strengthens community by offering pre-school through adult education combining academic excellence and a holistic approach to family well-being.

Core ValuesAt ACC, we share a commitment to modeling values such as hard work, respect, unity and family.

Local Literacy Plan 2015-16

“As written in MN Statute 120B.12, a school district must adopt a local literacy plan to have every child reading at or above grade level no later than the end of grade 3. Read Well by Grade 3 supports this legislation. Reading well by third grade is one of many developmental milestones in a child’s educational experience. Literacy development starts at an early age and is the basis for all academic success. Reading well by grade three ensures that a student has a solid foundation of literacy skills to continue to expand their understandings of what they read, make meaning, and transfer that learning across all subject areas. Instruction that provides the basis for all students to read well by third grade and beyond will help close the achievement gap and ensure that all students are ready for the demands of college and the workplace. From cradle to career, a sustained effort to create quality literacy environments in all of our schools and programs from birth through grade 12 promotes academic success.” – Minnesota Department of Education

We Believe . . . All students have the right to become literate Literacy encompasses reading, writing, listening, and speaking Learning to read and write begins at birth in the home and needs to be

supported in English and Spanish languages Literacy is a necessary skill to succeed in life Children must read often and in all subjects Data and research leads to differentiated professional development

Academia Cesar Chavez strives to develop an educational center that strengthens community by offering Pre-K through adult education combining academic excellence and a holistic approach to family well-being. To achieve the goal of 100% reading proficiency by third grade, ACC faculty will collaboratively and systemically design a high quality Pre-K – 3rd grade literacy program for all ACC students.

Academia Cesar Chavez embraces and strives to infuse the following National Council of La Raza (NCLR) core qualities throughout ACC’s program:

High expectations and high supports Collaborative leadership Partnership with institution of higher education Cultural competence Bilingualism/Bi-literacy Sustained meaningful relationships Family engagement and community collaboration Continuous performance based assessment

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All aspects of this plan will be supported by ACC’s belief that all children can succeed when given the right opportunity and support. ACC has implemented a research-based language and literacy plan supported by: 1) viable curriculum, 2) quality instruction, 3) ongoing assessment, 4) daily intervention, 5) job embedded professional development, and 6) parent engagement.

CURRICULUM Align to Minnesota English Language Arts standards Benchmark Literacy Curriculum K-6 Benchmark Phonics K-2 Lucy Calkins Writing Curriculum Santillana (Spanish curriculum)

INSTRUCTION Identify instructional strategies that yield results Utilize strategies that work Provide students with opportunity to practice new learning (gradual release of

responsibility) Encourage students to speak daily

ASSESSMENTS NWEA MAP – Northwest Evaluation Association Measure of Academic Performance (K – 6) MCAs – Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment (3 – 6) WIDA – World Class Instruction Design & Assessment, ACCESS assessment (K – 6) IPT – Spanish Language Proficiency assessment Fountas and Pinnell Assessment Kit

INTERVENTION AND SUPPORTS Monitor student progress in an ongoing manner to best support students’ needs Extended day programs such as After School Program Children’s Defense Fund’s Freedom School Child Assistance Team (CAT)

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Ongoing training in literacy and language acquisition Guided Reading Data analysis Fountas and Pinnell Assessment Kit 6 Step data cycle

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Academic Student Talk – Practice Profile Curriculum (Benchmark Literacy, Benchmark Phonics) Ongoing professional development in language acquisition linked to early literacy

for ELL’s

PARENT ENGAGEMENT AND COMMUNICATION Home visits in the fall Parent/teacher conferences and NWEA MAP growth graphs (2 x year) Report cards (3 x year) Progress Reports (as needed) Phone calls/notes home Weekly newsletters Literacy Night Parent Surveys for annual report UST visits – parent meetings Annual Report with Parent Satisfaction Survey results CPC meetings/workshops

Program AlignmentAcademia Cesar Chavez has aligned its education program to the Minnesota standards for all grades starting in Pre-K through 6th grade to ensure that all students in the primary grade receive high quality instruction and acquire the necessary skills to be on or above grade level each year. To reach this program coherence, ACC has purchased a viable curriculum for literacy, “Benchmark Literacy,” and restructured the literacy block to meet the needs of all students and will continue to provide teachers with ongoing professional development to become better teachers. Below are other components of ACC literacy framework included in daily practice.

The Pre-K – 3rd staff will follow standards-aligned curriculum maps that include common assessments to ensure that all students become proficient at both English Language Arts and Spanish Language Arts.

Teachers will continue to use WIDA English Learning Standards to support the need of our EL students in the classroom.

Benchmark Literacy Curriculum materials will be used to support Reader’s Workshop.

Lucy Calkins Curriculum materials will be used to support Writer’s Workshop Students will receive 90 minutes of Reading, 30 minutes of Phonics or Grammar,

and 40 minutes of English Language Development and Spanish Language Development daily.

Coherent pathways will prepare students for kindergarten

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Stakeholders will be able to observe and participate within the literacy effort in the context of expanded partnerships with families and community organizations. Observers will see the same spirit of co-learning among staff and students

Teachers will receive ongoing professional development in language acquisition linked to early literacy for ELLs

All aspects of this process will be supported by ACC’s belief that all children can succeed when given the right opportunity and support. Our efforts will be devoted to faithfully implementing literacy curriculum and methods supported by ongoing focused professional development.

CurriculumAcademia Cesar Chavez purchased Benchmark Literacy Curriculum as a primary curriculum for ELA. The teachers have created Scope and Sequences for the new Benchmark Curriculum aligned with Minnesota state standards. Teachers will continue to refine their work aligning the Minnesota standards to Benchmark Literacy Scope and Sequences each summer. In 2015-16, teachers will finish the horizontal alignment and begin vertical alignment. After using the curriculum the past year with fidelity, the teachers are becoming familiar with the curriculum and are able to supplement when needed to make sure all standards are mastered.

Teachers will continue to have “Planning It Forward” (PIF) time, throughout the year. PIF time allows for grade level teams to work for 4 hours during the school day on planning, preparing and mapping out the upcoming month’s literacy focus. PIF sets the foundation for cohesiveness across grade levels and allows teachers to create, fine tune and improve Common Formative Assessments, pre-tests and post assessments, analyze data and create better lesson plans and re-teaching action plans. Phonics was addressed by embedding in the schedules 30 minutes of phonics instruction per day in all grades, Kindergarten thru 3rd grade, including the Dual Immersion track. Teachers will continue to learn about language and content objectives through our ELL consultants and utilize “I can” learning statement in their daily instruction. The McKnight Foundation will continue to offer professional development and coaching support in 2015-2016. ACC instructional staff will work to fully align standards horizontally and vertically to the Benchmark Literacy Curriculum. The teams are comprised of general education, special education, ESL teachers, and instructional leaders. Together they will solidify ACC literacy framework. Staff will deliver a high quality Pre-K – 6th grade literacy program aligned to the Minnesota state standards and all teachers will

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assess students’ progress in reading with fidelity through the use of Fountas and Pinnell’s Benchmark Literacy Assessment. The Dual Immersion classrooms will conduct assessments in Spanish and English to ensure literacy and program cohesiveness and common assessments across the school.

The model of Reader’s and Writer’s Workshop will be supported by Benchmark Literacy Curriculum and Lucy Calkins Curriculum. Its efficacy will be supported and improved through diagnostic and summative assessments capable of providing ongoing feedback to learners and practitioners.

InstructionAcademia Cesar Chavez believes that transforming the school and developing a culture of learning requires an understanding of the needs of the students who are being served. Many of the students come from large school districts that lack structure, personalization, and frequent contact with their families. In addition, students come to school functioning two or more grade levels below the chronological grade they are attending. Many of them struggle with reading on grade level, and others who are new to the country do not speak English.

Knowing this, ACC has recognized that our students will require additional time, specialized instructional support, and aligned assessments as they acquire both English language proficiency and content area knowledge. This requires that our teachers believe that with high expectations AND high support, ELL students will achieve the standards for reading and literature, writing and research, language development, speaking, and listening.

ACC will implement common instructional practices and train teachers to use these practices that leverage high achievement for all students in the primary grades. This includes the use of practice profile for vocabulary building, practice profile for math talk, word wall visible in each classroom, the use of gradual release of responsibility, close reading strategies and co-teaching.

AssessmentAcademia Cesar Chavez has made significant progress by identifying formative and summative assessments that will measure students’ progress and inform teachers’ instruction formatively. ACC’s Instructional Leadership Team (ILT) has completed aligning standards for each grade to the curriculum and reviewed assessments from K–6. In addition, a similar alignment is in place for the Pre-K Dual Language Instructional Program

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that was implemented in the fall of 2013. This alignment will create a seamless pathway from Pre-K to kindergarten to support students learning.

ACC teachers use the Fountas and Pinnell Assessment system to diagnose and progress monitor students in the literacy continuum. Students are accurately given books that match the reading levels and teachers differentiate instructional experiences at their guided and independent reading levels. Fountas and Pinnell is used for all grades Pre-K through sixth to measure progress on comprehension, text complexity and reading accuracy.

In 2015-16, ACC will include assessment in Spanish language literacy for newcomers using the Sistema De Evaluación De La Lectura (SEL). The Dual Language Program also plans to use the Fountas and Pinnell Spanish assessment to monitor students’ progress. Additionally, ACCESS and NWEA are standardized assessments that ACC use for progress monitoring to see how many students are performing on or above grade level. NWEA is administered two times per year and ACCESS is administered once per year. The data collected from these two assessments is used for improving instruction, providing intervention to homogenous groups and measuring growth.

Intervention and SupportsELL students bring with them many resources that enhance their education and can serve as resources for schools and society. Teachers must first embrace an additive approach to teaching them. To correct what has long been a pattern of looking at ELL’s as having deficits in English, ACC will build on their enormous reservoir of talent and provide those students who need additional time and appropriate instructional support to achieve bilingualism. This includes converting language proficiency standards into “I can” statements that assist ELL students with academic language in all disciplines.

At ACC, some native English speakers and ELL speakers come with limited language knowledge. When structures within a text are beyond students’ receptive capacity, students struggle. We will develop communicative competencies for all students by focusing on speaking and writing in Pre-K through third grade.

Last year, teachers focused on reading and increased their knowledge in this area. In 2015-16, teachers will continue to learn how to teach reading, language acquisition, and deepen their knowledge by building background knowledge in order to support ELL students. The consciousness of ACC staff has increased regarding their need to better scaffold language acquisition as part of literacy instruction. They are concerned about the gaps in students’

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academic language acquisition and are ready to learn how to build the instructional scaffolding students need to meet the ELA standards.

ACC teachers will familiarize themselves with WIDA developmental rubrics and analyze incoming ACCESS data to improve instruction. Given that 80% of ACC students are ELL, it’s paramount that WIDA standards and assessments closely align to ELA standards. ACC teachers will continue to build and strengthen students’ language development by receiving ongoing professional development in SIOP.

The Minnesota Department of Education joined the World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment (WIDA) consortium in 2011. ACC has aligned its literacy pedagogy to the WIDA English Language Development standards. The WIDA standards are grounded in scientifically based research and best practices in English as a Second Language (ESL) and bilingual education. The WIDA ACCESS for ELLs (R) test is administered to students who qualify for English learner services each spring. These standards, along with their performance indicators and related framework, provides ACC with a national model that offers social, instructional and academic language guidelines for practitioners. ACC will continue to work with McKnight Foundation consultants to improve literacy. The consultants provide our leadership team with a coach/mentor, Linda Luevano, for our school Principal and our leadership team, including our literacy coaches, who will attend monthly leadership collaboratives provided by McKnight.

An innovative aspect of ACC’s academic program is its dual language program, which includes English language development and enrichment for all students, as well as Spanish language development and enrichment for all. At ACC, all students receive both English language development (for English learners) and English language enrichment (for proficient speakers of English) during a 50 minute period daily. Parent’s focus group reported that “the opportunity for their children to study both English and Spanish is one of the major reasons for choosing to send their children to ACC.”

ACC is an affiliate of National Council of La Raza and part of its charter school network. ACC extends the school day with the Academia del Pueblo (ADP) After School Program supported by NCLR curriculum and technical support. Math, science, reading, and writing are currently emphasized. The topics invite students to grapple analytically with environmental problems, and stress the connection between school and everyday science and mathematics. Students who are not high achievers in the traditional sense work in small groups in a cooperative format. ADP is based on a philosophy that with a challenging curriculum, all students can succeed academically in school if given proper assistance and instruction. The program focuses on improving student academic skills, self-confidence as

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learners, ability to learn new material, and affirms their academic potential with parents and teachers.

The Academia del Pueblo is another support for students in grades 1–6 to work on homework help in order to improve academic achievement in math and reading comprehension. In addition, students reading at grade level participate in literature circles 4 days a week in the extended day program known as CDF Freedom School. ACC’s pre and post assessments surveys shows that there has been accelerated success of students in the afterschool program as compared to students below grade level who do not participate in after school tutoring. They have also been impressed with the level of discussion taking place in the literacy circles in CDF Freedom School.

Many studies have been done examining the effects of summer vacation on standardized achievement test scores showing that summer learning loss equaled at least one month of instruction. High income students vs. low income students had a seven month difference in scores at the beginning of second grade, but this widens to a difference of two years and seven months by the end of grade six.

In order to reduce summer learning loss, ACC provides a summer program offering developed by the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF). The CDF Freedom Schools program works to provide literacy intervention to prevent summer learning loss. It has been selected because in research studies with populations similar to ACC’s, the CDF Freedom School approach benefited the majority of participants by helping them maintain or improve in their ability to read during the summer months. Staff members are highly trained to operate the program. In addition to CDF Freedom School, ACC has two well-trained VISTA tutors working with the lowest 1st -6th grade students in reading.

ACC has a Child Assistance Team (CAT) that meets regularly to discuss students who have concerns regarding behaviors, attendance, and/or academic challenges and concerns often time having to do with literacy difficulties. This is a team comprised of a literacy specialist, an EL teacher, the school counselor, a special education teacher, the classroom teacher, administrative representative as well as speech language pathologist, when needed. Students are brought when concerns arise and the team determines appropriate next steps for research based interventions. The interventions are tracked with data collection and the students are brought back after 6-8 weeks to monitor progress and the effectiveness of the intervention. In the referral process, the teacher completes a Child Study Team referral form and this form is returned to the counselor as soon as possible. An agenda and copies of the referrals for the students on the list will be emailed to CAT the week prior to the meeting. The Child Assistance Team will meet weekly and summary of the topics discussed will be emailed to all team members the following week. Additional forms to gather

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information and document interventions will be given to classroom teachers after the meeting.

Weekly, licensed staff meet in professional learning committees (PLCs) focused around data. There is a school wide data cycle system that all PLC’s use to analyze data. A pre-assessment is given, then those results are closely analyzed for students who are proficient, close to proficient, far from proficient or needs more time. After analyzing the data, various reading strategies are discussed and used to drive instruction for both whole group and small group reading. These data cycles allow the team to be specific and intentional in their instructional strategies. ACC will continue to implement the 6 step data cycle, however, we will be focusing on math and reading every other month. We will also use some of our PLC’s for more professional development for our newer teaching staff around literacy, such as guided reading, phonics, running records and fidelity to our school wide literacy assessment: Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System.

Professional DevelopmentACC strives to recruit, retain and provide ongoing professional learning opportunities for all staff while cultivating effective teachers who utilize culturally relevant and appropriate instructional strategies. ACC staff receives approximately 20 days of professional development designed to strengthen their effectiveness. Professional development sessions for literacy include: trainings on running records and diagnosing reading problems, reading strategies, guided reading, writers workshop, Benchmark Literacy Curriculum, Benchmark Literacy Phonics and effective reading instruction for English learners, math and standard based instruction, ELL language and writing objectives, data analysis through 6 step data cycles, Responsive Classroom, fidelity to our school wide Literacy assessment: Fountas and Pinnell (F and P) Benchmark Assessment System through norming responses school wide, and inter-rater reliability trainings after assessment rounds of Fountas and Pinnell.

ACC will continue to work with McKnight Foundation Consultants to improve literacy. The Consultants will provide our staff and directors with support as we continue to develop ACC’s Pre-K – 3 literacy system design, ensuring that our model reflects a collaborative, co-teaching approach between ESL language learning specialists and classroom literacy teachers. The McKnight Consultants will provide onsite modeling of literacy strategies, differentiation, and scaffolding for English language learners as well as job-embedded coaching and professional development. The Consultants will also assist the school with building its data collecting and analysis system and will provide program evaluation. Finally, ACC will ask the McKnight Consultants for recommendations for expanding the literacy program into summer and extended day offerings.

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There will be ongoing professional development in language acquisition education linked to early literacy for ELLs. This supports ACC’s belief that all children can succeed when given the right opportunity and support. ACC’s efforts will be devoted to delivering research based language and literacy curricula supported by ongoing, focused, differentiated professional development that will result in increased student achievement.

Parent Engagement and Communication The key value of familia is embodied in the community based approach of Academia Cesar Chavez. The Family and Community Director leads ACC’s outreach and sets up structures, services, and collaborations that support the school’s mission and goals. ACC offers wrap-around services, such as housing and medical and food needs that enhance the school’s academic program to promote family engagement and community collaboration. Each year, ACC holds successful Family Nights including: Literacy, Math and Science. In addition, ACC offers several different workshop opportunities for parent involvement during the school year. ACC is fortunate to conduct Home Visits with every family in early fall which helps to develop a positive relationship at the beginning of the year. Parent/Teacher conferences, in the fall and spring, are well attended by at least 88% of the families. ACC uses its numerous partnerships with the community to provide training, assistance and support to parents so they can become active partners in their child’s education to understand and gain greater knowledge of academic expectations. Stakeholders have been part of this literacy initiative via family and community activities led by the Family and Community Director. Because families – parents, grandparents or guardians – are the students’ first teachers, ACC offers the National Council of La Raza’s parent curriculum to help them understand the achievement gap and become familiar with reading standards for each grade level. Parents are learning specific strategies on how to support literacy at home and how to use their child’s report card to monitor their academic and social progress. ACC will continue to build the capacity and outreach of the Parent Academies to promote ACC’s belief that establishing meaningful relationships between families and schools can result in partnerships that help parents take an active role in the education of their children. The Family and Community Director continues to work on increasing parent involvement in the CPC Committee to help parents develop leadership abilities, and increase the numbers of parents involved in the Math at Home and Padres Comprometidos Literacy workshops.

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After six-week Parent Academies that end with parents being honored during a graduation ceremony, ACC has observed that parents feel empowered, and become more involved during parent-teacher conferences and school events, which are well attended. A large number of parents attended Literacy Night, an evening to learn how to help their children find books at their reading level, and actually worked on literacy activities their children perform in class every day during their literacy block. Results of assessments and proficiency levels are communicated to families in a variety of ways: School-wide Parent/Teacher Conferences (2 x year), Report Cards (3 x year), Progress Reports (as needed), and NWEA MAP graphs showing growth (at conferences 2 x year). Individual grade levels and classrooms have additional ways of communicating with parents about student achievement, through: phone calls (struggling or big improvements), weekly newsletters (test or project scores written on them), awards and notes about random achievements as they occur.

Communication System for Annual ReportingACC use the 5 essential survey to measure school improvement practice. We find the 5Essentials survey to be an excellent match and highly correlate with components from the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) Core Qualities that already underpin the ACC’s philosophy. The school notes that the 5E system reliably measures changes in a school organization and shows school success, trends, and provides individualized actionable reports for the school, district, parent, and community partners, and professional development to school leadership and teachers. This past year, ACC scored “green” which means strong, in all areas of the 5E survey. This is a great accomplishment for ACC and no other school that participated in this year has scored so high nor made so many improvements. The most significant improvement has been an increase in the “effective leaders” category, going from last year’s 18 points to this year’s 61 points. Other categories that have shown improvement include “Collaborative Teachers,” 48 points to 68 points last year; “Involved Families,” 35 last year to 64 points; “Supportive Environment,” 74 points to 80 this year; and “Ambitious Instruction,” 65 a points from 68 this year. The current 5E report indicated that organizational efficacy and ambitious instruction are perceived by staff and students to be growing; the 5E also indicates that students recognize and value the supportive environment of their school.

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local literacy plan 2015-16 - academia cesar chavez ... web viewlocal literacy plan. 2015-16. table...

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