Dickinson High School Program Improvement Plan

Dickinson High School Program Improvement Plan
Dickinson High School serves approximately 735 students in grades 9-12 (May 2012 enrollment).
Currently we have 60 teachers which include three counselors. We have a number of teachers with
master degrees with the majority of teachers having many credits beyond their bachelor’s degree.
Reading and math are the areas in which Dickinson High did not make Adequate Yearly Progress. Our
building goal (see attachment) is to have 85% or more of all students in each departmental course
offering perform at a C level or higher. Special emphasis is being placed on reading and math. A math
action plan (see attachment) was developed four years ago to address some of our math weaknesses.
As an entire faculty, we are working on strategies for improving our reading and writing skills of
Dickinson High students. The language arts department is helping spearhead this work. The following
are the things we have specifically done this past year to help improve reading and writing:
Book study by some teachers on ReLeah Lent’s book Literacy for Real—Reading, Thinking, and
Learning in the Content Areas.
Professional Development for teachers in grades 7-12 during the April 20, 2012 Reading
Conference in Dickinson. This professional development was led by author ReLeah Lent.
Reading/Writing Committee made up of members from the core classes. This committee
worked on developing strategies building wide for improving reading and writing. One example
was a common rubric for identifying key writing areas when students are answering essay
questions.
Beginning the use of mastery manager to help teachers through common assessments identify
key areas that need improvement.
A writing workshop (to help improve writing skills) was held at least three times a week during
Opportunity Period and the lunch hour.
Students in grade 9 who were reading significantly below grade level were placed in an intensive
reading intervention program using Read 180 and System 44.
Plans for the 2012-2013 school year are as follows:
August 20, 2012 Dr. Chris Weber from Solution Tree will work with teachers and administrators
to help focus our efforts during teaming time. He will also speak about the connection of RtI
and RtI-B.
Ongoing teaming/collaboration time each week during the contract day. These discussions will
focus on student learning by identifying student learning targets, developing common formative
assessments, analyzing student work, and planning for effective instruction, intervention and
enrichment. The mastery manager program will also be used to analyze the common
assessments.
More book studies on reading/writing and possibly the common core standards.

Continue and possibly expand the number of students who will use the READ 180 program.
Early Release Days (Oct. 31, Dec. 12, Feb. 27, April 10) and Professional Development Days on
Sept. 24 and Jan. 21) will be used to continue developing building wide strategies for improving
reading/writing.
School Leadership team will continue to meet two or three times a month with one of the
priorities being to develop building wide interventions to be used during Opportunity Time.
The Language Arts Department will begin meeting this fall to review course offerings in the area
of reading and writing. The first step will be to review the freshmen grammar and literature
classes.
We are using the following to inform instruction at the high school level:
Standards have been and will continue to be reviewed by teachers
Text book assessments
MAP scores in Language Arts, Reading, and Math
NDSA scores in Language Arts, Reading, Math, and Science
ACT scores—composite scores and scores in Language Arts, Math, Science
Common formative assessments
Begin to do a better job of horizontal and vertical discussions between teachers and
departments to better align standards and instruction
The next important step for DHS is creating an individual growth plan for all students who have not met
achievement expectations on the state assessment. The following are some of the things we will be
using to create such a plan for students:
Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) are assessments that are taken by Dickinson High
students in grades 9 and 10. Student’s academic progress is measured in reading and math
along a continuous scale. Growth can be measured from year to year. These assessments give
us excellent information in regard to which students are struggling in these areas. We have also
found out that the majority of the time these MAP assessments correlate very closely to
previous state assessment tests taken by the students.
We will also try and use the “short survey” MAP assessment. This will be used for new students
to give us a better and quicker understanding of their strengths and weaknesses.
Opportunity Period documentation will also be used to identify students and their weaknesses.
Data gathered using Viewpoint will be used to assess the student’s weaknesses.
Common formative assessments by teachers with Mastery Manager breaking down the data to
give us more information about which students are struggling and in what areas.
Using the above methods to gather data about at risk students, we will then identify
interventions to be used to help each student individually with their weaknesses. These
interventions could be things such as READ 180 class, Tier 2 interventions during Opportunity
Period, one on one tutoring, schedule changes, Individualized Reading class, paraprofessional
support, etc.

For the most part, I have concentrated on what we are doing and what we are going to do to help
improve our student’s expertise in reading and writing. The following is Dickinson High’s School
Improvement Goals for 2012-2013, and Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) and Math Action Plan. Attached
with this document is our SMART Goal Action Plan for 2012-2013 and data on AYP from 2009 – 2012.
Each department, by course, will determine a
percentage for their content area, requiring at
least the minimum of 85%.
Phase 1 (What should all students know)
Review power benchmarks
Develop student-friendly “I-can”
statements
Phase 2 (How will we know when students
have learned)
85% or more of all
students in each
departmental course
offering will perform at C
level or higher.
Develop common formative and
summative assessments
Use of NWEA tests for assessment
Standards-based report cards (pilot
program starting January 2013)
Phase 3 (How will we respond when students
don’t learn)
RTI/Pyramid of Interventions
Opportunity Period
Tier II and III Interventions
Differentiating, flexible grouping, …
Parental Involvement
Phase 4 (How will we respond when students
learn ahead of their peers or already know
what we are teaching)
Use of RTI time for advanced learning

Math Action Plan
1) The yearlong algebra I class will be taught; teachers will keep the same students for the entire
year. Entry level courses such as this one and basic geometry will focus on the power standards.
We will use the math teacher’s areas of expertise in determining staffing assignments.
2) State assessment tests will be administered by the math teachers and the math portion will be
the first test given to students.
3) The School Board has added an additional half time math teacher. This will allow smaller class
sizes in the year long algebra class. Class size is estimated at 17 students which is approximately
5-6 fewer students per section as this year.
4) NWEA tests will be used to assess math students throughout the school year due to the close
correlation with the state assessment test. Information gathered from these tests will be used
by teachers to adjust instruction where needed. Students requiring intervention help will be
identified and extra instruction will be given by math teachers.
5) Extra time in math classes will be taken to review areas of weakness identified by past state
assessment tests.
6) Professional development will increase for teachers in grades 7-12 and more collaboration time
will be provided for the math instructors. The professional development will help teachers
develop strategies and techniques to better meet the needs of today’s students.
7) Dickinson High’s School Improvement Plan in regard to math will be this action plan. This will be
facilitated by the Dickinson High School principal. Data for this plan will begin to be gathered
beginning in the 2008-09 school year.