Colorado’s Unified Improvement Plan for Schools for 2011-12
Organization Code: 0180
District Name: APS
School Code: 0118
School Name: JCDC
SPF Year: 1 Year
Accountable by: December 2013
Section I: Summary Information about the School
Student Performance Measures for State and ESEA Accountability
Performance
Indicators
Measures/ Metrics
’11-12 GOLD
17 b Print
Concepts
18b
Comprehension
BH
SC
OL
1
22%
15%
1
64%
65%
2
40%
42%
2
7%
15%
3
23%
23%
3
26%
14%
4
12%
16%
4
3%
6%
5
3%
3%
5
0%
0%
6
0%
0%
7
0%
0%
8
0%
0%
17b PC
70%
44%
18b Comp
76%
54%
P3
P4
BH
23%
35%
SC OL
22%
26%
Emergent Reading Assessment, GOLD
Description: Percentage of students at or above
developmental level in book handling and story
concepts oral language.
Expectation: Emergent Reading Assessment P3 = 3< &
P4 = 5<, Obj. 17a P3=5< & P4 = 7< 17b P3=3< & P4=6, Obj.
18 a,b,c P3 = 4< & P4 = 6<
Academic
Achievement
(Status)
Percentage of all students meeting
expectations
P3
P4
Grade Level Growth Data
Academic
Growth
Description: Grade level growth in book handling,
story concepts/oral language, 17 a,b and 18 a,b,c.
Expectation: Emergent Reading Assessment P3 = 3< &
P4 = 5<, Obj. 17a P3=5< & P4 = 7< 17b P3=3< & P4=6, Obj.
18 a,b,c P3 = 4< & P4 = 6<
CDE Improvement Planning Template for Schools (Version 2.0 -- Last updated: August 1, 2011)
Meets Expectations?
Emergent Reading
’11-12
P3
P4
BH
34%
-15%
SC/OL
27%
-9%
17b
-3%
-28%
18b
-34%
-33%
Overall Rating for Academi
Achievement:
Does Not Meet
Overall Rating for Academic Gr
Unknown
1
Student Performance Measures for State and ESEA Accountability (cont.)
Performance
Indicators
Measures/ Metrics
Subgroup Growth Data
Academic
Growth Gaps
Description: Subgroup growth in Student Work for
all males, African American, Hispanic, and
Caucasian males
Expectation: Students demonstrate a proficiency
level of 4 and above for P3, 5 and above for P4.
CDE Improvement Planning Template for Schools (Version 2.0 -- Last updated: August 1, 2011)
Spring 2012 Emergent Reading
Assessment
Fall 2011 Emergent Reading Assessment
Group
P3
P4
Group
BH
SC
BH
SC
AM
19%
19%
28%
29%
3M
36%
36%
45%
4M
13%
10%
5M
33%
33%
P3
Meets
Expectations?
Overall Rating
for Growth
Gaps:
Unknown
P4
BH
SC
BH
SC
AM
55%
47%
22%
18%
27%
3M
64%
50%
38%
38%
37%
28%
4M
46%
46%
19%
14%
28%
40%
5M
60%
40%
0%
0%
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Section II: Improvement Plan Information
Directions: This section should be completed by the school or district.
Additional Information about the School
Comprehensive Review and Selected Grant History
Title I Program
Related Grant Awards
Does the school receive Title I funds? No

Did the school receive a Tiered Intervention grant? No
 Turnaround
 Transformation
Targeted Assistance

Schoolwide


Restart
Closure
Has the school received a School Improvement grant? No
School Support Team or
Expedited Review
Has (or will) the school participated in an SST review or Expedited Review? No
External Evaluator
Has the school partnered with an external evaluator to provide comprehensive evaluation? Qualistar 3
Star, ECERS Tool
Improvement Plan Information
The school is submitting this improvement plan to satisfy requirements for (check all that apply):
 State Accountability  Title IA
 Tiered Intervention Grant  School Improvement Grant
X
Other: District Accountability
School Contact Information (Additional contacts may be added, if needed)
1
2
Name and Title
Anita Walker, Coordinator
Email
[email protected]
Phone
303-364-8126
Mailing Address
800 Jamaica Street, Aurora, CO 80011
Name and Title
Email
Phone
Mailing Address
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Section III: Narrative on Data Analysis and Root Cause Identification
This section corresponds with the “evaluate” portion of the continuous improvement cycle. In the text box at the end of this section, provide a
narrative that describes the process and results of the analysis of the data for your school. Two worksheets have been provided to help
organize your data analysis for your narrative. This analysis section includes: identifying where the school did not at least meet minimum state
and federal accountability expectations, describing progress toward targets for the prior school year, describing what performance data were
used in the analysis of trends, identifying trends and priority performance challenges (negative trends), describing how performance challenges
were prioritized, identifying the root causes of performance challenges, describing how the root causes were identified and verified (with more
than one data source) and what data were used, and describing stakeholder involvement in the analysis. Additional guidance on how to engage
in the data analysis process is provided in Unified Improvement Planning Handbook.
Worksheet: Progress Monitoring of Prior Year’s Performance Targets
Directions: This chart supports analysis of progress made towards performance targets set for the 2010-11 school year (last year’s plan). This information should be considered as a part of the
data analysis narrative and in setting or modifying targets (section IV) for the 2011-12 and 2012-13 school years. You may add rows, as necessary.
Performance Indicators
Academic Achievement
(Status)
Targets for 2010-11 school year
(Targets set in last year’s plan)
Target met? How close was school in meeting the target?
State targets for GOLD
Percentages that were met
State previous years target
Percentages from sample
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Worksheet: Data Analysis
Directions: This chart supports planning teams in recording and organizing observations about school-level data for the required data narrative. Planning teams should describe positive and negative
trends for all of the four performance indicators using at least three years of data. Prioritize the performance challenges that the school will focus its efforts on improving. The root cause analysis and
improvement planning efforts in the remainder of the plan will be aimed at addressing the identified priority performance challenge(s). A limited number of priority performance challenges is
recommended. At a minimum, priority performance challenges must be identified in any of the four performance indicator areas where minimum state and federal expectations were not met for
accountability purposes. Consider observations recorded in the “last year’s targets” worksheet. Provide a brief description of the root cause analysis for any priority performance challenges. You
may add rows, as necessary.
Performance Indicators
Academic Achievement
(Status)
Academic Growth
Academic Growth Gaps
Description of Trends
(3 years of past data)
Priority Performance
Challenges
Root Causes
Students did not meet emergent reading assessment
expectations for the 2010-2011 school year. GOLD
Teachers do not have a clear understanding about emergent
reading behaviors at every stage.
During a selected data analysis, student emergent
reading assessment scores did not meet appropriate
proficiency levels.
Teachers do not have a clear understanding of what specific
and purposeful monitoring looks like, and all approaches we
can use for instruction by linking emergent reading
assessment data to instructional practices in the classroom.
Students identified as ESS, ELA and African
American males had scores that remained static or
showed minimal improvement throughout the 20102011 emergent reading assessments.
Beliefs about readers. High expectations are not held for
these groups of students. Teacher understandings about how
to move all students along the developmental continuum in
regards to literacy and oral language development.
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Data Narrative for School
Directions: Describe the process and results of the data analysis for the school, including review of prior years’ targets, trends, priority performance challenges and root cause analysis. This
analysis should be tightly linked to section IV; targets and action planning should be aimed at addressing the priority performance challenges and root causes identified in this section. The narrative
should not take more than five pages.
Data Narrative for School
Trend Analysis and Performance Challenges: What data did we use to identify trends? What are the positive and
negative trends in our school’s performance for each indicator area? Does this differ for any disaggregated student groups
(e.g., by grade level or gender)? In which areas did we not at least meet minimum state and federal expectations? What
performance challenges are the highest priorities for our school? How/why did we determine these to be our priorities?
How did we engage stakeholders in this analysis?
Root Cause Analysis: Why
do we think our school’s
performance is what it is?
How did we determine that?
Verification of Root Cause: What
evidence do we have for our
conclusions?
Narrative:
Data Narrative for JCDC:
When we started this process we intended to use student data on students returning to Jamaica. We found that we had 53 returning students. We analyzed data in GOLD on
these 53 students. We focused on objective 17 b “Uses print concepts” and objective 18 b “Uses emergent reading skills”. We found that 79% were in the band of age
appropriate expectations on objective 17b and 81% percent of the students were in the band of widely held expectations on objective 18 b. However we did not see the growth to
the proficiency level within that band for the 2010-2011 school year for all of these students.
We also looked at our Emergent Reading Assessment. Previously we believed if a P4 student reached level 4 on Book Handling and Story Concepts on the Emergent Reading
Assessment they were ready for kindergarten. After we reevaluated the assessment and aligned it with the Emergent Reading Assessment Benchmarks and GOLD literacy and
Oral Language objectives, we realized that students needed to be at a level 5 on both Book Handling and Story Concepts. Last year we did not separate the students by grade
level/age. This year we did, and we will use the disaggregated data to determine proficiency levels. We took a “random sample” of 34 students from Jamaica from 2010-2011 and
23% were at a level 4 entering kindergarten and 7.6 % were at a level 5 entering kindergarten.
This building has six new teachers out of the eight housed at Jamiaca. We had 53 returning students out of 250 students. While we used the data we had from last year to pick
our content focus. We also discussed trends, did building wide root cause analysis, and wrote our major improvement strategy. We will use current student and teacher data to
define our priority performance challenge, set goals for growth, and look at achievement gaps for the next 18 months.
Currently there are only 50 returning students to the building. Pre-school/Early Childhood Education has a unique situation in that only a percentage of our students return the
following year. To show growth data we are required to do it with in the one or two years they are enrolled in our program.
As we began looking closely at data we realized that we had not set proficiency bench marks in reading. ILT created a document that clearly outlines proficiency benchmarks for
students by quarter and grade level (P3 or P4). We determined that students finished preschool at Jamaica Child Development Center and entered kindergarten without proficient
reading skills. In order to increase student achievement in the area of reading and ensure that they are ready for kindergarten, we will focus our school wide unified improvement
plan in reading.
As a staff we listed our beliefs about students as readers, and we believe that all students are capable of learning for the purpose of creating meaning, which happens through
meaningful and appropriate instruction. After we developed our belief statement we looked at data from the previous year and discussed how our beliefs were or were not
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reflected in the data that we were analyzing. We decided to use current data and at the next CCL we brought in our observations of children’s reading behaviors specifically
looking at objective 17 and 18. As we analyzed our anecdotal notes we noticed several trends and three significant trends. The first, some of our observations were very specific
and some were not. The second, we had no data at the beginning of the year on student reading behavior, and thirdly students are excited to show us what they know why don’t
we have more information on them. Some of the positive trends were that all teachers are reading to students every day during whole group, and some teachers are reading
several books a day.
As an ILT we did root cause analysis on our most significant trends and came up with our root cause: In reading, we do not have a clear understanding of what emergent reading
behaviors look like at every stage, what specific and purposeful monitoring looks like, and all approaches we can use for instruction and monitoring. This is evident because
students are not proficient in reading and oral language.
As an ILT we developed a Preschool Proficiency Reading Benchmarks chart. One thing that we noticed during our conversation that day was that if students are not talking then
students will not be able to let us know what they are learning. Our second language learners are scoring below proficiency levels simply because they cannot communicate. We
will need to develop clear understandings about how to teach students who are second language learners and keep them proficient.
During our CCL teachers analyzed their reading data from this year and they were given the preschool proficiency reading benchmarks chart. They were able to see the students
who were performing on grade level and those that were at academic risk. Each teacher created their own data wall, and the ILT developed the data wall for the whole school.
Teachers completed their emergent reading assessment on October 21st, 2011, and they finalized their GOLD data on November 4th, 2011. The Emergent Reading Assesment is
given three times a year and measures what students can do independently. In addition for GOLD teachers are taking anecdote notes on students reading behaviors and at the
end of the check point period they review their notes and rate which level the child is on the continuum of widely held expectations. The data indicated that during the Emergent
Reading Assessment our P3 students were 23% proficient and our P4 students were 35% proficient in Book Handling Skills. In Story Concepts our P3 students were 22%
proficient and our P4 students were 26% proficient. We looked specifically at objective 17 and 18 that directly parallel the same concepts assessed in the Emergent Reading
Assessment. The GOLD data showed 70% proficiency for our P3 students and 44% proficiency for our P4 students on objective 17. On objective 18 our P3 students were 76%
proficient and our P4 students were 54% proficient. These numbers should be more closely aligned and this gap in data is due to lack of teacher understanding about emergent
reading behaviors at every stage.
This plan was shared with the CPP advisory council to ask for their input, and parents will be getting the information at the parent coffee in January 2012.
Section IV: Action Plan(s)
This section addresses the “plan” portion of the continuous improvement cycle. First, you will identify your annual performance targets and
the interim measures. This will be documented in the required School Goals Form below. Then you will move into action planning, which
should be captured in the Action Planning Form.
School Target Setting Form
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Directions: Complete the worksheet below. While schools may set targets for all performance indicators, at a minimum, they must set targets for those priority performance challenges identified in
Section III (e.g., by disaggregated student groups, grade levels, subject areas).
For federal accountability, annual targets for AYP have already been determined by the state and may be viewed on the CDE website at: www.cde.state.co.us/FedPrograms/danda/aypprof.asp. Safe
Harbor and Matched Safe Harbor goals may be used instead of performance targets. For state accountability, schools are expected to set their own annual targets for academic achievement,
academic growth, academic growth gaps and postsecondary and workforce readiness. For each annual performance target, identify interim measures that will be used to monitor progress toward the
annual targets at least quarterly during the school year. Finally, list the major improvement strategies that will enable the school to meet each target. The major improvement strategies will be
detailed in the Action Planning Form at the end of this section.
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School Target Setting Form
Performance
Indicators
Measures/
Metrics
Em.
Reading
Assess.
Academic
Achievement
(Status)
BH
OL
SC
17b
Priority
Performance
Challenges
31%
26%
55%
Annual Performance Targets
2011-12
41%
36%
65%
Interim Measures for
2011-12
Major Improvement
Strategies
MIS #1
49%
Q2 – Nov 9th
Q3 – Jan 25th
Q4 – April 25th
MIS #1
54%
Q2 – Nov 9th
Q3 – Jan 25th
Q4 – April 25th
MIS #1
84%
Q2 – Nov 4th
Q3 – Feb. 10th
Q4 – May 4th
Q2 – Nov. 4th
Q3 – Feb. 10th
Q4 – May 4th
MIS #1
2012-13
GOLD
Objectives
Academic
Growth
P3
P4
Academic
Growth Gaps
Book
Handling
18b
64%
74%
93%
BH
24%
34%
53%
OL
SC
23%
33%
52%
17
74%
84%
100%
18
76%
86%
100%
BH
36%
46%
65%
OL
SC
28%
38%
45%
17
43%
53%
74%
18
55%
65%
84%
AM
25%
35%
58%
3M
41%
51%
71%
4M
28%
38%
56%
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Story
Concepts/
Oral
Language
5M
38%
48%
68%
AM
39%
49%
53%
3M
32%
42%
62%
4M
21%
31%
50%
5M
38%
48%
68%
Action Planning Form
Directions: Identify the major improvement strategy(s) that will address the root causes determined in Section III. For each major improvement strategy, identify the root cause(s) that the action
steps will help to dissolve. Then, indicate which accountability provision or grant opportunity it will address. In the chart below, provide details about key action steps necessary to implement the
major improvement strategy. Details should include the action steps that will be taken to implement the major improvement strategy, a general timeline, resources that will be used to implement the
actions, and implementation benchmarks. Add rows in the chart, as needed. While space has been provided for three major improvement strategies, the school may add other major strategies, as
needed.
Major Improvement Strategy #1:
If teachers demonstrate a clear understanding of a pre-emergent/early emergent reading behaviors and plan for differentiated instruction based on data analysis then, students will
demonstrate developmentally appropriate reading behaviors.
Root Cause(s) Addressed:
In reading we do not have a clear understanding of what emergent reading behaviors look like at every stage, what specific and purposeful monitoring looks like, and all approaches
we can use for instruction and monitoring.
Accountability Provisions or Grant Opportunities Addressed by this Major Improvement Strategy (check all that apply):
 School Plan under State Accountability  Title IA School Improvement/Corrective Action Plan  Application for a Tiered Intervention Grant
 Title I schoolwide or targeted assistance plan requirements
 School Improvement Grant
Description of Action Steps to Implement
the Major Improvement Strategy
Timeline
Key Personnel*
Resources
(Amount and Source: federal, state,
and/or local)
Implementation
Benchmarks
Status of Action
Step* (e.g., completed,
in progress, not begun)
Daily Whole Group Reading Instruction and
observations in GOLD
2011-2012
2012-2013
Teachers
Paraeducators
Students
Ongoing CPP Grant
General Fund
GOLD Reporting Dates:
November 4, 2011
February 10, 2012
May 4, 2012
November 1, 2012
In progress
Emergent Reading Assessment
2011-2012
Administrator
Ongoing CPP Grant
Em Reading Dates
In progress
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2012-2013
Teacher Coach
ILT Team
Teachers
Paraeducators
General Fund
P-2 Alignment District Level Professional
Development
2011-2012
2012-2013
Administrators
Instructional Coach
ELA Consultants
Teacher Coach
Teacher
Ongoing CPP Grant
General Fund
Marilyn Duncan Dates
August 9 & 29, 2011
September 12, 2011
October 17, 2011
November 14th, 2011
January 9, 2012
February 12, 2011
In progress
Collaborative Coaching and Learning
-Developing reading proficiency continuum
-Grouping strategies and tiered lessons
2011-2012
2012-2013
Administrators
ELA Consultant
Teacher Coach
ILT Team
Teachers
Paraeducators
Ongoing CPP Grant
General Fund
CCL Dates:
September 12, 2011
October 3, 2011
October 31, 2011
November 28th, 2011
December 19, 2011
January 23, 2012
February 6& 27, 2012
March 19, 2012
April 16, 2012
In progress
Learning Walks
2011-2012
2012-2013
Administrators
Instructional Coach
ELA & Math Consultant
Teacher Coach
ILT Team Members
Teachers
Paraeducators
Ongoing CPP Grant
General Fund
Bi-Monthly
In progress
Team Planning
2011-2012
Teacher
Ongoing CPP Grant
Weekly
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2012-2013
Paraeducators
Teacher Coach
Special Education
Provisers
General Fund
* Note: These two columns are not required to meet state or federal accountability requirements, although are completion is recommended. “Status of Action Step” may be required for certain grants (e.g., Tiered
Intervention Grant).
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Section V: Appendices
Schools may add additional documentation to meet their unique needs. In particular, optional forms are available to supplement the improvement plan for schools to ensure that the requirements for
the following have been fully met:
 Title I Schoolwide Program
 Title I Targeted Assistance Program
 Title I Improvement, Corrective Action or Restructuring
 Additional Requirements for Turnaround Status Under State Accountability
 Competitive School Grants (e.g., Tiered Intervention Grant, Closing The Achievement Gap)
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