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B - Building the Whole Child
E - Evidence Based
A - Achievement
R - Resiliency
DESCRIPTION OF THE MODEL (or Rationale/Basis for the Program/Practice)
The staff of John Burroughs Middle School (JBMS) has developed a model of practices and strategies to address a set of needs and goals. Building the whole child, Evidence Based, Achievement, and Resiliency (The Bear Model) was created through a distributive leadership form of governance evolved by the principal through study of a large bibliography of research and practices drawn from, but not limited to: Gap Analysis (varied authorship); leadership assessment formats designed by Vanderbilt Assessment of Leadership in Education (VAL-ED); Driven by Data by Paul Bambrick-Santoyo; Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb; and Formative Assessment by Margaret Heritage. The administrative team further refined the goals through use of data including state testing data, state School Accountability Report Card results, district School Report Card results, CELDT data, and RI (Reading Inventory) data, SR data, and an analysis of academic grades for all students with a focus on low-performing, EL, and LTEL students. School site funding was allocated to support the defined needs and goals of the current academic school year. Governance is divided among four main groups: administrative, social emotional support, teacher-leaders cadre, and academic intervention. Seven teams oversee various aspects of student need: a) social emotional growth and learning; b) academic support and intervention; c) academic growth goals and students with disabilities; d) English Learner (EL) program and student attendance; e) staff attendance and school safety; f) college and career readiness; and g) a cadre of teacher-leaders in charge of developing professional development. A comprehensive collection of nine goal-sets were constructed and presented to all stakeholders to meet or exceed all aspects of the district LCAP, CCSS and EL Standards governed by the seven teams. From among the nine goals-sets, three specifically define the needs, goals, practice, strategy, and benefits for the model.
Need: Student Social Emotional Learning Stability and Growth. Goals and Anticipated Outcomes: Working on student mindfulness; building self-efficacy; building resilience; increasing academic focus; increasing attendance rates for students to 97% or higher; reducing chronic absences to fewer than 5% of students experiencing chronic absences; reducing expulsions/suspensions to fewer than 0.05%.
Need: School-wide academic performance increases in the following: GPA levels for all students with focus on EL and LTEL; argument writing for ELA and math reasoning in response to the new CCSS for all students; EL and Long-Term English Learner (LTEL) support and reclassification. Goals and Anticipated Outcomes: SBAC achievement increases of 10% overall in both ELA and math; English Learner reclassification goal of 20% or greater with an added goal of keeping LTEL populations under 20%. Within the EL program, 90% of RFEP students will achieve a grade of C or higher in their ELA and math courses. Ninety percent of EL students (not reclassified) will achieve a grade of C or higher in math. Sixty five percent of all EL students (not reclassified) will make progress toward reclassification as measured by the CELDT test, and 54% of existing LTEL students will reclassify within 3 years. EL students (not reclassified) will earn of C or better in ELA. A data comparison of student grades and SBAC scores showed a correlation verifying the need for intervention.
Need: Professional development in support of goals. Goals and Anticipated Outcomes: a) Refine instructional practices to address CCSS; b) Increase observation of the instruction by colleagues to improve personal capacity; c) examine evidence of student understanding/mastery with administrators and colleagues.