Hillside Elementary School* Improvement Plan (SIP), 2018 ...

Hillside Elementary School* Improvement Plan (SIP), 2018 - 2021 Presented to Needham School Committee, November 20, 2018

Hillside School Council members are Faculty Members, Evan Brown and Liz Hitron;

Parents, John Cho, Joanie Daly and Sarah Burns; and Principal, Michael Kascak

“Hillside is an inclusive neighborhood elementary school, Kindergarten through fifth grade, in Needham, Massachusetts. Our school community includes a successful METCO program, a growing ELL (English Language Learners) population, and the district’s Specialized Elementary Programs for Students with Autism and Related Developmental Disabilities (ELC or Early Learning Center program). Our student body is a diverse, creative, and energetic group of learners who make the very most of what we have to offer. Our generous families have been supporting a steady stream of creative arts and socially responsible programs for our students as well as helping us fund innovative and educational technology. Teachers and staff continue to develop and hone the best possible curriculum for our students while being ever mindful of the importance of creating and maintaining a healthy emotional school environment. At Hillside, it is important that all children and adults feel safe. Just as important is that we all, students, parents, teachers and staff, respect each other and are treated with that same respect.”

(from our school website which you can visit us here.) *Will become the Sunita Williams Elementary School in 2019

This most recent School Improvement Plan covers our school community’s last year at the Hillside Campus and first two years at the new Sunita Williams Elementary School that opens next fall. It is an exciting year, full change and transitions for students, staff, and families. While preparing this plan, our School Council took a close look at our past SIPs and decided to focus on the most pertinent objectives. Many things highlighted in recent plans have now become part of the fabric of our school community; Connection Clusters, innovative Composting Program, the UNICEF Water Project, China exchange, Olin College collaboration, and Jump Rope for Heart program to name a few. Though these experiences are still happening and will continue to grow and be adapted when appropriate, we felt we needed to focus on a few significant topics. Equity, diversity and inclusion are three concepts that are driving many of the objectives in this plan. Needham Public Schools’ Equity Audit was released this past spring, and our School Improvement Plan is responding to some of the findings of that report, as well as to an internal survey we conducted last year. There are also specific projects, driven by deadlines, which take precedence in this plan as the move to our new school approaches --the first being the move itself -- as we complete the final phases of preparing staff, students and families for the 2019 opening of the Sunita Williams Elementary School. Moving the Hillside community to a new school has been, by necessity, a major focus for the past few years. The balance between keeping our old, cramped and outdated campus functioning while planning for the opening of our new facility will remain the primary focus this year in particular. System-wide Needham will be moving to Full-Day Kindergarten Programming, and here at Hillside/Williams we will complete the final stages of moving our teacher training residency program from Lesley University to Curry College, with an initial focus on Elementary Education program next year and a plan to include a Special Education component in the future. The complete list of our goals and objectives is listed below and is followed by charts that detail action steps, evidence and outcomes.

Hillside School Goal #1: Create and improve through regular review, a Continuum of Learning that matches the needs of all learners. Objective 1.1: Continue to review, evaluate, and when necessary, revise the support given to teaching staff in order to maximize academic instruction and increase student achievement. Objective 1.2: Staff and students increase their Cultural Proficiency through professional development opportunities and school-wide and grade level projects that effectively address matters of equity, diversity and inclusion in the context of the pluralistic communities in which we live. Objective 1.3: Expand, where possible given the restraints of our physical plant, technology that will positively impact student learning and teacher instruction. Hillside School Goal #2: Collaborate with our school constituencies, other Needham Schools and other outside institutions to develop and promote student leadership and expanded learning opportunities. Objective 2.1: Move the Collaborative Teacher Training Program from Lesley University to Curry College. Objective 2.2: Expand the successful collaboration between Hillside and Needham High School students which focuses on social and emotional skills. Objective 2.3: Migrate a large part of the district’s Specialized Elementary Programs for Students with Autism and Related Developmental Disabilities (ELC or Early Learning Center) from Newman to Sunita Williams Elementary School. Hillside School Goal #3: Continue to run a safe and successful school program in an aging facility that has inadequate interior and exterior space while preparing to move into the new Sunita Williams School. Objective 3.1: Implement safety initiatives and building improvements at Hillside campus where needed and plan to adapt or develop new safety plans to new and significantly larger campus. Objective 3.2: Continue work with architects, staff, families and district leaders as we coordinate move to the new Sunita Williams School.

Hillside School Goal #1: Create and Improve, through regular review, a Continuum of Learning that matches the needs of all learners. Objective 1.1: Continue to review, evaluate, and when necessary, revise the support given to teaching staff in order to maximize academic instruction and increase student achievement.

What are the action steps? Timeline Evidence and/or Outcomes

Use MCAS results to inform our instruction

2018-2019 Results indicate a very strong performance by Hillside students on the Spring 2018 MCAS. Overall, 74% met or exceeded expectations for ELA and 69% met or exceeded expectations for Math. In addition, 84% of students met their growth or improvement targets. Link to Hillside MCAS scores We will use grade-level Common Planning Time to examine these scores and create plans to focus on those various areas that need attention. These include essay responses and conventions of standard English for all grades, as well as writing about types of texts and their purposes. For math, we intend to target constructed responses, fractions, decimals, geometry and representing and interpreting data. -Erin Vacaro, Assistant Principal/Special Education Coordinator

Implement all new writing units and pilot reading units

2018-2019 During the 2018-2019 SY, classroom teachers in grades 1-5 will implement two updated writing units of study, one being a nonfiction unit, while continuing to grow their understanding and expertise around the previous years implementation of the narrative and persuasive units. Literacy Task Force members and additional grade level teams have also been teaching the updated reading units of study, with direct support from the Literacy Specialists. All classroom teachers will implement two of these units during SY2019 - 2020. Staff received training around the updated Benchmark Assessment System and began administering it in fall 2018. Staff has been providing feedback around these updates to both the Literacy Specialists and the Literacy Task Force members, with the goal of deepening understanding, building consistency, and determining strengths and weaknesses of these updates. - Carol-Ann Hurley, Literacy Specialist

Continue to expand math workshop model

2018-2020 Currently, the math workshop model is being used in many classrooms. This model is a framework that allows students to learn new math content each day, practice math strategies in a variety of ways, and reflect on learning through verbal or written sharing. It allows for the implementation of the Eight Standards of Mathematical Practice into a teacher’s daily lessons through small group instruction. A new math assessment instrument, Renaissance Star Math, is being used in grades one and two for the 2018 - 2019 school year and will be used in all grades one through five in the 2019/2020 school year. It is a computer adaptive test that helps teachers accurately assess students’ mathematical abilities. - Elaine McKenna, Math Coach

Expand School Leadership Team when appropriate in order to include perspectives from all constituencies

2018-2019 We will use the book Switch to guide the work being done by the school leadership team and include the literacy and math coaches as well. This book, by Chip And Dan Heath, was also used by SLT this prior summe. The authors map out a protocol to create successful change in a community. The ideas outlined in this book will be particularly helpful in a year marked by change (i.e., full time Kindergarten, new curriculum units, assessments, and new school building). - Michael Kascak, Principal

Objective 1.2: Staff and students increase their Cultural Proficiency through professional development opportunities and schoolwide and grade level projects that effectively address matters of equity, diversity and inclusion in the context of the pluralistic communities in which we live.


Focus on Kindness and Equity with the added goal of beginning our transition to the new building and to anticipate those changes, challenges and opportunities.

2018-2019 • Began the school year with a Kindness Challenge that can be viewed here. • Facilitate Own Your Peace/Piece (OYP) collaboration with Needham High by bringing OYP High School students to Hillside twice this year to model the program during our Connection Clusters meeting time. View this to find out more about the OYP program. • Support teachers, students and families in mindfulness practices/stress reduction through “Music at Mingle” practice at arrival time for students. • Promote SEL skills/empathy throughout the school with the one school/one book, Courage by Bernard Waber. • Support teachers in their piloting the updated SEL portion on the report cards.

- Margaret Petrovich, Guidance Counselor

Continue building-based equity Professional Development for staff.

2018-2019 • We have dedicated half our our building-based professional development meeting time to addressing bias-based incidents that occur in our community. We are using among other resources, Speak Up at School: How to respond to Everyday Prejudice, Bias and Stereotypes to structure our work. Two videos about empathy and Daring Classrooms featuring Brene Brown’s work were particularly well received and helped set the tone for the equity work we do for and with our students as well as with each other. • Plan and continue facilitating Anti-Bias working groups. The staff has been working in three self-selected groups which focus on:

1) Teachable Moments - how to respond to bias-incidents when they happen to or between students and/or staff.

2) Resources - how to realign present resources (i.e. anti-bullying curriculum, Second Step

Program) and identify what new resources to address equity and anti-bias issues. 3) Family engagement - how we can better include families in our attempt to handle and

reduce bias-based incidents in our school community. • Each of the three self-selected groups will share the action steps they are developing for this academic year at our December meeting. - Michael Kascak, Principal; Joanne Allen-Willoughby, METCO Director; and Margaret Petrovich, Guidance Counselor

Use data from District Survey to identify and improve student learning.

2018-2019 Data from the district-wide survey indicates that the adult constituencies, both staff and parent/guardians at Hillside feel we are doing a very good job developing a positive school climate and promoting self-efficacy in our students. The students very much agree on the positive school climate but there are subgroups who feel less confident in achieving academic outcomes. We have identified those groups who believe they are less successful in this area and will work on creating measurable goals which will help us improve student self-efficacy overall. - Michael Kascak, Principal

Objective 1.3: Expand, where possible given the restraints of our physical plant, technology that will positively impact student learning and teacher instruction.


Pilot for new technology for Sunita Williams School

2018-2019 Three classrooms have been participating in a pilot program to test technology for the Sunita L. Williams School. A fifth grade classroom is testing out the use of an interactive TV, a first grade classroom is testing the use of a non-interactive screen and an Apple TV to mirror student work from an iPad, and a third grade classroom is testing out a SmartBoard with the use of an Apple TV. They will report on the pros and cons of each device in their classrooms.

- Maria DeCicco, Technology Specialist

Create STEAM opportunities where possible (given the limitations of our present facility) to ready students for the opportunities that will be available in the new school.

2018-2019 As of the Summer 2018, the NPS STEAM curriculum has been revamped to reflect a continuity among the various STEAM teachers. The revamped grade one unit is the first to be piloted this year, with grades two and three to follow in subsequent years. The focus is on process and problem solving using the Engineering Design Process as opposed to working toward a completed end product. Technology STEAM is equipped with handheld robots, Scratch Jr. on iPads, online Scratch programming, interactive Lego Wedo kits and Makey Makey circuit boards. The projects are fluid and inquiry based. Other technology highlights include testing out innovative means of broadcasting live to the school when performances area limit audience numbers. Our green screen wall, meticulously painted by senior custodian, Walter Godoy, has changed the way students have produced videos. The Media/Technology Center has been equipped with laptops and an Apple TV creating a mobile student learning and teaching environment and one that supports new and exciting ways of delivering engaging content. - Maria DeCicco, Technology Specialist

Hillside School Goal #2: Collaborate with our school constituencies, other Needham Schools and other outside institutions to develop and promote student leadership and expanded learning opportunities. Objective 2.1: Move the Collaborative Teacher Training Program from Lesley University to Curry College.


Develop a teacher-training program with Curry College.

2018-2019 The Lesley Collaborative Program has enabled us to employ six to eight graduate level interns each year for the past eleven years. The model was successful on many fronts, reflected most notably in the number of successful educators we and other schools in our district have hired. However, program changes at the university, rising tuition costs and a problematic commute became reasons for looking for another, closer higher education collaborator. This draft of the program sheet is presently being edited to reflect our new school name.

- Michael Kascak, Principal

Consider how Curry College Internship can support the ELC program and Sunita Williams school staff.

2019 - 2021 Curry College is also a great match for Sunita Williams given their strong Special Education Department and some of the innovative programming such as the Transition Specialist certificate they developed. A team of faculty from both Hillside/Williams and Curry will be looking at ways to investigate ways to include Special Education licensure and support all Sunita Williams staff with professional development. - Michael Kascak, Principal

Objective 2.2: Expand the successful collaboration between Hillside and Needham High School students that focuses on social and emotional skills.


Request funding for expanding the collaboration between Hillside and NHS students.

2018-2020 Hillside and NHS piloted a successful collaboration last year between our students and Needham High School students involved in the Own Your Peace/Piece group. The high-schoolers learn about different stages of emotional development and imagine how to communicate about the importance of identifying and expressing feelings at earlier ages as well. They have the opportunity to learn experiential teaching strategies and offer wisdom to younger children. This happened last year during one of our Cluster Connection times that currently reaches all first through fifth graders. We would like to continue and expand on the program for this school year but the funding at High School level was cut. We have submitted a Hillside PTC grant to cover the cost of two such meetings this year and will use the data and result form this expansion to apply for a longer lasting NEF grant next year to cover not only the addition of Kindergarteners (once we move to full time K) but possibly other Needham elementary schools as well. The High School students felt validated to be able to share the benefits of OYP and give back to younger students while paving the way for their program to continue and gather momentum as Hillsiders can now be familiar with the program before they arrive at the middle and high school levels. - Michael Kascak, Principal and Beth Pinals, OYP Advisor

Share our Kindness work with High Schoolers.

2018-2019 The collaboration between Hillside and students from NHS has been a mutually beneficial project. Hillside plans to share our student created posters we generated last spring regarding Kindness with students from NHS so that they may post our kindness messages around the High School and that will serve as a reminder of this collaboration. Participating NHS students will also receive the Hillside Kindness T-Shirts that were created last year, that the PTC so generously funded for all our faculty. These are tangible, visual reminders of our SEL work together which show our current Hillside students an SEL long term trajectory (of when they will become High School students) and the current High School students are agents of change and hope for shaping/modeling SEL for younger students. - Margaret Petrovich, Counselor

Objective 2.3: Migrate a large part of the district’s Specialized Elementary Programs for Students with Autism and Related Developmental Disabilities (ELC or Early Learning Center) from Newman to Sunita Williams Elementary School.


Revisit classroom/facility plans and consider adjustments based on existing and anticipated student needs

2018-2019 • Identify which positions and/or staff who need to be transferred to Sunita Williams and submit budget request and rationale for the changes this fall. • Develop appropriate and transparent communication about ELC Program changes and enhancement made possible by the opening of Sunita Williams; reiterate definition and purpose of program and acknowledge the opportunity and the logistic implications of the program migration. • Allow opportunities for new ELC staff (Special Education Liaisons, related service providers, and Teaching Assistants) to visit Sunita Williams and examine blueprints of building and campus.

- Erin Vacaro, Assistant Principal and Special Education Coordinator

Provide professional development to Hillside/SW staff in preparation for new student population.

2018-2019 • Develop opportunities for present Hillside ELC staff to collaborate with new ELC staff in order to build relationships and ensure aligned, equitable programs. • Provide learning opportunities for classroom teachers in order to reinforce effective strategies and implications for working with ELC student population. - Erin Vacaro, Assistant Principal and Special Education Coordinator

Ensure that Newman ELC families transition smoothly to Sunita Williams

2018-2019 • Facilitate transition meetings for Newman ELC students and families in order to make personal connections and gain knowledge of students’ individual strengths and needs. • Provide information about ELC program and Sunita Williams building and campus to families and district personnel. • Allow for new students and families to visit Sunita Williams prior to the start of school. - Erin Vacaro, Assistant Principal and Special Education Coordinator

Hillside School Goal #3: Continue to run a safe and successful school program in an aging facility that has inadequate interior and exterior space while preparing to move into the new Sunita L. Williams School. Objective 3.1: Implement safety initiatives and building improvements at Hillside campus where needed and plan to adapt or develop new safety plans to new and significantly larger campus.


Update and practice safety drills as usual at Hillside campus.

2018-2019 Regularly scheduled practicing and, when needed, updating of safety protocols based on the flow chart: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S6C_RpcDemxhP9W2o_Oz92ihSfcaMtO4SDG99MpGyos/edit?usp=sharing - Erin Vacaro, Assistant Principal and Special Education Coordinator

Identify those building projects and improvements that need immediate attention during this school year.

2018-2019 Monitor work order progress (open, in progress, completed) communicated regularly form DPW. Work orders include: Replacing broken windows; fixing leaks in sinks and toilets; broken water fountains and door locks; monitoring the condition of the roof and replacing damaged gutters; replacing electrical outlets and being mindful of the proper use of air conditioners and appliances to avoid black and brownouts: and keeping the two outdated furnaces functioning.

- Walter Godoy, Head Custodian; Lori Donovan, Lead Secretary; and Michael Kascak, Principal

Plan and update safety protocols for Sunita Williams campus.

2018-2019 • Meet regularly with architects, site manager, Police and Fire Chiefs, and School to update and create new safety protocols based on Hillside Safety Chart (see above link). Special consideration given to increased school size, traffic, outdoor education area, and pond on school grounds. • Create a schedule for next summer to walk through building to run through safety protocols (drills, evacuation, lockdown and ALICE scenarios) prior to occupancy. • Coordinator planning of transportation routes with Transportation Director, Police Department and, where appropriate, parents and families. - Michael Kascak, Principal; Shane Marchand, NPS Transportation Director; and Ryan O’Leary, School Safety Officer

Objective 3.2: Continue work with architects, staff, families and district leaders as we coordinate move to the new Sunita Williams School.


Communicate progress on new building project with appropriate constituencies.

2018-2019 • Plan and coordinate site visits for groups of staff and community members to visit site as work progresses. • Update school website with information and pictures of progress of new building project. http://needhamhes.ss13.sharpschool.com/news/what_s_new/construction_update

• Attend Permanent Public Building Committee meetings when Sunita Williams (MSBA title; Hillside) is on agenda as an active voting member. - Michael Kascak, Principal; Hank Haff, Project Manager; Bill Roche, Site Manager

Coordinate programming needs for new school.

2018-2019 • Teacher Leadership team will meet with administration to determine grade level classroom configurations and teacher room assignments based on developmental needs. We will also develop plans to address: use and scheduling of extended learning areas; use of cafeteria, gym, media center and other common areas; corridor traffic; and other programming needs as they arise. • Create a representative committee to build a new schedule that supports collaboration between grade level teachers as well as specialists and support staff. This is timely as we move to a facility that will give us the “elbow room” to schedule classes without the constraints of space and limitations of the present school building. - Michael Kascak, Principal

Complete FFE ordering for new building and coordinate moving curriculum materials.

2018-2019 • Establish a core group of staff to work regularly with architects to select appropriate furniture, fixtures and equipment needed to ensure successful programming at the Sunita Williams. • Work with Teacher Leadership team to developing packing, moving and unpacking schedule - Michael Kascak, Principal and Josh Perrine, Dore & Whittier

Hillside Elementary School* Improvement Plan (SIP), 2018 ...

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Transcript of Hillside Elementary School* Improvement Plan (SIP), 2018 ...