Community Engagement: Cleo Gordon

On April 25, Sandie Lawler the director of The Leaven program came to visit Cleo Gordon. She provides after school tutoring to many of our students. She was very excited to see how engaged students were in their classrooms.  Cleo students were very happy to see Sandie and show off  their work.

T4S Data and Goals

The Leadership team looked closely at the T4S Spring sweep data. We have committed to raising our Academic Conversations to 70% in the fall. In addition, we want to increase the number of classrooms with students working at a DOK 2 or higher to 85%. To support these goals, we will organize a cohort of teacher experts to help plan and implement professional development, time to collaborate with grade level teams, and substitutes to assist with visiting other classrooms. This information will be brought to the staff at our next staff meeting.

Writing

Here are some sample rubrics teachers at Cleo Gordon are using to support writing instruction with our students.

4th Grade

Second Grade

Kindergarten

Customer Service

The Cleo Gordon staff discussed the Customer Service results at their April 5th staff meeting. Highlights were that there was little discrepancy between the English and Spanish surveys indicating that we are truly servicing all of our families. There was some comment to the ease of dropping off and picking up students. The staff knows this is a concern for many of our parents. The conversation around customer service was a good reminder that the small things make a big difference to many of our families who attend Cleo.



Parent Engagement

We have spent our funds on items to be purchased by students at the Parent Passport Store. Each time a parent is involved on campus, they receive "Parent Pay." The students go shopping with the pay their families earned.

A Family Literacy Night was hosted, and we have purchased materials to help train parents in the 7 habits of the Leader in Me. We are hosting a Parent Appreciation Tea in May and purchased items to give the parents who have supported the school all year long. We are supporting the Family Festival in May by helping fund this event as well.

       

Must Be Present to Win

Cleo Gordon will continue to implement our attendance incentives during the 2016-2017 school year. We will display our weekly attendance by grade level highlighting levels that meet our goal. Morning announcements and weekend messengers will included celebrations of classes and grade levels that meet our goals. Individuals who "Must be Present to Win" will continue to be surprised with daily treats. Classes with 100% attendance for the week will be provided special celebrations. We will continue to host parent forums on the topic of attendance including meeting with TK and K parents before school starts to inform them of the attendance guidelines.

We will also be incorporating a set of letters, from the Count Us In Toolkit, that will go out in August 2016 to our highest attendance offenders from the previous year.  This will allow us to be proactive with those families, and work with them even prior to school starting.

Assessment

The CLEO staff has all participated in training on the implementation of SBAC and have received their TOMS accounts.
Megan attended the Illuminate training on Thursday, April 7th from 8:00-11:00. The Cleo Gordon Assessment Program Manager will attend a training and together, they will start planning how to best utilize Illuminate to create reports for the site to plan future professional development opportunities.

Cleo Gordon - Community Engagment

We completed the survey. An administrator and teacher delivered an oversize Valentine's Day card signed by students and parents to say thank you for responding to our Kinder who was struck by a car. Comets at Cleo Gordon thanked community partners Common Vision for supporting the orchard and new planting beds.

Cleo Gordon Technology

Cleo Gordon teachers viewed the SAMAR model and video during a staff meeting. The staff then rated their current level within the model and discussed ways to move from engagement to transformation. Some teachers then expressed a desire to do more. Several teachers are connecting with our Education Technology Specialist for support.

.

Reaching Out & Connecting with Families

Cleo Gordon administrators ran an query in Aries to identified families who were doubled up or homeless. Administrators reached out to families in person and over the phone. Many families appreciated how Cleo Gordon actively supports their scholars learning. Two families are no longer homeless while others stated they are more stable.  A GoFundMe account was setup for a family during a crisis. In addition Cleo Gordon reached out to family impacted by the boundary change by hosting a "Welcome to Cleo Night" with teacher and staff.

Assessment

The Cleo Gordon staff is preparing for the SBAC this spring. We are scheduling our assessment window and reviewing the process of administering the test. All the while, setting goals with our students using the piloted MAP data from this last round of assessments.

 

Preparing for Adminstration

Who, What, When, and Where!

 

Using MAP data to help set goals and projections for achievement!

Response to Intervention-Assessments

At Cleo Gordon, we are using assessment to drive instruction. We have had data meetings to discuss observations and goals for our students. This year we have piloted the MAP assessment and look forward to using that data to help us set goals for SBAC!

96% Here We Come!

Comets are working hard to earn their 96% attendance rate this year! Daily "Must Be Present To Win," treats are handed out and classes are celebrated weekly for high attendance rates. A pizza party was hosted with one class that had 100% attendance for a full week! We also announce classes with high attendance in our morning announcements and weekend messenger. Bulletin boards are monitoring grade level rates as well...remember,

Attend Today Achieve Tomorrow!

T4S...baseline and beyond!

The staff at Cleo Gordon has been working this year on becoming more familiar with the new observation tool, as well as, the Academic Conversation Planning Tool. We have spent several Profession Development sessions unpacking the standards, discussing DOK, and how to write grade level objectives that bring all of this together. At the fall weep, nine classrooms were swept and as a staff we looked at the data at both the IPR and at staff meetings.
We have several areas to improve upon, but we are determined to be successful. At our staff meeting on January 5th, teams compared the old observation tool with the new one. Each team noticed immediately that the new tool is focused on student engagement and learning. Spring sweeps are coming and we anticipate growth from the first visit this year.

Cleo Gordon...A Community of Writers!

We are proud to say that writing has been a hot topic at Cleo Gordon for several years now.
The writing survey was completed at Cleo Gordon, and we are excited about our baseline data. 80% of our classrooms had writing and rubrics on the wall! 20% are working on it!

Customer Service at Cleo Gordon

In the past few weeks, our Leaders conducted a Customer Service Survey with families. On a 1-4 scale (1 disagree, 2 Somewhat, 3 Agree and 4 Strongly Agree). We asked about the experience they had when coming to the school.


30 English surveys were conducted and 28 Spanish.
Here are our results:


The school has a clean and welcoming environment
English: 3.4
Spanish: 3.5


Parent and community information is accessible
English: 3.3
Spanish: 3.5


I received a friendly greeting from office staff
English: 3.5
Spanish: 3.5


My needs were met
English: 3.3
Spanish: 3.3


We now have some data to help us refine and continue to grow as a school.

PBIS at Cleo Gordon...A Leader In Me School!

JP came to the site on January 21 and discussed current systems in place at Cleo Gordon that support PBIS. We are a Leader in Me school embracing the 7 Habits of Leaders. This aligns perfectly with PBIS.

At Cleo, we have visible school wide expectations such as a Voice Rubric and rules for designated areas of campus posted. We celebrate students each month honoring Leaders, Readers, and students who demonstrate kindness. In the classroom, our school vision is proudly displayed and each student signs this commitment to themselves and one another.

We hope to be using SWIS in the 2016-17 school year. A possible task for the spring will be to create Public Service Announcement videos with students modeling the expected behaviors in our communal areas.  

Hello!

I am so excited to be contributing to this blog. I am currently the principal at Cleo Gordon, a Leader in Me School.  I look forward to sharing the work of the Customer Service Team with you.



Megan Thole
Principal, Cleo Gordon Elementary
Megand@fsusd.org