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 | | Joe Rossow, principal |
Best Practices in School Culture Leadership
(December 2011)
Joe Rossow, principal
Michael Dowling School
Urban Environmental Magnet, Minneapolis
An Investment in the Future for All Grades
The term we used to describe bringing more resources to the Kindergarten classroom is “Flooding Kindergarten With Resources.” This includes using multiple resources of licensed and non-licensed staff to help support three kindergarten classrooms during learning stations focused on reading and math. The resources we use are the literacy coach, associate educators, Reading Corps, ELL teacher, special education resource teacher, and a targeted Title teacher.
This model of flooding kindergarten is a push-in model wherever possible. Support is used to help reinforce the different standards at learning stations each teacher has established based on the students’ needs. Our school has used this approach for the last three years, and we currently only have a couple students in the primary grades in the red zone for reading or math.
This kind of approach in the primary grades is an investment in the future for all grades. When comparing our primary students, who have benefited from this flood of resources, compared to our intermediate students, who have not had this flood of resources, we see a much higher percentage of students meeting benchmarks in reading and math. This educational process and focus of resources has helped the school make AYP for the last two years, and now we’re in position to meet AYP for a third year.
Data meetings have played an important role in the transformation of our school over the last three years. The Instructional Leadership Team consisting of the principal, literacy coach, and administrative T.O.S.A. meets with each grade level team, ELL teacher, special education resource teacher, and the social worker every month. During these meetings the team analyzes data from the MAP, MCA, CBMs, Fountas and Pinnell, MAZE, and other formative, interim, and/or summative assessments. We analyze each individual student and discuss as a team what resources and instruction the student needs to make growth in reading and math.
Our next step in the bridging resource process is to go deeper with conferring. Our plan is to put conferring in our school improvement plan in the areas of math and reading this school year. We will design our professional learning communities and our professional development around conferring. In the past, when conferring with students, the staff created the goals for all students in reading. This year we want to confer with students in reading and math and have the students be a part of setting their individual learning goals. This will create the intrinsic value for our students to take ownership of their learning while giving us information to plan instruction. In addition, conferring with our students will help inform our Instructional Leadership Team on where we could put more resources in the different grade levels. We are investing in the future.
Contact Joe at joseph.rossow@mpls.k12.mn.us
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| | "This kind of approach in the primary grades is an investment in the future for all grades."
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