Our master school schedule was developed with professional learning communities (PLC) in mind.  In the creation of our master schedule we first ensure that grade levels have uninterrupted time of tier 1 literacy and math instruction.  After we schedule our literacy and math instruction we also schedule literacy acceleration for all and math acceleration for all for each grade level.  This ensures that we are able to meet the needs of each student.  Finally, our teacher have protected plan time throughout the week for each PLC

PLC teams are an essential part of our learning community.  At the beginning of the school year, each team meets to discuss team norm and responsibilities.  These are upheld throughout the year and are added to their weekly agendas.  During the week each PLC team has protected plan times that allow each PLC team to collaborate on instructional strategies, analyze data, discuss best practices and respond to the needs of students through a team approach.  Designated plan days are allocated for specific content area with agendas that are created prior to the meeting.  Teams also ensure that part of their meeting time is designated to discussing specific students to ensure that each group of students is discussed throughout each month.    

In addition, we have School Improvement Plan (SIP) meetings three times a year to develop SMART goals along with action steps. A committee of staff members comprised of grade level and team representatives, work together to ensure that these action steps are relevant in helping our students achieve their academic goals. Our SIP is also presented to the district superintendent and assistant superintendents three times a year where we focus on our district Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) results. These presentations take place in the Fall, Winter, and again in the Spring.

In order to meet the academic needs of our students, in reading and math, our school has an acceleration block for all grade levels kindergarten through sixth grade.  During this time our students are grouped according to multiple data points.  Teams look at our sequence and scope and the weekly content objectives and create tailored instruction for each group of students.  This block of acceleration allows teachers to either enrich our students that are at or above grade level, while providing supports for students that may need additional supports.  In order to close the achievement gap our staff ensures that our tier2 and tier3 students are in small groups.  We are able to provide these services to our students by adding our support staff services during our acceleration blocks. 

Our entire curriculum is aligned to our districts essential outcomes as well as the Illinois Learning Standards. All of the teachers follow our core curriculum with fidelity to ensure appropriate grade level instruction and to ensure that our essential outcomes are mastered by the students. In order to track student progress we have developed frequent common assessments across all grade levels and academic subjects. The data from these common assessments are analyzed by the appropriate grade level PLC teams and informed decisions are then made on student progress.

 The collaboration among PLC teams and our parent community is essential to our student success.  Our teachers have formal conferences twice a year where our staff shares student goals (created in both reading and math)and their progress with the parents.  Students maintain data folders that allow students to track their progress and share that information with their parents during the conferences.  Providing regular academic parent nights affords the staff the opportunity to help parents support their child’s education at home.  It is important that we share with parents how their child is progressing and encourage them to help their child work toward their math and reading goal. 

1. Monitoring student learning on a timely basis.

At Hanover Highlands our goal is to know each student by name and need.  One way that we are able to do this is through regular common assessments in all content areas.  Common Assessments are aligned to the standards that they are currently working on and are created by the PLC team.  Common assessments are administrered at the end of each unit in each content area.  Throughout units, teacher administer exit slips, and complete other informal assessments.  Once the common assessment has been given, teams reflect on overall data, data by subgroup, and analyze any trends.  During the reflection teams complete a reflection form that allows them to celebrate success overall and by individual students, teams also share strategies that were successfull and strategies that can be implemented to assist struggling learners.  Teams also compare common assessments overtime to pinpoint if there are specific skills that students need more assistance with than others. Teams give informal running records on each student to ensure that students are progressing through their F&P levels.  This data, along wtih the data of common asssessments are utlized to gauge student growth.   Each team keeps a data excel sheet for each content area with all the data to allow all plc team members to have access to student data.  Each team ensures that they are also regularly discussing all students throughout the month.  During their weekly PLC meetings teams have a scheduled week where they are discussing specific students.  During the first week of the month teams discuss students under the 25th percentile, the second week of the month teams discuss students between the 26th and the 40th  percentile, the third week of the month teams discuss students between the 41st and the 74th percentile, and the fourth week students between the 75th and 99th percentile are discussed.  This allows teams to focus on all ranges of learner and monitor their growth. 

There is a strong focus on our tier 3 students.  Our Child Study Team regularly evaluates the progress of all of our tier 3 students.  Once a month classroom teachers meet to discuss any tier 3 students and struggles and progress that are being made.  This information will then be shared during formal RTI meetings that take place every 6 to 8 weeks.  During these formal RIT meetings classroom teachers and support staff meet every 6 to 8 weeks to share the progress of students that are receiving additional tier 3 instruction to gauge student progress and the effectiveness of the strategies being used.

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

At Hanover Highlands School and throughout the Schaumburg School District all students participate in a reading accleration block and a math acceleration block.  Each block is 30 minutes in length, which is additional to their tier1 instruction.  During this time teams are able to provide targeted instruction to students based upon students academic performance, strengths, and needs.  Students are clustered by utlizing multiple points of data (MAP data, F&P, common assessments, etc.).  Schedules for support staff are created to allow them to flood grade levels during this time to create small groups to ensure that students are able to receive strong intervention or enrichment.  Tier 2 and 3 students are in groups no bigger than 8.

3. Building teacher capacity to work as members of high performing collaborative teams that focus efforts on improved learning for all students.

Each PLC team at Hanover Highlands has designated times within their schedule for strong collaboration.  Team members of the PLC include classroom teachers, and support staff that service students within that grade level.  Teams meet weekly to collborate on specific subject areas, discuss data, and share strategies.  There is a designated plan time allocated for reading, and designated time allocated for math.  Teams also meet weekly during staff development for professional development that is designed to provide teams with best practices, and to help address the needs of their students which are aligned wihtin our school improvement plan.  Each team creates an agenda which is created beforehand, and where all teams are able to provide agenda items. 

Common planning time is created by creating a defined schedule where grade levels have their students at fine arts(art, music, physical education, learning resource time).  When the grade level students have designated times for fine arts our teachers are able to collaborate.  The master schedule is created to ensure that grade levels also have content instructional times are alinged. 

Additional Achievement Data

                                                            HANOVER HIGHLANDS PARCC RESULTS

DATA COMPARED TO DISTRICT AND STATE

Grade 3		MATH			ELA
	SCHOOL	DISTRICT	STATE	SCHOOL	DISTRICT	STATE
2016-2017	55%	62%	39%	46%	63%	36%
PARCC
2015-2016	49%	61%	40%	49%	62%	36%
PARCC
2014-2015	46%	59%	34%	48%	59%	35%
PARCC

 

Grade 4		MATH			ELA
	SCHOOL	DISTRICT	STATE	SCHOOL	DISTRICT	STATE
2016-2017	53%	55%	30%	58%	63%	37%
PARCC
2015-2016	57%	63%	31%	51%	61%	37%
PARCC
2014-2015	50%	55%	28%	57%	65%	40%
PARCC

 

Grade 5		MATH			ELA
	SCHOOL	DISTRICT	STATE	SCHOOL	DISTRICT	STATE
2016-2017	52%	53%	29%	56%	63%	36%
PARCC
2015-2016	43%	55%	32%	59%	62%	35%
PARCC
2014-2015	53%	55%	27%	47%	65%	39%
PARCC

 

Grade 6		MATH			ELA
	SCHOOL	DISTRICT	STATE	SCHOOL	DISTRICT	STATE
2016-2017	58%	59%	28%	58%	67%	37%
PARCC
2015-2016	56%	59%	34%	54%	71%	28%
PARCC
2014-2015	33%	61%	35%	41%	67%	27%
PARCC

 

 

ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS RESULTS

MEETING/EXCEEDING

YEAR	HANOVER HIGHLANDS	STATE
2015	51	38
2016	53	36
2017	54	37

 

MATH RESULTS

MEETING/EXCEEDING

YEAR	HANOVER HIGHLANDS	STATE
2015	48	28
2016	51	31
2017	54	37

  Our staff continues to align their instruction to a balanced literacy and math model.  This allows our staff to meet the needs of students through solid instructional practices.  We continue to see our percent of students meeting and exceeding on the PARCC tests year after year.  Our strong PLCs, tight expectations wtih our instruction and schedules allows for our students to see success year after year. 

 

• Recipients of a Spanish Academy International Award for our dual language program
• Received the ‘Implementing’ status for our Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS). We are in the process of applying for the ‘Exemplar’ status, the highest level of recognition given by the PBIS organization
• In 2014 our school was designated a 90/90 school by our district.

Files

• hanover-highlands-parcc-results.docx
• hanover-highlands-master-schedule.xlsx