Colorado's Unified Improvement Plan for Schools

Early College of Arvada UIP 2023-24

      
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Content


  • Document icons and definitions

  • Priority Performance Challenges
  • Root Cause
  • Major Improvement Strategies
  • Action Steps
  • Progress Monitoring
  • Trend Direction

Executive Summary


Priority Performance Challenges Root Cause Major Improvement Strategies
  • Academic Achievement on SAT
    		•
  • Lack of Test prep curriculum/execution and struggling academic intervention
    		•
  • Implement early intervention courses, and teach executive functioning skills
    		•
  • Academic Growth in Math
    		•
  • Inconsistent instruction and lacking intervention systems
    		•
  • Implementation of Carnegie Math curriculum and targeted intervention
    		•
  • English Language Development and growth
    		•
  • Limited systems for data collection and action implementation
    		•
  • Building systems and support for EL students and increased direct instruction
    		•


    Access the School Performance Framework here: http://www.cde.state.co.us/schoolview/performance

    Access the Literacy Curriculum Transparency Dashboard here: https://www.cde.state.co.us/code/literacycurriculumtransparency-dashboard

    Improvement Plan Information


    Additional Information about the school



    Improvement Plan Information

    The school/district is submitting this improvement plan to satisfy requirements for (check all that apply):


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    Narrative on Data Analysis and Root Cause Identification


    Description of School Setting and Process for Data Analysis

    The Early College of Arvada (ECA) is a non-profit charter school that serves students in grades 6-12. ECA follows the Early College model of concurrent enrollment, partnering with the University of Colorado Denver, Front Range Community College, Western Colorado University, and Red Rock Community College to deliver college-level coursework to students that counts both towards a Colorado high school diploma as well as credits towards a post-secondary degree..Students have the ability to utilize programming at any of our college programing to earn an associates degree, certifications, and participate in vocational and technical programs.

    Early College of Arvada runs their School Accountability Committee once of quarter on site to review our annual academic goals as indicated in the UIP. We are working with our community to ensure stakeholder voice from all parts of the school. ECA's academic performance has shown flashes of improvement in different areas since 2021. We consistently show growth in our students that stay enrolled 6th through 12 grade, and are continually creating systems to support our students that are culturally diverse learners, and exceptional learners. We respect students individual paths by meeting them where they are at academically and connecting them with post secondary programming to help meet their goals.

     

    Prior Year Targets

    Provide a summary of your progress in implementing the Major Improvement Strategies and if they had the intended effect on systems, adult actions, and student outcomes (e.g. targets).

    ECA's goal as a whole were good. If you look at the data you can see that we have made progress toward them. With regard to SAT improvement we were able to make significant gains with our 11th graders. We were able to move their overall score from 837 in 2022, to 908 in 2023. There is of course the difference in cohorts to consider, but notwithstanding that cohort still improved their overall score by over 50 points in a year. We believe our work around Test preparation and intervention work is making a difference in all content areas and helping our students make the necessary gains. Our improvement in math exceeded our goal that we set for the UIP in 9th and 10th grade, and it met the national norm expectation for NWEA on the expected growth per grade level. Our focus was very heavy on our underclassmen this last year to make sure they were in the appropriate math classes that they should be, that they have intervention set up where needed, and that we were implementing the curriculum the way it was intended. This paid off for the most part, and those students made some of the progress we had hoped for. Our 11th grade did not make the same jump in NWEA that we would have expected, but they did make significant gains on their year over year SAT scores. Finally with our ELL program we were able to implement programing and systems to help support our language learning population. Our EL coordinator did a great job of tracking their progress, and offering support to students. We ran and English Language Development class to support our NEP students. And we brought kids into the process and conferenced with them about taking ownership of their language development. 


     


    Based on your reflection and evaluation, provide a summary of the adjustments that you will make for this year's plan.

    Four our improvement strategy in SAT improvement we will keep our plan the same for 23-24. We need more time to implement programing. We will reassess when our 11th grade SAT average hits the benchmark for the college readiness standards.

    The Math improvement strategy will be adjusted to align with the RIT score system of NWEA. There is an expected level of growth for each grade level that varies per grade level. We will reset our numbers to reflect that year to year progress while pushing ourselves a little further.

    The EL improvement strategy will stay the same as we continue to implement programing. We want to see multiple years of gains with our students, and if we don't see consistent growth into next year we will adjust our plan.

    Current Performance

    22'-23' Targets:

    Our initial goal to increase achievement  scores in PSAT and SAT had mixed results. Our goal was to increase our overall achievement scores in each category by 40 points by implementing test preparation programs in Advisory/SEL period in all grades.  What we found was that students were overall more prepared for test taking however our shifting cohorts played a significant factor in the reflection in the data. 9th grade increased EBRW achievement score by 14 points, but dropped in math by 25 from the previous year's 9th graders. 10th grade likewise dipped below its former year's counterparts by 27 points and 6 points in EBRW and Math respectively.  Our 11th grade taking SAT did very well though. They increased the EBRW achievement score by 25 points, and the math score by 46 points. This continues to show that the longer students are at ECA, we are able to foster stronger growth over time.

    We do notice in the data that if we look at cohort's growth year over year from 22' to 23' there is consistent strong growth from each of our grade levels. Our 10th grade grew 20 points in EBRW and 26 points in math from their previous year's scores, and our 11th grade grew 47 points in EBRW, and 42 points in math from their previous year's scores. According to the goals set in 22' we met our goals with our 11th grade math and made progress in 11th grade EBRW, and 9th grade reading. We are making progress toward getting students to the State Graduation standard for SAT. 

                                                            PSAT Growth          
    GradeYearMean TotalEBRWMath
    9th22'774393380
    9th23'762407355
    10th22'852440412
    10th23'819413406

                   
                                                              SAT Growth
    YearMean TotalEBRWMath
    22'837435402
    23'908460448

                                                             
                    

    Our overall percentage of students that meet the graduation standard of 470 on EBRW and 500 for Math is 20% in total from 9th-11th grade.

    ECA's second goal was focused on our Math growth per our NWEA interim data from Fall to the Spring. We wanted to increase by 2.5 points in each grade level per the average NWEA Rit score for each grade level. We were pleased to see that In all of our state testing data, and internal testing we see in increase in overall math growth and achievement. In our NWEA end of year data we see that 9th grade grew by 4 points, 10th grade by 3 points, and 11th grade stayed the same. However our 11th grade average math score also exceeds the national average unlike our 9th and 10th grades. Our big concern going into last year was that our math scores seemed to be slipping in the high school, and it appears that they are rebounding in High School. Our Middle School grades need work, but these averages are skewed by small sample sizes

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    Our final goal focused on our Culturally Diverse Leaners. In 2021 we had a Median Growth Percentile of 34% which was a 50 point drop from 2019. In 2022 we increased that to 40%, and in 2023 it was at 49%. We do see however that when you factor in our Middle school (which is not reflected in CARS report due to low enrollment) our growth percentage for all of our returning students is at 69%. We are making progress, though more growth is needed. 

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    Current Data Narrative:

    In the 22-23 school year you see mostly positive growth throughout the school year in both reading and math. The gains overall are higher than they were in the 21-22 school year. However there is still a high level of variance between grade levels. You do not see grades 6 and 7 on the chart below because their sample sizes are both under 20, but the overall middle school scores are recorded below the 8th grade cohort scores to show the overall average of the 50 students that are in our middle school. If you look deeper into the middle school individual scores you will see overall modest growth in NWEA scores with the advantage in math having an average 5 points improvement with all students. In High School you will see isolated grades with significant gains over the year. For instance our 11th grade had great reading growth but stayed nearly stagnant in math. Our seniors however showed the most significant growth in both areas. The celebration we have for this school year is that we made more robust growth. Our goal moving forward will be to build more consistency across grades, and content.
     
    2022-23 NWEA Reading Student Scores
    GradePts.=Yr's GrowthBOYEOYNWEA Grade Level EOY Norm
    84209213218
    MS2206208-
    92214216219
    105211216221
    1110225235223
    129216225224
     
    2022-23 NWEA Math Student Scores
    GradePts.=1 Yr's GrowthBOYEOYNWEA Grade Level EOY Norms
    87210216230
    MS5207209-
    94219223230
    103221224232
    111235235234
    128222230234


    Access Scores struggled between 2020 and 2022 due to much of our EL programming growing and adapting. Most of our students who regressed did so within their level by dropping between .25 and .50 within their level with a couple of exceptions dropping a level, and a couple growing by more than a level. Overall we see stagnant movement in most of our ELL students for those two year. In 2023 we implemented more intentional programing with a EL coordinator creating sound systems as well as intervention programing. The Result was a larger margin of growth overall. Although 45% of our EL students in 22-23 were new to ECA .

    ACCESS Score breakdown for the 2020-21 School year
    • 1.6% of ECA's returning EL students regressed one level
    • 32.2% of ECA's EL students regressed but still stayed in their level
    • 29% of ECA's EL students grew within the same level
    • 3.2% of ECA's EL students moved up more than one level
    ACCESS Score breakdown for the 2021-22 School year
    • 2.8% of ECA's returning EL students regressed one level
    • 36% of ECA's EL students regressed but still stayed in their level
    • 4% of ECA EL students stayed the same
    • 18% of ECA EL students grew within their level
    ACCESS Score breakdown for the 2022-23 School year
    • 0% of ECA's returning EL students regressed one level
    • 10% of ECA's EL students regressed but still stayed in their level
    • 6% of ECA EL students stayed the same
    • 69% of ECA returning EL students grew within their level  (We do not have previous year data on new EL students when they transfer)


    Something else to make note of with our EL learners is that our population of students has changed a lot over the last few years. With our change in enrollment overall and the arrival of more students that are identified at NEP we have had to adapt to new circumstances as a school. We have tripled the amount of newcomers in the last two years. the 22-23 school year represented a baseline for our newest systems to support all of our EL students. 


    Overall CMAS achievement scores have remained stable and relatively consistent our overall achievement scores in Math have dropped an average of 10 points since 2019 with a 65% reduction in the sample size as enrollment has shrunk. ELA on the other has rebounded since 2019, although it is difficult to track the data since only 7th grade was tested in 2021. With no tests occuring in 2020 our trends among the cohorts, and subgroups remain unclear. 2022 will likely serve as a baseline year moving forward. 6th grade numbers have been included, however it should be noted that the sample size is 12 students
     
    CMAS ELA Achievement
    Grade202120222023
    6NANANA
    7722738732
    8NA735733
     
    CMAS Math Achievement
    Grade202120222023
    6NANANA
    7NA712716
    8700710718
     

     
    PSAT EBRW achievement scores have fluctuated for specific grade levels between 2019 to 2023. You can see the grade level and cohort growth at the top as in our Improvement strategy data. Below you can see our overall achievement data. 

     
    PSAT EBRW Achievement
    Grade2019202120222023
    9438440393407
    10437401440413
    PSAT Math Achievement
    Grade2019202120222023
    9427354380355
    10414396411406
     
    SAT EBRW Achievement
    Grade2019202120222023
    11478464435460
     
    SAT Math Achievement
    Grade2019202120222023
    11443442401448


    ECA had a 100% graduation rate from 2019-2022. For those same years we have had some students staying to take a 5th year of High School either for completing high school credits. In 2023 our graduation rate was 94%. We do have some students coming back this year to complete graduation requirements although we did have two students dropout. 

    Concurrent Enrollment Pass Rate for the 21-22 school year was 88.6%. 22-23 was 87.2%. This is defined as students earning C's or better in college classes. At ECA we have about 55-60% of our students enrolled in college courses on any given semester.

    Attendance Dipped significantly during the transitions in and out of remote learning. In the 22-23 school year you can see that our attendance has improved. HS improved by by 9%, and MS by 5%. ECA implemented stricter attendance policies this last year, and is hiring an attendance/family liaison to follow up with habitually truant students for the 23-24 school year to help continue to make stronger connections with our families to improve their school attendance. 
     
     
     
    Attendance HS Absences
    Absence Rates20-2121-2222-23
    Students <10 absences65%76%67%


     
    Attendance MS Absences
    Absence Rates20-2121-2222-23
    Students <10 absences53%60%55%

     

    Trend Analysis

    Trend Direction: Decreasing
    Performance Indicator Target: Academic Achievement (Status)

    SAT achievement scores have been decreasing every year since 2019. In EBRW scores have gone from an average 478 (2019) to 435 (2022). Math has gone from 443 (2019) to 401(2022). The most significant drops have been between 2021 and 2022. There is certainly data to support some stagnant growth, but these scores are significantly lower than most internal NWEA data would suggest. This has been adversely impacting our students ability to meet graduation standards in both Math and ELA. In 2023 we saw the start of a rebound. EBRW increased to 460 (25 point increase), and Math increased to 448 (47 point increase). We will need to another 2 years of growth to determine if this is trending to an overall increase.
    Trend Direction: Stable then decreasing
    Performance Indicator Target: Academic Growth

    ECA's overall math achievement and growth has become stagnant. According to our NWEA data for the 2021-22 school year our high school grades 9-11 did not grow, or grew very minimally. With the National Norm RIT score being 230 and 234 for grades 9-11 Our students routinely score in the 220's by 11th grade. Our PSAT and SAT data from 2019 through 2022 show either declining average scores, or stagnant scores that fall below the Graduation requirement of 500. 22-23 school year NWEA data shows an increase in math growth in 9th and 10th grade. We will need another 2 years of increased growth and better PSAT scores to determine if this is trending to an overall increase.
    Trend Direction: Increasing then decreasing
    Performance Indicator Target: English Language Development and Attainment

    EL students at ECA have shown a significant drop off in growth since 2019. In 2019-20 school year over 95% of our EL students showed some level of growth. 31% of them were redesignated. As we got into the 2020-21 school year that dropped to 32% of students showing some level of growth, and in 2021-22 that number dropped to 18%. While the classification of students in 2019 was in transition, the lack of growth of EL students as a subgroup is apparent. the 2022-2023 school year shows a positibe bump in overall growth with 49% from 40% in 2021-2022. Less than 10% of our students showed decline, and those that were declined slightly within their level.

    Priority Performance Challenge and Associated Root Cause

    Priority Performance Challenge:  Academic Achievement on SAT

    In the last three years students have struggled to reach to the benchmark for SAT achievement to meet the CO graduation standards. Students were not able to access intervention soon enough to make the growth necessary to hit that requirement. Students were placed into classes that were either random, or redundant and were not intentionally targeted to help them grow. So students were simply earning credits without regard for their academic growth or setting personal goals. High School students struggled to see the relevance of such testing and were not being educated on the need for a growth plan to meet graduation standards.

    Area of Focus: Postsecondary Workforce readiness (Graduation/Completion Rate)


    Root Cause: Lack of Test prep curriculum/execution and struggling academic intervention

    In the last three years ECA has not done a lot to prepare High School students for standardized testing. The importance of college prep testing like the SAT has not been taught, or at least not taught consistently. Additionally we have not coached students on the soft skills necessary to take these assessments. Therefore we have some high school students that may understand the urgency of scoring well on SAT, but are lacking the skills to show their best work. We see through our internal testing that a greater percentage of our students have the academic understanding to do better than what they are currently showing, but they are not either do not have the buy in, or the testing skills to score well. Another factor is our overall ELA and Math instruction from 9th through 11th grade. In the last three years our High school Math and ELA instruction has struggled with consistency. Transitioning to the Carnegie Learning math curriculum has had a difficult launch and buy-in from all instructors. ELA instruction has also struggled with consistency over the last three years in our 9th through 10th grades without much in the way of specific targeted instruction, or a plan for intervention with students that are struggling, or EL learners. Many ELA teachers have rewritten curriculum without much consideration for what has been done, or long term planning. This lack of consistency in our upper grades has contributed to some skills gaps. At ECA we have about 65 students that are classified as EL learners, which accounts for about 30% of students. As mentioned in our trend analysis, our EL growth was stagnant in 2020-21, and in decline in 2021-22. This of course will have an impact on students in their overall performance if they are not getting the support, and intervention needed to help them.


    Priority Performance Challenge:  Academic Growth in Math

    ECA's overall math achievement and growth has become stagnant due in large part to a lack of engagement of students. While cycling through a transitionary period in our math instruction students were unable to make meaningful connections with their teachers due in large part to chronic absenteeism and transience of students. While there were many different instructors over a short time, students were unable to make the connections with those instructors and disengaged from the learning process; some literally by skipping and not attending altogether, or others by not completing assigned curriculum. Well over of half of students struggled with consistent attendance and therefore engagement. Additionally ECA has not previously had a consistent math curriculum to build on growth and sequence year over year.

    Area of Focus: Student Engagement (e.g. attendance, mobility, chronic absenteeism)


    Root Cause: Inconsistent instruction and lacking intervention systems

    A lot of the ECA's math achievement has been uncharacteristically low in the last 2-3 years. Inconsistent instruction over a long period of time is the primary culprit for low math scores. Aside of external factors ECA has struggled to formulate a plan to address various learning gaps through targeted instruction by trying to execute traditional math instruction in untraditional times. We started with the Carnegie Math curriculum 2 years ago and have struggle to execute the strategies and pedagogy to its most effective potential. It is normal for us to have students in middle school struggling with basic multiplication, and division. Our difficulty has been adapting to address such needs. As research shows it usually take about 3 years of consistent implementation to start seeing widespread growth with any new curriculum. Additionally overall demographic shifts have influenced us to alter our curriculum and scope/sequence of courses offered at the school. We have struggled to adapt our overall curriculum to support our students needs. Having a sizeable population of students that are accelerated and ready for college coursework, as well as having a large portion of students that are well below grade level struggling to graduate, ECA has been slow to catch up with the needs of the student body. More systemic differentiation has been needed when it was not a part of the schools original strategic plan.


    Priority Performance Challenge:  English Language Development and growth

    With a higher amount of students in the Non English Proficient classification students have struggled to access basic content material and to develop their own language skills. ECA's Limited English Proficient population of students struggled to deepen their language skills by not having the resources and support to access material. Due to ECA's lack of good systems to identify, monitor, and challenge students many fell behind.

    Area of Focus: WIDA Access growth/growth challenges for English Learners


    Root Cause: Limited systems for data collection and action implementation

    Much of the decline in growth can be attributed to poorly executed structural transitions in the school leaving a lack of priority for training teachers in SIOP model and other forms of sheltered instruction, and lack of systems to address a transient population. in the 2019-20 school year ECA was cleaning up our EL classification of students. We had many students that were classified that did not need to be. As we processed them through access testing, and data collection we found 75% of them growing more than one level, and 31% of them were redesignated as a result of it. However in the following year of 2020-21 our growth declined to 32% of students growing, most of which were within their own level. Last year in 2021-22 that growth declined to 18%. You will notice the drastic change in the numbers was reflective of significant change, and a lack of clear strategy on how to address an ever increasing need. We used our time early in 2020 to discuss SIOP model strategies with teachers in PD, but as we got into that COVID school year our work we were unable to adapt effect sheltered instruction to remote learning. Since Early in the 2020-21 school year ECA's did not prioritize Sheltered instruction, nor did we have a solid plan for students that could not access English. Having tripled the amount of students that are coming to us with no English skills ECA has not had a clear system to help address the needs of EL students.


    Why were these challenges selected and what is the magnitude of the overall performance challenges:

    SAT Achievement: As Colorado transitions into the new graduation requirements for seniors focusing on college readiness it is vital that we set our upperclassmen up for success through meeting those graduation requirements, as well as setting them up for success in college. Between 55 and 60% of our students participate in concurrent enrollment courses which serve as a way to meet those graduation requirements, but 40% of them are forced to qualify either through SAT, Accuplacer, or completing a capstone course through the school. If students are not performing well on SAT they will likely not be prepared to take concurrent enrollment courses, and their post secondary options will be limited. Our mission as a school is to provide opportunities for students to take as many post secondary courses as we can.  since we have had a significant drop off in our achievement scores we must reset our goal for students to meet the required scores of 470 (EBRW) and 500 (Math) to meet the state graduation requirements. 

    Math Growth: ECA's math scores in our internal testing and state testing have shown largely stagnant growth in our high school over the last three years. This is especially concerning as it appears it has filtered up to our upperclassmen with in their SAT scores. The biggest issues have appeared in our early high school numbers in grades 9 and 10, but we saw the impacts of last year's 11th grade having struggled with math instruction during COVID years on their SAT scores. These are also the grades that struggled the most with attendance in the 21-22 and 22-23 school years. ECA needs to make the necessary changes to support students that struggle to access math, and build on gap filling year over year to be ready for graduation, and college readiness. 

    EL Growth: ECA has about 35% of its students that are English Language Learners. This is a significant challenge when we are approaching academics of any kind. In the last two years our EL students have struggled to make significant growth in the their reading, writing, listening and speaking skills as laid out in the WIDA standards. Most of our students come to us below grade level in most areas. It is easy to surmise that many of our EL students are facing low performance because of the language barrier. We know from experience, and research that most students that are not fluent in academic language in English, aren't in their native language either.  If we expect our students to access our rigorous curriculum, meet graduation requirements, and prepare for concurrent enrollment courses we need to help them acquire the language skills necessary for it. 

    How were the Root Causes were selected and verified:

    Decreased SAT achievement: These Root causes were based on internal reflection on our interim assessment data from the past few years. Some of our NWEA data consistently shows some students struggling in areas of the test, while others show inconsistencies. We know from our students that most of them can perform better on state assessments if given the tools to do so, but we know that we also need to do a better job of getting them to grade level. We also know that over the last two years our Advisory periods, as well as our SEL periods have not prioritized SAT specific preparation nor have they prioritized soft skills or executive functioning skills for students. We also have our data from ACESS testing to show that a significant portion of our students are struggling in English language learning. 

    Decreased Math growth: Consistency in instruction has been a struggle for our school. In the last three years we have had 8 different math teachers in a school that is built for 3, and that is not including adjunct instructors coming from Front Range community college to teach concurrent enrollment courses. As mentioned above the adoption of new math curriculum started out with a lot of pushback from students and teachers. We failed to foster student teacher relationships during periods of quick turnover, and we have struggled implementing our new math curriculum. We also did not have a clear scope and sequence to address all the needs of our students. In the 2022-23' school year we saw the normalization of Carnegie Learning and the implementation of intentional intervention courses. We were able to make it more effective, even with another new math teacher. Our gains were modest, but positive among all the grade levels. Our challenge will be to sustain the growth we have started.

    Declining EL growth: As mentioned we have consistently had shifting demographics in our EL population. Most recently having more NEP students has posed unique challenges. Having so much transiency has an impact on our ability to help students grow. ECA for many years was unable to keep up with the changing demographics of our students. We also struggled to keep and create a sound system to support our EL students that reflected equity and consistency. We lost our EL coordinator in the 2021-22' but assigned a new one in the 22-23 school year. Going into last year we had many students that struggled with learning English, but we were able to collect baseline data, train/coach teachers how to use sheltered instruction, and were able to create direct instruction for students for English Language Development. We look to build on that for 23-24.


     

    Action and Progress Monitoring Plans

    Major Improvement Strategy and Action Plan

    >

    Implement early intervention courses, and teach executive functioning skills

    What will success look like:

    		ECA's new intervention courses in Math and ELA will focus on building foundations skills and filling pre existing gaps in both subject areas to help build confidence in students. In Griffin Success classes teachers will plan out a series of SAT prep lessons that will help address basic test taking skills, as well as SAT specific practice, goal setting, and planning. We will collaborate in PLC's for implementing more basic executive functioning, and social emotional skills in students. Success will look like overall increased average achievement scores by our 9th through 11th grade students on PSAT and SAT testing this spring. Students will receive the resources they need weekly in their Griffin Success class to help guide them on their individual path. Students will have their scores in State testing be more reflective of their interim assessments. By 2025 we would like 50% of our students to qualify for college readiness standards in their SAT scores for both EBRW and Math.

    Describe the research/evidence base supporting the strategy:

    		In general there is research showing the connection between test taking strategies and better scores. There is a recent paper from 2019 from Tamkang University that focuses on students test taking strategies when learning a foreign language. This applies a lot to ECA having about 30% of our students classified EL's and even more that are bilingual. It showed definitively that preparing students for tests with basic executive functioning skills and strategies increased their scores significantly. Most of our students come from backgrounds either locally where their neighborhood schools have fallen short in preparing them for secondary level school, or they are coming from outside the country where they had minimal schooling. Supporting our students in becoming test literate will go a long way to helping them demonstrate their real performance levels.

    Associated Root Causes:

    Lack of Test prep curriculum/execution and struggling academic intervention: In the last three years ECA has not done a lot to prepare High School students for standardized testing. The importance of college prep testing like the SAT has not been taught, or at least not taught consistently. Additionally we have not coached students on the soft skills necessary to take these assessments. Therefore we have some high school students that may understand the urgency of scoring well on SAT, but are lacking the skills to show their best work. We see through our internal testing that a greater percentage of our students have the academic understanding to do better than what they are currently showing, but they are not either do not have the buy in, or the testing skills to score well. Another factor is our overall ELA and Math instruction from 9th through 11th grade. In the last three years our High school Math and ELA instruction has struggled with consistency. Transitioning to the Carnegie Learning math curriculum has had a difficult launch and buy-in from all instructors. ELA instruction has also struggled with consistency over the last three years in our 9th through 10th grades without much in the way of specific targeted instruction, or a plan for intervention with students that are struggling, or EL learners. Many ELA teachers have rewritten curriculum without much consideration for what has been done, or long term planning. This lack of consistency in our upper grades has contributed to some skills gaps. At ECA we have about 65 students that are classified as EL learners, which accounts for about 30% of students. As mentioned in our trend analysis, our EL growth was stagnant in 2020-21, and in decline in 2021-22. This of course will have an impact on students in their overall performance if they are not getting the support, and intervention needed to help them.

    Implementation Benchmarks Associated with Major Improvement Strategy

    Benchmark Name Description Start/End/Repeats Key Personnel Status
    Intervention identification During the late spring and summer we identified students needing intervention in Reading and math and placed them in classes accordingly. As new students enrolled we placed them based on their NWEA screener. Students will continually be identified throughout the year. 04/16/2023
    08/10/2023
    Quarterly     		Core content teachers/Counseling Partially Met
    Baseline NWEA testing First round of testing, see where kids are in terms of Math and Reading 08/30/2023
    09/08/2023
    Quarterly     		Core teachers Met
    MTSS identification/ Student needs assessment In PLC's identify students that are a high academic need and plan appropriate interventions, and document. refer to SPED as necessary. 09/06/2023
    05/10/2024
    Monthly     		PLC's Partially Met
    Griffin Success goal setting Teachers will set goals and create timelines on SAT, PSAT, and CMAS prep for students 09/17/2023
    05/15/2024
    Monthly     		GS teachers Not Met
    Mid-Year progress December NWEA testing data analysis, with focus on Intervention cohorts to see if we are making progress or other intervention is needed in making the new schedule. Dial in on specific skills gaps to focus on into the Spring semester 12/04/2023
    01/05/2024
    Quarterly     		PLC's Core teachers and counseling Not Met

    Action Steps Associated with Major Improvement Strategy

    Name Description Start/End Date Resource Key Personnel Status
    Schedule building and refinement
    		Determine the size of intervention groups and gap filler classes, and schedule needs for the fall. 05/15/2023
    08/01/2023     		General Fund Administration/Counseling.
    Data analysis in PLC's
    		Meeting with teachers to go over our recent and historic test scores to help identify where we need help and understand what we need to work towards. Using NWEA, State testing, and teacher observation. 05/24/2023
    05/24/2024     		General Fund All core teachers In Progress
    Credit Recovery
    		Identify which students need credit recovery throughout the year and schedule accordingly. Assign Edmentum classes with teacher managers as necessary. 06/01/2023
    08/10/2023     		Title 1A Administration, counseling, and select teachers Not Started
    Gathering resources
    		Griffin Success planning utilizing college board and Scoir resources. Training teachers on how to utilize these resources. 09/01/2023
    10/30/2023     		General Fund Lead teachers, Administration, counseling. In Progress
    Mid-Year check in
    		Assess how students have done with credit recovery both with Edmentum, and in person schedules. Determine changes as necessary, 11/01/2023
    01/05/2024     		Title 1A Administration/ Counseling.
    Summer School planning
    		Recruit teachers, and notify families for summer school credit recovery 04/03/2024
    05/24/2024     		Title 1A Administration, GS teachers, and counseling Not Started
    Final State Test prep
    		Use College Board, Kahn academy, and executive functioning lessons to practice test taking skills, to ease anxiety, and help students perform. 04/05/2024
    04/17/2024     		General Fund GS teachers
    >

    Implementation of Carnegie Math curriculum and targeted intervention

    What will success look like:

    		Teachers will continue training together through Carnegie to make sure they are unified in strategy. strategize and create long term systems to transfer curriculum more easily. Students that have struggled will take a modified Geometry/Algebra course meant to help fill gaps they have had over the last two years and earn double credit for courses they have previously failed through targeted intervention. Students will also have a Financial Math elective to help build foundational math skills in a new context to build math literacy. Average NWEA growth from BOY to EOY should look like grades 9th through 11th showing their expected year's growth consistently. Showing increased average scores on PSAT and SAT over 20 points in math will also demonstrate success.

    Describe the research/evidence base supporting the strategy:

    		Instead of having students that have failed Geometry and Algebra one courses retake the same courses again it makes more sense to have students take courses that are more targeted and intended to help them fill foundational holes. Students have been lacking confidence in their math skills which is partly why they have struggled on testing. Building confidence in math is the best way to help our students progress considering most come in without it.

    Associated Root Causes:

    Inconsistent instruction and lacking intervention systems: A lot of the ECA's math achievement has been uncharacteristically low in the last 2-3 years. Inconsistent instruction over a long period of time is the primary culprit for low math scores. Aside of external factors ECA has struggled to formulate a plan to address various learning gaps through targeted instruction by trying to execute traditional math instruction in untraditional times. We started with the Carnegie Math curriculum 2 years ago and have struggle to execute the strategies and pedagogy to its most effective potential. It is normal for us to have students in middle school struggling with basic multiplication, and division. Our difficulty has been adapting to address such needs. As research shows it usually take about 3 years of consistent implementation to start seeing widespread growth with any new curriculum. Additionally overall demographic shifts have influenced us to alter our curriculum and scope/sequence of courses offered at the school. We have struggled to adapt our overall curriculum to support our students needs. Having a sizeable population of students that are accelerated and ready for college coursework, as well as having a large portion of students that are well below grade level struggling to graduate, ECA has been slow to catch up with the needs of the student body. More systemic differentiation has been needed when it was not a part of the schools original strategic plan.

    Implementation Benchmarks Associated with Major Improvement Strategy

    Benchmark Name Description Start/End/Repeats Key Personnel Status
    Master schedule adjustments completed Changes were made to math offerings to target our population and needs. 2 new math courses meant to remediate struggling students 04/15/2023
    05/15/2023
    		 Counseling, administration, Math lead Met
    Teachers trained in Carnegie New teachers trained in Carnegie Math. 08/01/2023
    08/10/2023
    		 Math Department Met
    NWEA checkpoints Fall, Winter, and Spring NWEA testing to track progress 08/26/2023
    05/10/2024
    Quarterly     		Core teachers Partially Met
    Annual Reflection Make decisions annually on implementing the correct levels and utilizing the resources needed for the following year. 04/03/2024
    05/24/2024
    		 Math Department/Counseling

    Action Steps Associated with Major Improvement Strategy

    Name Description Start/End Date Resource Key Personnel Status
    Math Coaching
    		Instruction coaching from our ECA staff and carnegie 08/01/2023
    05/10/2024     		General Fund, Title 1 ECA instructional coach, Carnegie coach In Progress
    Math Data meetings
    		Teachers in the Math Department meet as needed to discuss progress of students and implementation of Carnegie 08/09/2023
    05/10/2024     		General Fund Math Department In Progress
    After school tutoring
    		Students will be able to meet for after school tutoring after school 3-4 days a week for math help 09/06/2023
    05/10/2024     		21st century grant At least one math teacher make themselves available at least 2 days a week to help with math In Progress
    PLC math meetings
    		After NWEA data administration will review math data with Math department. (fall- baseline, Winter-progress, Spring EOY) 09/15/2023
    05/15/2024     		General Fund, Esser III Math Department, Administration In Progress
    Math Intervention
    		inviting students to and implementing summer school for math instruction to help recover credit, and enrich to backfill critical skills. 03/15/2024
    05/24/2024     		Title 1A Summer School teacher, Administration
    >

    Building systems and support for EL students and increased direct instruction

    What will success look like:

    		ECA will have a new EL coordinator that will conduct WIDA screeners as well as ACCESS testing throughout the year to determine the baseline data on new students and evaluate the efforts of our existing EL students. They will conduct regular data collection on students once a quarter through class writing samples. ECA will implement an English Language Development class (ELD) 4 times a week to provide targeted instruction to ECA's NEP's and struggling LEP's. Teachers will be provided coaching as well as PD in SIOP model and sheltered instruction. By 2025 ECA's Median Growth Percentile will be at 75%.

    Describe the research/evidence base supporting the strategy:

    		Students that are English Learners have a exponentially harder time accessing material in classes. Research shows that the more empowered teachers are to deliver sheltered instruction, the more success they will find in class. Additionally being able to do EL pull out with students will help us provide badly needed support to students who have little to no English skills. Bringing in leadership with a detailed plan to help track our data, and use that to drive instruction will help our teachers know how and where to help.

    Associated Root Causes:

    Limited systems for data collection and action implementation: Much of the decline in growth can be attributed to poorly executed structural transitions in the school leaving a lack of priority for training teachers in SIOP model and other forms of sheltered instruction, and lack of systems to address a transient population. in the 2019-20 school year ECA was cleaning up our EL classification of students. We had many students that were classified that did not need to be. As we processed them through access testing, and data collection we found 75% of them growing more than one level, and 31% of them were redesignated as a result of it. However in the following year of 2020-21 our growth declined to 32% of students growing, most of which were within their own level. Last year in 2021-22 that growth declined to 18%. You will notice the drastic change in the numbers was reflective of significant change, and a lack of clear strategy on how to address an ever increasing need. We used our time early in 2020 to discuss SIOP model strategies with teachers in PD, but as we got into that COVID school year our work we were unable to adapt effect sheltered instruction to remote learning. Since Early in the 2020-21 school year ECA's did not prioritize Sheltered instruction, nor did we have a solid plan for students that could not access English. Having tripled the amount of students that are coming to us with no English skills ECA has not had a clear system to help address the needs of EL students.

    Implementation Benchmarks Associated with Major Improvement Strategy

    Benchmark Name Description Start/End/Repeats Key Personnel Status
    ELD Class Implement and develop English Language Development class for upcoming year. 08/01/2023
    05/24/2024
    		 EL Coordinator
    Professional Development Administer training on Sheltered instruction to teaching staff to support strategies to student access to content. 08/01/2023
    05/10/2024
    Quarterly     		Administration/ EL coordinator
    Initial identification Identify old and new EL caseload. Administer WIDA screeners to all new students who qualify. 08/01/2023
    10/02/2023
    		 EL coordinator Partially Met
    EL process and system Refine and maintain accurate records on EL students and ECA's process. 09/01/2023
    05/30/2024
    		 EL coordinator/ PLC's Not Met
    Data collection EL coordinator will implement writing samples and collect data. 10/01/2023
    04/29/2024
    Quarterly     		EL coordinator/ PLC's Not Met
    ACCESS testing Students will take the ACCESS test in April 04/03/2024
    04/29/2024
    		 EL coordinator, Testing coordinator Not Met

    Action Steps Associated with Major Improvement Strategy

    Name Description Start/End Date Resource Key Personnel Status
    EL Program Plan
    		Develop and review EL Program Plan 04/15/2023
    04/15/2024     		Title 1 EL Coordinator
    ELD class building
    		Teacher will select curriculum, and build a scope and sequence for an ELD class for struggling EL learners. 07/01/2023
    05/15/2024     		Title 1 EL Coordinator
    Student Evaluation
    		Students that are close to reclassification out of EL must be reviewed by the EL coordinator after ACCESS data becomes available 07/15/2023
    08/01/2023     		Title 1 EL coordinator/ Administration Not Started
    SIOP coaching
    		the instructional coach and administration will provide individual feedback to teachers on implementing SIOP model teaching 09/15/2023
    04/10/2024     		Title 1 Principal, Instructional coach
    Data collection training
    		Is PLC's our SEL teachers will be trained on how the EL coordinator would like to administer writing samples 10/01/2023
    11/15/2023     		Title 1 PLC's/ EL coordinator Not Started

    Progress Monitoring: Student Target Setting

    Priority Performance Challenge : Academic Achievement on SAT

    Performance Indicator:

    		 Academic Achievement (Status)

    Measures / Metrics:
    ANNUAL
    PERFORMANCE
    TARGETS
    2023-2024: Students in grades 9-10 will increase their average mean score to 785 for PSAT. 30% of our students 9th-11th grade will qualify for college readiness through hitting the benchmark for SAT testing.
    2024-2025:

    INTERIM MEASURES FOR 2023-2024:

    Priority Performance Challenge : Academic Growth in Math

    Performance Indicator:

    		 Academic Growth

    Measures / Metrics:

    		 M
    ANNUAL
    PERFORMANCE
    TARGETS
    2023-2024: Students from grades 6-12 will average 1 year's growth in NWEA and increase average CMAS/PSAT and SAT scores by 20 points from 2023
    2024-2025:

    INTERIM MEASURES FOR 2023-2024:

    Priority Performance Challenge : English Language Development and growth

    Performance Indicator:

    		 Academic Growth

    Measures / Metrics:

    		 ELP
    ANNUAL
    PERFORMANCE
    TARGETS
    2023-2024: EL Learners will have a Median growth percentile of 55% with 20% of students being on track, 0% regression.
    2024-2025:

    INTERIM MEASURES FOR 2023-2024:

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