2009-2010

RE: No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, Section 1116 Dear Parent/Guardian:

To comply Harvard Avenue Community School, with the requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, we are giving you timely notice that has been identified as being hi School Improvement (SI) - year 1. School Improvement means the school did not meet Ohio's goals in reading, mathematics or attendance for two consecutive years or more

Harvard Avenue Community School has been identified as in School Improvement status based on its performance in reading and math.

Our Local Report Card (http://www.ode.state.oh.us/report) card shows how our school compares to other similar schools.

Following the federal guidelines regarding the school's status, we are notifying you that you have the following options:

1. You may continue to have your child attend the same community school.
2. Students may return to their home public school.
3. Students may be eligible to attend another school that is not in School Improvement status and have entered into an agreement to accept students.

 

When deciding which tutoring program is best for your child, you may want to ask these questions:

 Can the tutor help if your child has disabilities or is learning English? Is transportation available to and from where the tutoring will take place?

1. How often and for how many hours In total will your child be tutored?
2. What programs, by grade levels and subjects areas, are available for your child?
3. What type of instruction will the tutor use: small group, one-on-one, or the computer? What
   are the tutors' qualifications?

 

To move our school out of School Improvement status, we have looked at our data and developed a plan to help us achieve higher levels of student performance. Our plan includes: Prepare our kindergartners for academic achievement. We knew at the onset of the 06-07 that we would be servicing a large majority of low performing students. Since opening, our kindergartners who are now 2nd graders have performed well on the kindergarten K-RAL and Stanford 10 when in the 1st and 2nd grades. We have monitored their academic progress and have prepared them to perform well on the 3rd grade OAT in 2009-2010 with the following:

    1. We have hired ALL Highly Qualified Teachers for grades k-6 with the exception of 2 teachers who are long term subs.

     

     2. We have 3 full time curriculum coaches who monitor and coach teachers in all area of the curriculum.  Teachers must  test their students every six weeks either in the Direct
         Instruction Curriculum for grades k-2 and every six weeks for the treasures reading
         curriculum for grades 3-6. Assessments are turned into me and teachers are evaluated
         and we are able to see what teachers are making academic gains.

 

    3. We have an academic assessment program called Orchard, (similar to Stanford 10),
        where students take computerized tests with the assessment coordinator in the computer
        lab. Students are assessed in all content areas and get immediate test scores which are
       men distributed to teachers and parents. The new assessment coordinator has assessed all
       students in the building to determine who needs additional tutoring and help in areas they
       are weak in so we can zone in on those areas to prepare students in grades 2-6 for the
       OAT.

    4. Our title I teachers are working strongly with low performing 3rd grade students daily
        to prepare them for the OAT.

We failed to make AYP on the Spring OAT test due to missing the attendance component by only a few students. In previous years our reason for failing was due to preparing students   to get them to the point they are now.

In efforts to help ensure we make AYP the Ohio Department of Education the office of community schools has given us guidelines to create a OIP committee which will ensure certain academic steps and plans are in place to ensure academic achievement. We are also allotted a certain amount of dollars for professional development for teachers to enhance teaching skills.

We are trying to take the new students who come to us, and season them with all the excellent resources we have to provide for them. Unfortunately the state does not give us ample time to undo the academic damage that has been done to the students who a large majority, come to our school already performing at a low academic level. We welcome your participation in our academic school improvement efforts. If you would like more information on how you can help us improve our school, please contact me. SES may be limited, we can only take up to so many students at one time.

Mrs. Stephens, Principal