School Leadership Team Conference: HQS 3 Nancy Cline and Leatha Williams October 1, 2013

Why the West Virginia Standards for High Quality Schools? These standards describe the seven common standards expected of schools to ensure a high quality education, in an engaging learning environment. The policy represents a coherent and aligned set of expectations necessary to transform schools into outcome focused, innovative, accountable learning organizations that can prepare all students to be contributing citizens for the global, digital age of the 21st century.

Standard 3: Provides a Standards-Focused Curriculum with Engaging Instruction and a Balanced System of Assessment Each school team will develop a non-content specific school improvement goal and plan specifically for instruction based on the 3rd WV Standard for High Quality Schools, diagnostic observations and recommendations that they will take back to their school to implement as measured by their school wide plan.

Objectives All SLTs will reflect and rate their school on highly effective practices in HQS 3. All SLTs will compare and contrast their school’s diagnostic with the high quality practices in HQS 3. All SLTs will prioritize the needs as identified from the SLT discussions on HQS 3 and the school diagnostic. All SLTs will write goals for their Strategic Plan. All SLTs will specify what evidence will be used to measure successful completion of their school improvement goals.

Strategic and Specific What exactly is to be accomplished? Measurable How will one know when goal is accomplished? Attainable Is there sufficient time to accomplish the goal? Results-Oriented Does it align to the HQS and/or the Diagnostic recommendations? Time-bound When will one achieve this goal? When will one undertake activities to achieve our goal? SMART GOAL COMPONENTS

Discussions and Protocols Visible Thinking Strategies

Think-Pair-Square-Share This is an active reasoning routine that promotes understanding of multiple perspectives and evidence. Strategy Highlights: 1. Posing a question, idea or topic 2. Asking student to come to an individual understanding 3. Allow thinking time to form an opinion/answer 4. Discussion and consensus at all levels 5. Congress or reporting out

Connect Extend Challenge This is a visible thinking routine, which allows students to connect new ideas to prior knowledge. Strategy Highlights: Encourages high order thinking for students It acts as a formative assessment (informative assessment) for the teacher It encourages the students to have ownership of their learning because the take stock in ongoing questions, concepts that are puzzling or difficult as they reflect on their own thinking.

Activity 1 Utilizing the HQS and the Diagnostic

Activity 1: Connect Extend Challenge School Diagnostic Report 15-minutes Think Pair Share How are the ideas and information presented CONNECTED to what you already knew? Extend What new ideas did you get that EXTENDED or pushed your thinking in new directions? Challenge What is still CHALLENGING or confusing for you to get your mind around? What questions, wonderings or puzzles do you now have?

Activity 2: Vision It is one year from right now and you are looking back at the school year, HQS 3, the Diagnostic and the challenges. Describe what ways your school is different and what is the evidence based on the HQS 3 and the Diagnostic recommendations? Question: Where do we want to be?

School Wide Improvement: Goal As a school leadership team go back through the HQS Rubric and Diagnostic and identify 2 to 3 items that will address the barriers as well as help the school accomplish the vision for a year from now. Each team should come to consensus on the items. Question: How will we get there?

Diagnostic Observation There was no process school wide for opening and closing class procedures. There is no protocol school wide for student conversations such as think-pair-square-share. The majority of the classrooms were traditional in nature and mostly teacher centered. Teachers were observed utilizing a variety of teaching strategies in limited capacity. However most of the strategies were reported as lower level thinking strategies and not learner-centered.

Example 1: Putting It Together HQS3 Observations 3.B. 1: All teachers align curriculum, instruction, and assessment to Next Generation Standards. 3.C.3: All teachers plan lessons that actively engage students, involve varied grouping patterns and promote student interaction. Teachers reported that several had been trained on the Instructional Practices Inventory; however the process has yet to be utilized at the school. Both administrator when asked about the greatest challenge facing their school responded instructional leadership and changing instructional practices.

School Goal Example 1 During the 2013-2014 school year, Team USA School will increase the time students are engaged in “active” learning by 10%.

Example 2: Putting It Together HQS3 Observations

School Goal Example 2

Goal Writing Framing Statement During the 2013-2014 school year, __________ School will increase ____________ by ______%