School Improvement Plan

At the end of the 2020-2021 school year, our Tier 2/Tier 3 Team created a list of students to check in with at the beginning of the year due to engagement, social-emotional, academic, or mental health wellness needs. At the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year, our Tier 2/Tier 3 Team reached out the teachers of each of the students. Some students are doing well and at this time need no further support beyond what is given in the classroom. Some students need additional support. Students who need additional support are given a Student Coordinator (a staff member from our Tier 2/Tier 3 Team). The Student Coordinator works with the teacher to identify each child’s specific needs and identifies with the teacher and the Tier 2/Tier 3 Team specific interventions and next steps. Some next steps included:

• Informal Check-ins with PBSES Coach or Counselor
• Meeting with the PBSES Coach or Counselor to build skills and provide strategies
• Formal Check-in/Check-out with PBSES Coach
• Small group interventions focused on building specific skills – friendship groups, executive functioning
• Interventions matched to student needs – school note home, behavior contract, scheduled breaks

For students who were not originally identified as needing a check-in at the beginning of the year, teachers refer students to our Tier 2/3 team and/or we use additional data (such as SWIS and the BEISY) to identify students who would benefit from additional social-emotional support.

As a school, we committed to re-engaging students and addressing wellness needs through:

• Surveys for more information - Teachers sent out surveys to families to find out each child’s strengths and needs as well as additional information such as family celebrations and observances
• Monday Morning Announcements that focus on Zones of Regulation, Mindfulness Moments, and strategies to support students in getting back to the green zone (ready to learn)
• Morning Meetings – we have focused on morning meetings as a time to build classroom community and allow a check-in with students at the beginning of the day, and we have provided resources and training for teachers around Morning Meetings
• Purposeful movement breaks throughout the day for classes beyond recess
• Creating school-wide and classroom routines and expectations that are regularly taught and retaught
• Our Counselor and PBSES Coach are providing lessons to classes to address student needs as identified by teachers and grade levels. Lesson topics include: stress, coping skills, problem solving/conflict management, as well as lessons that support our Second Step curriculum.
• Library Padlet of Resources for teachers on growth mindset, problem-solving, friendship, and bullying prevention
• Curated library read-alouds to support our Second Step curriculum
• Student recognition systems – Otter Awards and Creekside Coins
• Emphasis on common language throughout our school (Zones of Regulation, Second Step, Kelso’s Choice)
• Focused professional development for staff on Tier 1 strategies around entry tasks, transitions, routines, and high-impact strategies to support all learner

At the end of the 2020-2021 school year, our Tier 2/Tier 3 Team created a list of students to check in with at the beginning of the year due to engagement, social-emotional, academic, or mental health wellness needs. At the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year, our Tier 2/Tier 3 Team reached out the teachers of each of the students. Some students are doing well and at this time need no further support beyond what is given in the classroom. Some students need additional support. Students who need additional support are given a Student Coordinator (a staff member from our Tier 2/Tier 3 Team). The Student Coordinator works with the teacher to identify each child’s specific needs and identifies with the teacher and the Tier 2/Tier 3 Team specific interventions and next steps. Some next steps included:

• Flexible, responsive small groups to address student academic needs in the moment
• Addressing learning gaps through accelerated learning
• Continued focus on Tier 1 strategies: Leveraging high-impact teaching strategies through professional development and support from our Instructional Coach
• Professional Development for teachers on our Reading Foundational Skills Adoption: Success Blocks, Words Their Way, Heggerty, Benchmark Phonics
• Really Great Reading Intervention for students identified with struggles in phonological and phonemic awareness
• Time to access Zearn and Zearn Foundational Lessons, to support students’ math learning and reinforce prerequisite foundational skills
• Time to access i-Ready Reading or i-Ready Math to address individual students’ needs
• Building stamina in reading and writing
• Professional Development and resources for teachers on scaffolding and differentiation
• Math ASAP before-school 12-week intervention through the generosity of an ISF grant
• Recovery Services for our students with IEPs provided by our LRC and teaching staff
• PTSA-funded paraprofessional to support striving students in reading and math
• Focusing on Reading Engagement in the Library - through read-alouds, book-talking, encouraging students to try new genres, teaching the concept of ‘Windows and Mirrors’ books to grades 3-5, offering reading challenges, teaching critical thinking skills/lateral reading, increasing volume and stamina which leads to an increase in comprehension

For students who were not originally identified as needing a check-in at the beginning of the year, teachers refer students to our Tier 2/3 team and/or we use additional data (such as i-Ready or SBA) to identify students who would benefit from additional academic support.

We have planned professional development throughout the year to support the successful implementation of our School Improvement Plan. All our staff will be participating in professional development around our new Reading Foundational Skills adoption which includes: i-Ready, Words Their Way (grades 1-5), Benchmark Phonics (Grade K), and Success Blocks. Teachers identified to teach students with a higher level of need in reading will also be trained in Really Great Reading. Specific leadership staff have been identified to be on the i-Ready Mentor Team. This team (made up of our Instructional Coach, Reading Interventionist Teacher, Principal, Assistant Principal, PBSES Coach, and Counselor) attends additional trainings at the district office and brings the information back to the staff.

Additional professional development throughout the school year will address topics on differentiation, Tier 1 instructional strategies, effective small group instruction, and GLAD (Guided Language Acquisition Design). Our focus is to provide our staff the resources needed and learning about those resources to intentionally support students as well as build the teachers’ skills to identify the best resource to address both individual student and whole-class needs. These learning activities and professional developments are purposely scheduled throughout the year to ensure that they are at a point when they are timely and most applicable.

A variety of resources will be used to accomplish our goals – from physical resources to people. We will be using different assessments to pinpoint student needs. Those assessments are: i-Ready, the RAN (Rapid Automatic Naming), Words Their Way spelling inventories, F&P, and the Really Great Reading assessment. Our new curricula will be utilized to address student needs once they have been identified by the assessments. Those new curricula are: Words Their Way, Benchmark Phonics, Heggerty, Really Great Reading, and i-Ready.

We are fortunate to have staff with a wealth of knowledge and expertise who are resources for our students and staff. Those people include our Instructional Coach, Reading Interventionist Teacher, ELL Teachers, LRC Teachers, Librarians, and GLAD Building Lead. All of these staff are being utilized throughout the year to provide whole staff learning opportunities as well as specialized support to individual teachers. Our goal is to also begin training teachers in certain curricula so that they can be grade-level experts for their grade-level teams.

Technology is critical to the implementation of our School Improvement Plan and to facilitating instruction. I-Ready is an online resource that helps us identify students’ individualized needs through assessment, provides teachers resources such as grouping students with similar skill gaps, and provides lessons to address those skill gaps. I-Ready also monitors students’ progress towards their goals. Words Their Way has an online component for grades 1-5. This component provides students with access to engaging, interactive word study. RazKids (for grades K-3) provides online, comprehensive leveled reading resources for our students. Our kindergarten teachers utilize the Benchmark Phonics online resources to provide explicit instruction and repetition with multisensory approaches. Our Really Great Reading Intervention relies heavily on technology to teach foundational skills that lead to decoding and fluent reading. All of these interventions and curricula are most effective when the technology is utilized in partnership with the hands-on resources.

Family engagement is critical and necessary to reach our SIP goals. Not only do our families need to be informed of our goals, but partnering with them builds a shared commitment to our students’ success. To engage our families, we will partner with SITE Council and PTSA to inform our families of our SIP goal areas. We will also provide reading resources and strategies families can use at home through our e-News, teacher newsletters, and family conferences. In addition, we plan to do a family informational night focused on reading. Creekside staff are committed to building strong partnerships with our families to contribute to positive and lasting growth for our students.

With our District’s Reading Foundational Skills Adoption, we are fortunate to have multiple methods to measure and monitor effectiveness. Those methods include the i-Ready Diagnostic Assessments, assessments through Benchmark Phonics and Heggerty, Really Great Reading assessment, Words Their Way spell checks and spelling inventories, and the RAN (Rapid Automatic Naming) assessment. In addition, we use ongoing artifacts like the Fountas & Pinnell assessments, Kindergarten screener, conferring notes (notes across time about individual students to help us remember and see patterns in students’ learning), and classroom-based assessments. All of these resources have regular assessment intervals and allow us to fine-tune instruction based on students’ performance. We will utilize these resources in conjunction with state-required assessments like the Smarter Balanced Assessment and WIDA (World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment). Together, these artifacts inform us if our interventions and efforts are making a difference in student learning and, because of their regular assessment intervals, allow us to adjust instruction to meet our students’ needs in a timely manner.