Editor’s Note: This is the third and final installment in a series of stories outlining the District 80 school improvement plans submitted to the Illinois State Board of Education for each of the district schools — the Primary Center, J.L. Buford Intermediate Center and Zadok Casey Middle School. The final story centers on Casey Middle School.



By TESA CULLI

tesa.culli@register-news.com

MT. VERNON — Students at Zadok Casey Middle School are meeting the adequate yearly progress in all but one category, and the school improvement plan for the 2008-2009 school year centers on how to maintain AYP and to improve the one category.

“The area of weakness is AYP was not met by black students in mathematics,” the school improvement plan states. “The area of strengths is AYP was met in nine out of 10 academic areas.”

The school plan for bringing up the test scores for African-American students includes identifying those students who need more instructional time and encourage parents to enroll their child in the after school program. The plan also relies on Response to Intervention, a federally mandated program designed to determine which students are not performing at grade level due to lack of instruction. Instructional strategies are developed for all learners, and continuously measures student performance. All schools in Illinois are required to have a detailed plan of implementation of Rti by Jan. 1.

The basic goal of Rti is to help all children in the areas needed at any given time. District 80 has been gearing up for implementation of Rti for more than a year, and a grant for the ASPIRE team provides monthly training on Rti for staff. According to previous information provided by District 80 Assistant Superintendent Tyler Brown, in addition to the academic component of Rti, there is a behavior component, which has already been addressed through the Positive Behavior Intervention System.

Factors listed as contributing to Casey Middle School meeting AYP in all but the one category was listed in the school improvement plan as a highly qualified faculty and staff determine(d) to educate students; teachers aligning daily lesson plans with the Illinois Learning Standards; the faculty and staff implementing the PBIS behavior system, with discipline referrals have decreased significantly over the last several years; the board of education supplying the necessary resources for faculty and staff; students working diligently to earn the improved Illinois Standards Achievement Test scores; and the 21st Century Grant providing for additional after-school instructional time.

The number one goal of the school is to not only for African-American students to meet AYP, but do better.

“While our current achievement is 52.6 percent meeting/exceeding for black students in math, this group will achieve 70 percent or Safe Harbor in 2009,” the plan states.

Safe Harbor is a way for subgroups within a school who test lower to make a large amount of improvement the following year — but still under AYP — and not be counting as not meeting AYP.

“It’s not a permanent fix for subgroups not meeting AYP,” District 80 Superintendent Dr. Kevin Settle explained. “It just allows for one or two years of large gains, which would then put that group in the area where they should be. It just closes the gap and puts you close to where you need to be anyway.”

Safe Harbor requires a 10 percent decrease in the percentage of scores that did not meet state standards during in one year among a subgroup — in this instance African-American students — and also must meet other factors such as attendance rate and graduation rate for the subgroup. For Casey Middle School, 62.6 percent of its African-American students would have to meet or exceed AYP in math for Safe Harbor to apply.

Strategies to achieve the goals in the plan are that students will receive additional teacher instruction and the school will purchase Math ISAT Coach books.

“Teachers would use these books to teach math concepts and strategies to all math students,” the plan states.

Coach books have been studied and researched in Illinois and other states as a way to increase ISAT scores for middle school students, according to information about Coach. The math book is organized into two parts or lessons and extra practice. The 46 lessons cover all the key standards of the ISAT test. It also includes lessons with the prerequisite knowledge to master the standards on the ISAT test.

The school improvement plan at Casey was developed with input from the teachers, principal, assistant principals and parents, according to the plan.