I

ABSTRACT

PROJECT : Wildcats Improving Networks (WIN)

Project Wildcats Improving Networks (WIN) conceptualizes Luis P. Untalan Middle School’s vision in increasing 7^th grade student performance and learning through the networking of students, teachers, counselors, parents, and all community stakeholders. Through bettering our skills in dialog and discussion in smaller learning communities, Luis P. Untalan Middle School, Home of the Wildcats, will be able to address the need to improve student performance and student achievement in reading, math, and language arts in the 7^th grade.

In the last eight years, we have made tremendous strides in refocusing our attention from teacher performance and outputs to student outputs in learning and performance. We have used the SAT-9 and 10 to identify students high needs area. We have aligned our content standards and performance indicators with the SAT 9. We have developed lesson plans to match the alignment of skills, and have evaluated our students based on these high priority skills. Furthermore, our content area teachers are able to meet through common preparation time incorporated in our master schedule to discuss skills assessment, lesson planning, and the goals of each content area. However, we still needed to fine tune our current practices. Training to become middle school teachers, to do interdisciplinary team teaching, or to have effective dialogue in team teaching has not been part of many college teacher preparation programs. This professional development grant will try to address this need for our middle school teachers in order to improve student learning.

Project WIN will take further steps to increase student performance through yearly alignment of the SAT-10 item analysis results and content standards, and through structured small learning communities: teacher-student dialogue where students and teachers have opportunities to meet and discuss personal goals and objectives for learning; collegial dialogue and structured discussions on sharing best practices and concerns

Through Project WIN we will take our 7^th grade teachers through professional development to enhance their skill in dialog and discussion in learning communities, train them in creating quarterly skills assessment, and learning, sharing, and collaborating in assessing students in order to achieve our ambitious but attainable goals for improving 7^th grade student learning and performance set forth in this grant.

I. NEED FOR THE PROJECT

Context

Luis P. Untalan Middle School (UMS), with Wildcats as its school mascot, is centrally located in the village of Barrigada on the island of Guam. The school was built in 1958 and was originally named Barrigada Junior High School serving students in the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades. It was later renamed Luis P. Untalan Middle School in honor of a long-time Guam educator, Luis P. Untalan. In 1982, it became a middle school to serve sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students as a result of the restructuring of the Guam Department of Education to incorporate the middle school philosophy.

Today, UMS is one of seven public middle schools in Guam that currently serves 1225 students for school year 2006-2007. As of Sept.19, 2006, UMS has 430 sixth graders, 427 seventh graders, and 368 eighth graders. UMS is situated in the village of Barrigada, but it serves students not only from this village but also the surrounding villages/areas of Dededo, Harmon, Liguan Terrace, Mangilao, and Latte Heights. The students come from a variety of diverse ethnicities and socio-economic backgrounds.

The following ethnicities make up our student population: The majority groups are

Chamorros at 51 %, Filipinos at 27%, Freely Associated States of Micronesia (FAS)

at 13%, and the other 8% are of varied ethnicities such as Korean, Chinese,

Japanese, Vietnamese, Caucasian, and African American.

The varied ethnic population speaks to the varied experiences of our students,

particularly as it relates to educational values and systems.

Those students from low income families live in government-subsidized housing and are for the most part transient families moving from one village to another. The high percentage of low-income students is supported by statistics from the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and the National School Breakfast Program (NSBP) with 474 or thirty-nine percent of our students receiving free meals for both programs, a total of 343 students; and 86 or seven percent receiving reduced meal prices.

Of our total population, 272 are receiving Languages Other Than English (LOTE) services. Sixty-two are in sheltered rooms and 210 are consultation status, meaning that they are placed in the regular class rooms but teachers must provide modifications for them. We also have 104 Special Education students, sixty in resource rooms and forty-four mainstreamed into the regular education classrooms.

ASSESSMENTS

UMS requires its teachers to submit its quarterly skills assessment results. These assessments reflect student performance based on the priority skills identified on the SAT 10 item analysis. Teachers divide up the priority skills by quarter and develop a uniform assessment for each of the content areas. For school year 2005-2006, the year-end average for reading, math, and L.A shows that two of content areas are performing below the expected 85% mastery goal for the quarterly skills assessment, with math at the lowest performance of 71% year-end average, and followed by L.A. at 78%. The reading performance of 87% does not reflect the entire school’s performance level. These scores reflect approximately 14% of our students who tested out of Direct Instruction and are receiving the regular reading curriculum. The Skills Assessement reading score of 87% only reflect the performance of a small group of 175 students reading at grade level or higher.

Year-End Quarterly Assessment Summary 2005-2006:

SAT 10 2006 Percentile ranking- Group Report

For SAT 10 2006, in the following 7^th grade content areas of reading, language arts, and math, only reading showed a low-average performance at the 29^th percentile- stanine 4 ( 29-4 PR-S). Moreover, it is also a 3 percentile point decrease from the SAT-10 2005 where our 7^th graders performed at the 32th percentile-stanine 4 ( 32-4 PR-S) in reading. In 2005, students performed in the low average range in math (29-4 PR-S) but recovered 4 percentile points in 2006, (33-4 PR-S). In language arts, 7^th graders performed at the 39-4 PR-S and 38-4 PR-S in 2005 and 2006 respectively. This fluctuation of scores indicates that teachers must continue to find strategies to improve student performance and continue to move up in percentile ranking each year. Furthermore, each and every year, teachers must reevaluate its list of priority skills to teach based on the SAT 10 item analysis :

7^TH GRADE SAT 10 2005 and 2006 PERCENTILE SUBTEST RESULTS :

Guam law requires all schools to demonstrate adequate yearly progress (AYP) using several criteria, including SAT 10 student performance levels. GPSS’s annual report card for all schools reflects the SAT 10 performance levels of students in all grade levels in the areas of Language Arts, Reading and Math. In all areas, UMS rates low or unacceptable by GPSS criteria. The following charts illustrate results from the SAT-10 test administered in May 2006. Historical information is available for 7^th grade, as this is the only grade that was previously assessed using the SAT-9 instrument ( Level 1 represents no mastery of the fundamental knowledge and skills. Level 2 represents partial mastery of the knowledge and skills necessary for satisfactory work. Level 3 represents solid academic performance and readiness to move on to the next grade level, and Level 4 represents superior academic performance and academic achievement.)

7^th Grade SAT 10 2006 Performance Levels:

Project WIN is committed to improving the quality of students’ learning through high quality teachers and creating a climate of active teaching and learning. Our emphasis will be on our Language Arts, Reading, and Math content areas based on our School Improvement Plan (SIP) and the District Action Plan. Both plans call for UMS to to reach the 50^th percentile by the end of SY 2008-2009.

Faculty Make-up

For school year 2006-200, UMS experienced a huge turnover rate of teachers. Our of eighty-nine faculty positions, we lost twenty-one or twenty-four percent of our faculty for the start of 2006 school year. A majority left to teach high school, two retired, two left for another government agency. Only one transferred to another middle school. Currently, the twenty-one new teachers are either limited term teachers or those with only one to two years of teaching experience. Therefore, the need for professional development is even more exacerbated by this high number of inexperienced faculty. Our current make-up of teachers lacking the full credentials and limited number of teaching experience demands that the school leadership team look for ways to offer increased professional development.

Initiative

President George Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 mandates that schools have highly qualified teachers in the classroom. By school year 2005-2006,

states must develop plans to show that their teachers are highly skilled in their core subject area. They must have measurable objectives, and show that teachers are meeting these annual goals. Schools that do not show adequate yearly progress (AYP) will be reorganized, with teachers being transferred to other schools or terminated. Parents may also transfer their children out of low performing schools to higher performing ones, and /or receive additional schooling such as tutoring or after-school programs

Guam’s own Children’s Adequate Public Education (CAPE), public law 28-45, also mandates that schools provide highly qualified teachers. The law states that every child is entitled to a minimum of fourteen high needs. The first of these fourteen points goes into effect by October 2007. These first two points deal with teachers and administrators. Schools must provide fully certified teachers and administrators, and if not provided, a student may sue the government for failing to fulfill this mandate.

Hence, Project WIN is vital for UMS to fulfill these two very important local and federal laws. Without additional training for our teachers, it will be faced with possible law suits and possibly be subject to closure and reorganization. Our teachers need the training outlined in this grant proposal to better quip themselves to meet the needs of individual students and withstand the current reforms in education.

Research and Best Practices

Numerous pedagogical organizations and notable educators advocate the use of learning communities to enhance student learning. One such organization, the National Staff Development Council (NSDC) states as one of its standards that staff development should be one that improves the learning of all students through professional learning communities where adults continuously work together in teams to to problem solve, experiment, and plan together. NSDC states that numerous groups of learning communities exist in the schools to work regularly for the purpose of improving student learning.

Another organization, the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) recognizes the importance of learning communities. It states in one of its basic principals for teacher certification that accomplished teachers are members of learning communities where they work with other professionals in providing input on instruction, curriculum development, assessment, and other aspect of their school goals.

The National Middle School Association (NMSA)clearly supports teaming, aka learning communities, as a vital component of a successful middle school. Because of the rapid growth of middle school students, ages eleven to fourteen, from their social, physical, and intellectual growth, middle school teachers must be prepared to meet the developmental challenges of their adolescent students. The concept of teaming and teachers collaborating are the essential components of student success in the middle school years

One of the nation’s leading educational proponents of learning communities in order for significant school improvement to take place is Richard DuFour. Author of Professional Learning Communities at Work, (1998) and numerous professional articles, DuFour was able to take a low performing school in Illinois to being the first school in the country to receive the U.S. DOE Excellence in Education award, not just once, but twice. He redirected the school by helping learning communities of teachers to focus on assisting students to achieve the established goals of the school’s standards. The team of teachers analyzed results and came up with possible strategies in assisting those students who were at risk of failure. They came up with action plans for all students. They worked collaboratively to ensure that all teachers were taking responsibility in ensuring that student performance was the ultimate focus. He advocates the shifting long time practice of schools’ focus on teacher output to student output. DuFour (May 2002) states it is more than just a play on words in shifting the focus to student outcomes. When this shift occurs, the school structure and climate proportionately shifts in substantial and meaningful direction.

Other notable educators, Robert Garmston, co-director of the institute for intelligent behavior, and Bruce Wellman, co-director of Pathways to Understanding, advocate also for student-centered schools where teachers collaborate in small learning communities to dialog and discuss strategies that foster student learning (Garmston and Wellman, 1998). According to these two authors, dialogue is when ideas are allowed to be shared without evaluation. An opinion is just that. Participants feel comfortable in sharing their thoughts on a topic without feeling like their ideas are being dissected by others. The concept of Suspension is essential in dialogue. Suspension is where participants make a conscious effort to listen to the speaker without making judgments, and listen with some objectivity to the speaker’s ideas. Suspension this form of communication builds collegiality among the group. The authors state that this form of communication also builds a sense of community and continuity among the group members.

The second form of communication, discussion, is more structured for intense scrutiny of data, weighing of options, and decision making that supports the group’s vision, values, and goals. Yet, it is still respectful of others’ ideas and opinion, and everyone’s input is valued and weighed. This form of communication utilizes more critical thinking skills to find solutions to problems( Garmston and Wellman, 1998)

Therefore, the process of effective communication in learning communities is quite structured. Teachers need to be taught how to have effective collegial dialogue. It requires much planning by the facilitator in getting the groups to understand the process so that deep and meaningful discussions can take place, without egos getting bruised, and collegiality to flourish in the school environment. In the end, though, with effective communication, teachers and schools can work on the issues facing their community and work together to find solutions to improve student learning (Conversations 2000, Turning Points).

The end result is that the professional learning communities come up with solutions to assisting students in achieving success. Turning Points schools have come to a realization that it is only through the collaboration and dialogue of various learning communities in the schools such as grade-level groups, content area groups, and study groups that they can improve teaching and student learning in their schools (Conversations 2000, Turning Points). The idea that teachers come together to talk collegially is important, but more importantly, how we talk is crucial in finding solutions (Garmston and Wellman, 1998).

DuFour’s marked success in improving student performance through the structuring of teams in his Illinois school, and the refocus on student outputs substantiates the fact that learning communities can increase student performance and has a positive effect on student achievement. Numerous research corroborates this same message over and over that the direction for schools to take is through professional learning communities in order for effective school reform to take place, and to improve student learning.

I. Project Design

Overall Outcomes

The overall outcome of Project WIN is to improve student learning and student achievement in the 7^th grade level in the areas of reading, math, and language arts as measured by the SAT-10. Project WIN has identified multiple goals to realize greater achievement through more effective teaching practices. It aims to improve professional conversations, looking collaboratively at student work, reflecting on standards and assessment, and developing new approaches to teaching, learning and promoting success for all 7^th grade students through professional learning communities.

As stated in our School Improvement Plan (SIP), by SY 2013-2014, 90% of our students in all grade levels will reach Levels 3 and 4 in reading, math, and language arts in the SAT 10. (Level 3 represents solid academic performance and readiness to move on to the next grade level, and Level 4 represents superior academic performance and academic achievement.) Thus, annually, UMS’s goal is to increase student performance in the SAT 10 in these content areas by the following percentages:

6^th grade: 8.6% for reading, 9.2% for math, 8.1% for language arts

7^th grade: 6.5% for reading, 8.2% for math, 6.2% for language arts

8^th grade: 6.5 for reading, 8.2% for math, 6.1% for language arts

With these benchmarks, UMS will meet its Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) of all grade levels and these content areas, and will achieve the 90% goal by SY 2013-2014. With Project WIN, student achievement in the 7^th grade level in the areas of reading, math, and language arts will be its focus in order achieve part of our SLIP goals .

Project Goals and Objectives

Goal 1: Luis P. Untalan Middle School will implement the NSDC standard of learning communities in order to improve 7^th grade teacher skills in dialogue and discussion in order to increase 7^th grade student performance in reading, math, and L.A. by at least three percent. (Dialogue will involve teachers working in small groups to analyze data, discuss student progress, and work on lesson planning, and thus increasing student achievement based on learning community findings.)

Objective: to train 7^th grade teachers about learning communities in order to improve collegial dialogue and discussion, and identify members’ role and responsibilities as part of the learning community

Outcome: The creation of learning communities where 7^th grade teachers are in active dialogue and discussion focused on student achievement.

Measure: # of small learning communities created with increased skills in dialogue and discussion focused on student achievement.

# of UMS 7^th grade teachers who participate in learning communities. A description of the roles and responsibilities of the members of the learning communities

Goal 2: Learning communities will increase knowledge of using assessment results to drive instruction

Objective 1: to identify and prioritize the skills needed to be taught per quarter in the 7^th grade each the content areas of math, reading ,and language arts

Objective 2: to train 7^th grade teachers to analyze results of the SAT 10 assessment to drive instruction

Objective 3: to train 7^7h grade teachers in the use of reflective teaching

Outcomes: 1. Listing of skills to be taught per quarter for the content areas

involved,

2. Increased teacher knowledge in analyzing data,

3. Increased reflective teaching practices

Measure: # of SAT-10 skills identified and prioritized per quarter for each content area involved

# of learning communities that analyze results to drive instruction

# of 7^th grade teachers using reflective teaching strategies such as journal

writing other various data collection strategies to analyze results of assessment

and to drive instruction

Goal 3: UMS learning communities will implement the use of the assessment tools, such as the Benchmark Tracker, to do formative assessments of student learning and student performance in the 7^th grade level in the areas of reading, math, and language arts

Objective 1: to train 7^th grade teachers in the use of the assessment tools to do formative assessment,such as the Benchmark Tracker assessment software program

Objective 2: to train 7^th grade teachers how to create standardized rubrics for their content area

Outcomes: Creation of quarterly assessment tools that measure student achievement, and the creation of standardize rubrics per content area

Measure: # Standardized assessment tools created from Benchmark Tracker for

each content area for each quarter;

# of Standardized rubrics for assessing performance and learning in content

areas.

Description

Project Wildcats Increasing Networks (WIN) overall outcome is to improve student learning and achievement of 7^th graders through networking of the 7^th teachers and other members of the school community. This objective will ultimately be measured by the SAT-10 which is the Guam Public School System’s only standard form of measurement.

As identified in the School Improvement Plan, through Project WIN, Luis P. Untalan Middle School hopes to achieve yearly improvements of three percent of 7^th grade students in reading, math, and language arts on the SAT-10, and/or by the year 2014, with 90% of our students achieving levels 3 and 4 on this national standardize test. ( Level 3 represents solid academic performance and readiness to move on to the next grade level, and Level 4 represents superior academic performance and academic achievement.) The level of achievement is identified in the Guam Public School System’s measure of adequate yearly progress.

In order for UMS to achieve the goals set forth in Project WIN we need the training of our 7^th grade teachers. It will implement a series of rigorous staff development training blocks and follow ups to bring its teachers to a level of high proficiency in working in learning communities, aligning content standards and SAT-10 skills, creating effective assessment tools, learning research-based teaching strategies. Ultimately, Project WIN aims to influence student achievement by providing training opportunities to enhance teacher quality.

III. Management Plan

Project WIN’s management plan will strive to ensure that the goals and objectives will be carried out as set forth in the project’s design. It identifies the responsible persons involved in the project and what their respective roles and assignments are in the project’s daily implementation. The importance of this section cannot be stressed more strongly. As in any organization or plan, accountability is fundamental in the success of any project.

Project Administration

Luis P. Untalan Middle School’s student achievement committee will be responsible for overseeing the implementation of Project WIN. The committee is overseen by the school principal. The committee is composed of the curriculum assistant principal; grade-level content representatives in math, reading, and language arts, school guidance counselors, and one parent/ stakeholder volunteer. This committee was established as part of the school’s accreditation action plan.

The work plan in section IV will delineate the responsible persons for implementing the specific activities, benchmarks, and timelines to achieve the goals and objectives of Project WIN.

Project Implementation

One school guidance counselor (SGC) will hold the position as the Project Director, and his main responsibility will be to serve as the daily administrator of the project. The SGC will be the person responsible for the daily implementation of the project and will follow the project’s work plan to meet the goals and objectives of the project.

The SGC will be responsible for the monitoring and reporting of the project’s expenditures.

The SGC will be responsible for writing the quarterly and annual project’s evaluation in affecting student achievement.

The SGC will report directly to the student achievement committee.

IV. Work Plan

Goal 1 : Luis P. Untalan Middle School will implement the NSCD standard of learning communities in order to improve 7^th grade teacher skills in dialogue and discussion in order to increase 7^th grade student performance in reading, math, and L.A. by at least three percent of 7^th graders(Dialogue will involve teachers working in small groups to analyze data, discuss student progress, and work on lesson planning, and thus increasing student achievement based on learning community findings.)

Activities	Benchmarks	Timeline	Responsible Party
1. Awareness of learning communities: Participants will establish learning communities.	Number and composition of learning communities (Composition: to insure a cross section of the faculty is represented in each learning community)	Spring 2007	Project Director (School Guidance Counselor) Principal,
2. Train teachers on productive dialogue and discussion techniques for learning communities (LC).	Number of techniques implemented for dialogue and discussion.	Spring 2007	Project Director (School Guidance Counselor) Principal,
3. Identify the roles and responsibilities of member in the LC	Description of the LC roles and responsibilities	Spring 2007	Project Director (School Guidance Counselor) Principal,

Goal 2: Learning communities will increase knowledge of using assessment results to drive instruction and positively influence student achievement

Objective 1: to identify and prioritize the skills needed to be taught per quarter in the content areas

Objective 2: to train teachers to analyze results of the SAT 10 assessment to drive instruction

Objectvie 3: to train teachers in the use of reflective teaching

Activities	Benchmark	Timeline	Person Responsible
1. Teachers will identify and list GPSS content standards and performance indicators per grade level, per content area.	List of GPSS content standards and performance indicators per grade level, per content area.	On-going	Project Director (School Guidance Counselor) Principal
2. Teachers will receive training on how to analyze SAT-10 item analysis results for cohort group and previous group to determine skill priorities.	Priority list of skills to be taught.	Annually	Project Director (School Guidance Counselor) Principal,
3. Teachers will receive training on how to align the content standards and performance indicators with the SAT-10 item analysis	Alignment document	Annually	Project Director (School Guidance Counselor) Principal

Goal 3: UMS learning communities will implement the use of the standardized assessment tools to assess 7^th grade student learning and student achievement.

Objective 1: to train 7^th grade teachers in the use of formative assessment tools such as the the Benchmark Tracker assessment software program

Objective 2: to train teachers how to create standardized rubrics for their content area

Activity	Benchmark	Timeline	Person Responsible
1. Teachers will receive training in creating formative assessment tools such as the Benchmark Tracker software to create assessment tools.	Number of teachers proficient in creating formative assessment tools such as the Benchmark tracker	2007- 2008 ( or earlier if the software is made available to GPSS	Project Director (School Guidance Counselor) Principal
2. Teachers will create quarterly assessments using a softwar e program such as Benchmark Tracker.	Number of weekly/ quarterly tests created using software program such as Benchmark tracker.	2007- 2008 ( or earlier if the software is made available to GPSS	Project Director (School Guidance Counselor) Principal
3. Teachers will receive training on how to create standardized rubrics to better measure student achievement	Number of teachers proficient in rubric development, use and analysis	2007- 2008	Project Director (School Guidance Counselor) Principal
4. Teachers will create uniform rubrics for the content areas in each grade level.	Rubric for each content area and grade level.	2007- 2008	Project Director (School Guidance Counselor) Principal

V. Evaluation Plan

Project WIN will include both formative and summative evaluations. The formative evaluation will assess the effectiveness of the project at specific time periods as reflected throughout the work plan. Formative evaluation of Project WIN will take a comprehensive look at the implementation of training, learning communities and other goals aiming toward improving teacher performance and student achievement and establish to what degree the goals are being achieved and what accommodations may be required to meet the projects needs. The aim of the formative evaluation will be to determine the effectiveness and development of the programs, and activities implemented with Project WIN.

The summative evaluation of Project WIN will be documented using qualitative and quantitative data. The summative evaluation will determine the final and overall outcome of Project WIN, using collected data in the form of student achievement scores, surveys, teacher participation, and other reports such as teacher lesson plans and student work to quantify and qualify the effectiveness of Project WIN.

A prorated stipend will be given to teachers who attended training sessions and who provide documented use of techniques and strategies learned in training sessions.

Goal 1: Luis P. Untalan Middle School will implement the NSDC standard of learning communities in order to improve teacher skills in dialogue and discussion

Evaluation Questions	Criteria	Data Collection and Data Analysis Methods	End Date
Did LPUMS establish awareness of and implementation of the NSCD standard of learning communities?	Number and composition of learning communities (Composition: to insure a cross section of the faculty is represented in each learning community)	Learning community documents i.e., agenda, sign-in sheet, ground rules,feedback/evaluation of training.presentation slides, etc.	Continuous
Were teachers trained on productive dialogue and discussion techniques?	Number of techniques implemented for dialogue and discussion.	Learning community documents i.e., agenda, sign-in sheet, ground rules,feedback/evaluation of training.presentation slides, etc.	May 2008
Were the roles and responsibilities of the members of the learning communities identified?	Delineation and understanding of each learning communities’ members roles and responsibilities	Survey	June 2007
Has student achievement improved through the implementation of the NSDC standard of learning communities?	Skills assessment SAT 10 results	% of students passing skills assessment criteria of 85%; % of students improving in reading, math, and language arts	Each quarter for the skills assessment; Aug. 2007 SAT 10 2008 results

Goal 2: Learning communities will increase knowledge in using assessment results to drive instruction

Evaluation Questions	Criteria	Data Collection and Data Analysis Methods	End Date
Did teachers identify and prioritize the skills needed to be taught per quarter in each content area?	List of skills per grade level, per content area.	Content standards, performance indicators per grade level and content area	Spring 2008
Did teachers analyze SAT-10 item analysis results for cohort group and previous group to determine skill priorities?	Identification of priority list of skills to be taught based on SAT 10 performance history (from previous year)	SAT-10 item analysis report by group (grade level and subject)	Spring 2008
Did teachers align the content standards and performance indicators with the SAT-10 item analysis.	Aligned curriculum	Alignment documents (content standards, performance indicators and SAT 10 analysis reports)	Spring 2008
Did teachers create priority skills assessment checklist for each quarter?	Quarterly skills assessment checklist.	SAT 10 item analysis reports	Spring 2008
Has student learning improved with the Learning Communities’ work in aligning content standards, analyzing Sat-10 data, and creating weeky/quarterly skills assessments based on this analysis?	Weekly formative tools, and Quarterly skills assessment; SAT 10 results	% of students passing skills assessment criteria of 85%; % of students improving in reading, math, and language arts	Each quarter for the skills assessment; Aug. 2007 SAT 10 results
Did teachers use reflective teaching strategies to assess their teaching performance and student learning in the classroom	Weekly journal writing Bi weekly peer observatons	Documents such as video tapes, journal notes, peer observation forms	Spring 2008

Goal 3: UMS learning communities will implement the use of the standardized assessment tools to assess student learning and improve student achievement.

Were teachers trained in software program such as Benchmark tracker software to create assessment tools?	Number of teachers proficient in creating formative assessments using software program such as Benchmark Tracker	Assessment tools developed by teachers with the use of Benchmark tracker	May – August 2007
Did teachers create weekly/quarterly tests using software program, i.e.,Benchmark Tracker?	Number of weekly/ quarterly formative tests created using software program, i.e., Benchmark tracker.	Assessment tools developed by teachers with the use of software, i.e., Benchmark Tracker	2007- 2008
Did teachers receive training on how to create standardized rubrics to better measure student achievement?	Number of teachers proficient in rubric development, use and analysis	Training documents i.e., agenda, attendance records, handouts.	2007- 2008
Did teachers create uniform rubrics for each content area in each grade level?	# of standardized rubrics for assessing performance and learning in all content areas;	Types of rubrics created and surveys on how they improved student performance	2007- 2008
Did the training and use of standardize tools improve student achievement?	Quarterly skills assessment; SAT 10 results	% of students passing skills assessment criteria of 85%; % of students improving in reading, math, and language arts	2007- 2008

VI. Budget: $9279.72

OBJECT CATEGORY	FUNDS REQUESTED	JUSTIFICATION
A. Contractual Services	$3000	To pay for fees and per diem for presenter(s) at staff development training. Workshops provided by presenters will help teachers achieve the goals in Project WIN by helping them to understand and develop skills in establishing learning communities, participating in dialogue and discussion, analyzing data, and learning best practices to making effective changes to realize student achievement.
B. Supplies and materials	$359.72	For general office supplies (binders, copier paper, CD-Rs, sheet protectors, etc…) to organize and store documents and staff development information from presenter(s)in order for teachers to collect data and use for making decisions in improving student achievement
C. Equipment	$900 .	To purchase flash drives for all teachers to store large amount of data needed to analyze SAT10 documents and create and store quarterly skills assessment data in order to report student achievement
D. Stipend	$4920.	To pay teachers for attending training sessions and implementing strategies in their learning communities and classroom.
TOTAL	$9279.72

VI. Reporting/Dissemination

As required by Hatsa, we will have quarterly reports and one annual report on our Project WIN grant. The dissemination of our progress of goals will be done through our two staff development days. Also, parents and other communities members will be apprised of our progress at the school’s annual open house.

In addition, an executive summary highlighting the results of the project shall be disseminated to the school community through the Parent Teacher Organization.