Spencer hosts 'SINA' site visit

The site visit occurred because three local school district buildings -- Spencer Middle School, Fairview Elementary School and Lincoln Elementary School -- have been deemed "schools in need of assistance" (SINA) due to subgroups of students in each who missed the annual yearly progress (AYP) goals set for them.

The AYP standardized-test determinations serve as an accountability measure under No Child Left Behind. According to the federal legislation, all public school students will be required to be proficient on state assessments by the 2013-14 school year. In Iowa, these include the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills for elementary and middle school students, and Iowa Tests of Educational Development for high school students.

After being placed on a "watch list," schools that don't demonstrate AYP for three years in a row are identified as SINA under NCLB. These schools are subject to immediate interventions by state education agencies, including technical assistance and "more serious corrective actions."

Friday marked the audit phase of this process.

Representatives from Spencer, Laurens-Marathon and Estherville took part in the audit, which was held in Spencer's central administrative office building.

"They got all of us together and said, 'OK, here's what your audit process will look like. Here's the timeline for everything that you need to have done,'" Barb Besch, Spencer's school improvement director, said of the gathering.

When asked how the meeting and information relayed during it was received by district representatives in attendance, Besch answered, "It's really about how people feel about being on the list. The schools, even though they're working hard every day, still end up on the list. The reality is that every school will end up on the list because statistically it's not possible to reach a 100 percent (student proficiency ranking). But, we're stuck with the law.

"While it feels kind of (bad) to be on the list, teachers are worried about the public perception about (how) their school district is addressing student achievement. They're working hard and implementing their professional development and the right quality of instruction for kids. So, they're concerned about that. Yet, knowing how hard they're working, but that everybody will be there, until everybody is there, there's little comfort in the fact that 155 schools across Iowa are on the list."

In addition to Spencer's three schools identified, buildings within the following community school districts are also on the 2010-11 SINA list: AGWSR, Algona, Ames, Anamosa, Ankeny, Atlantic, Belmond-Klemme, Benton, Bettendorf, Bondurant-Farrar, Boone, Burlington, CAL, Camanche, Cardinal, Cedar Falls, Cedar Rapids, Center Point-Urbana, Centerville, Central Lee, Central Decatur, Chariton, Charles City, Clarinda, Clarke, Clear Creek Amana, Clinton, Colfax-Mingo, College (Prairie High School), Columbus, Council Bluffs, Creston, Dallas Center-Grimes, Davenport, Davis County, Denison, Des Moines Independent, Dubuque, Eagle Grove, East Greene, East Marshall, Edgewood-Colesburg, Estherville Lincoln Central, Fairfield, Fort Dodge, Fort Madison, Fremont-Mills, Gladbrook-Reinbeck, Glenwood, Grinnell-Newburg, Hampton-Dumont, Harlan, Howard-Winneshiek, Independence, Indianola, Iowa City, Iowa Falls, Johnston, Keokuk, Knoxville, Laurens-Marathon, Lewis Central, North Cedar, Linn-Mar, Louisa-Muscatine, Maquoketa, Marion Independent, Marshalltown, Mason City, Midland, Mid-Prairie, Missouri Valley, Mormon Trail, Mount Ayr, Mount Pleasant, Mount Vernon, Muscatine, Nashua-Plainfield, Nevada, Newton, North Scott, Norwalk, Oelwein, Olin Consolidated, Oskaloosa, Ottumwa, Perry, Pleasant Valley, Pleasantville, Postville, Red Oak, Riceville, Rockwell-Swaledale, Saydel, Sergeant Bluff-Luton, Shenandoah, Sioux City, Southeast Webster Grand, South Tama, Southeast Polk, Spirit Lake, Starmont, Storm Lake, West Central Valley, Tipton, Twin Cedars, Union, Urbandale, Vinton-Shellsburg, Wapello, Washington, Waterloo, West Burlington Independent, West Delaware County and West Des Moines.

"It's just a reality not only for us, but all these schools that are on the list," Besch said.

What's next

Following Friday's gathering, audit findings are required to be turned in by the end of this week so that questions for an upcoming interview of district teachers may be developed. Those interviews are scheduled to occur Sept. 16.

A diagnosis -- which will provide a completed gap analysis, determine root causes, identify possible solutions and set student achievement goals -- along with its design, plans for implementation and an action plan will then need to be in place by the end of October.

"All of this has to happen -- the audit, the diagnosis and the design -- 90 days after official notification that we were a School In Need of Assistance. I'm thinking we're targeting the end of October that we have to have our action plan in," Besch said. " ... And then, from November to June (2011), we need to be implementing and monitoring our progress, as well as doing what we're saying we're going to do according to our two-year action plan."

In other school news:

Four new members are being sought to fill Spencer's School Improvement Advisory Council. The primary purposes of the SIAC, which meets once a quarter, are to determine major educational needs and to make recommendations to the Spencer school board on prioritized student learning goals based on these needs.

The SIAC positions currently held by community resident Mary Kacmarynski, teacher Denise Reit and two Spencer High School students are those needing to be filled by appointment yet this fall.

Spencer Community School District board members are slated to approve a 2010-11 professional development plan for district staff during their Wednesday, Sept. 1, meeting. The plan, as presented by a SIAC representative, outlines what the district's professional development will target, as well as its content areas and the design expected to accomplish its implementation at the elementary, middle school and high school levels during inservice sessions scheduled over the next year.

The plan covers goals for the Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) training the district's elementary staff will be studying for professional development this school year. CGI is a professional development program based on an integrated program of research focused on the development of students' mathematical thinking, instruction that influences that development, teachers' knowledge and beliefs that influence their instructional practices, and the way that teachers' knowledge, beliefs, and practices are influenced by their understanding of students' mathematical thinking, explained Barb Besch, Spencer's school improvement director.

The proposed professional development plan's focus will also outline what Spencer's Authentic Intellectual Work, or AIW, will look like for its second year at the district's secondary level. AIW focuses on authenticity in instruction, the creation of assessment tasks and the scoring of student work which comes from such tasks. Spencer was among nine school districts in Iowa invited to pilot the AIW program developed by Dr. Fred Newmann during the 2007-08 school year.

In addition to Aug. 16-18, full days committed to professional development inservice days for teachers -- or no school for Spencer students -- are currently scheduled on Oct. 18, 2010, as well as Jan. 3-4, March 10-11, and May 23, 2011.

2010-11 early dismissal days are also scheduled for staff inservice sessions at 12:30 p.m. on the afternoons of Sept. 29, Oct. 27 and Nov. 17, 2010, as well as Feb. 2, March 2, April 6 and May 4, 2011. Additional professional development activities and summer school classes will also be conducted during June, July and August.