Principal's Message from the February 2008 Zeman Gazette

Professional Learning Communities at Zeman by Mrs. Williams

This year the Lincoln Public Schools Board has provided 80 minutes of early release time each month for teachers to use to come together in professional learning communities. As you know these early release days fall on the last Tuesday of each month. These days have a very specific purpose of looking at and planning for improving student achievement. PLC’s are different than the all day plan day in which teachers have the entire day to organize and develop materials, grade papers, design units, catch up on record keeping, etc. PLC time is devoted exclusively to collaborating about essential learning outcomes, how to assess those outcomes, and what action steps to take when students do not master the learning outcomes.

This year our staff have been assigned to one of six teams, kindergarten through 5th grade. Each team is made up of all the teachers at a particular grade level as well as an English Language Learner teacher and resource teacher.

In the fall each PLC team listed what they regarded as essential learnings for their students. Some of the outcomes for reading are listed below:
Kdg:Identify letter names and sounds
1st: Applies the phonemic blending and the segmenting of phonemes (Sounds out words)
2nd Reads grade level text independently with 94% accuracy and at a reading fluency rate of 53- 82 words per minute
3rd Read grade level text with 94% accuracy, using expression, phrasing and at a reading fluency rate of 79-110 words per minute
4th Reads grade level text with 94% accuracy and at a reading fluency rate of 99-124 words per minute
5th Students will read at grade level with expression, phrasing and intonation

From the list of essential outcomes staff then utilize assessments to determine their students’ level of proficiency in regard to the essential outcomes. When writing our academic or SMART goals we refer to the level of proficiency as “our current reality”. This tells us how far we are from the mark of proficiency. Whole group and small group instruction is designed to address learning needs. . The target date for reaching the goal was the end of the first semester. Below are a list of the first semester reading SMART goals set by the PLC teams:

Kdg: 75% of all kindergarten students will recognize 40 of the 52 letter names and 12 of the letter sounds by Jan. ‘08
1st: All students will advance a minimum of 4 DRA reading levels by Jan. ‘08
2nd Students will increase their fluency rate by 10 words per minute by Jan. ‘08
3rd Students will increase their fluency rate by 10 words per minute by Jan. ‘08
4th 75% of the 4th grade students will be able to read and comprehend grade level text at 80% accuracy or above
5th 75% of the 5th grade students will be reading at grade level

At instructional conferences the staff and I review assessment data and determine whether or not progress is being made by all students. As an administrator I also read the progress reports of our 440 students to see where each of our students are in relationship to our academic benchmarks. We were excited to see that our efforts made a difference in some areas and recognized that we did not get all students to the benchmark that we had set. This second semester we have set new SMART goals and continue to plan interventions for struggling students. We appreciate the time that staff are given on PLC days to work collaboratively to improve academic progress for all of our students.

Principal's Message from the December 2007 Zeman Gazette

“Principally” Speaking:

What Is the Gifted/High Ability Learner Program?

The Lincoln Public School district recognizes that some students need to experience challenges beyond that of the regular classroom curriculum. Over thirty years ago the Lincoln Public Schools implemented a gifted education program. The school district gifted policy as stated in Policy 6300 is as follows:

“The Lincoln Board of Education recognizes that the student population includes students with exceptional academic abilities. These students have a need for educational services which are consistent with their ability levels and learning characteristics such as thinking abstractly, having the ability to study a topic in depth, and learning rapidly. These students shall be provided appropriately challenging curricula and instruction which are congruent with their learning abilities and styles and which shall be provided in classes composed of these students, taught by teachers trained to recognize and meet the needs of these students…

Every school in our district has a Gifted Facilitator to oversee the process of identification of gifted students as well as the delivery of services to gifted students. The gifted facilitator at Zeman is Donna Williams. Each building also has a Data Gathering Team that works with the facilitator in identifying students for the gifted/high ability learners program. At Zeman this team is made up of the principal and six teachers. The team meets once a month.

Classroom teachers are given training in the differentiated curriculum. At Zeman each grade level has identified a math teacher and an English teacher who provide the differentiated curriculum to students who have been identified as gifted/high ability learners. Those students who participate in the gifted/high ability learner program receive a report card at the end of each semester describing their performance as it relates to that curriculum. A part of the work that teachers do during our PLC (professional learning community) time is monitoring the progress of our gifted students and determining whether or not the needs of these students is being met.