Heather McDonnell

ELED 4121
Dr. Eisner

1. Critical Elements and Data Sources
Most successful elementary schools, if not all schools, follow a School
Improvement Plan. Many of these plans are ideas and proposals that will help maximize
academic achievement in every school and leaner within. The fundamentals of these
School Improvement Plans build off of the previous years academic scores, give their
goals for the future before they move into the next school year. In order to implement a
plan that will benefit the school for the next year, the school align their aspirations with
how the State School Board and district will deem fit. Often included in these
improvement plans from the previous school year, is the end of grade assessment, whose
scores play the part of the major focal point of the schools plan. However, mission
statements, beliefs, and visions, and goals are stated within. These statements include
what they seem vital to empowering the students growth in knowledge, and what goals
they expect to be met.
2. Analysis
The School Improvement Plan for David Cox Road, seems to be very
complicated, however, it truly just holds much depth and detail for the strategies they
plan to implement the following year. According to the school improvement plan, David
Cox Road Elementary Schools vision for the following year is to make the elementary
school a safe and nurturing place in the community. The hope is to allow students to


master skills that will make them successful adults. Overall, parents and community
members are welcome to take part in the evolution of building the characters of the
future.
According to David Cox Roads SIP, with 876 students enrolled, the
demographics are as follows: 72.4% African-American Students, 11.5% Hispanic
students, 5.6% Multi-Racial students, 11.3% White students, 3.9% Asian students, and
6.5% of students are American Indian. Amongst all of these students, 67% of the students
are eligible for free or reduced lunch. According to David Cox Roads Assessment Data
Snapshot, 63% of the total students scored proficient on their EOG exams. Looking
deeper into the schools subcategories amongst race; 59.3% of African Americans, 54.5%
of Hispanic students, and 75.8% of White students were of those who scored proficient
on their End of Grade exams. Based on these percentages and scores, African Americans
did not meet the goals of the SIP in reading and math, the Hispanic percentage of
students did not meet the schools goal for EOGs in both math and reading, and the
percentage of White students met both targets in math and reading.
3. School Needs and Goals
In order for a School Improvement Plan to be implemented and successful, there
needs to be goals set in order for the school to flourish. Many of the goals are aimed
towards the growth in scores of end of grade assessments; however, they also include the
significance of parent and teacher involvement. An important goal for the David Cox K-5
students will be to increase MAP assessment scores by 70%, in Literacy; as well as to
increase students K-5 Map assessment scores by 70%, in Math. Another goal designed
for David Cox includes, improving school behavior and culture through the use of


Response to Instruction, with OSS decreasing by 10% compared to the last school year.
Currently, other types of strategies for improvement in David Cox Road include the
ICMM ( I Can Manage Myself Plan), which will develop and implement a school-wide
behavior plan which will include staff committee to manage and monitor students
involved. Also, David Cox Road implements a Bullying Prevention Plan, to ensure safety
and acceptance amongst all students. Besides in school behavior and educational
management, the school also includes many family orientated activities for members of
David Cox to come together to build a stronger community with events such as, family
movie night, parent workshops, as well as an onsite clothes closet and onsite food pantry
for the families that can use the extra help.
4. Professional Development
Throughout this very thorough SIP for David Cox Road, there are numerous
indications of where there is room for professional development. In order to increase
scores for the MAP assessments in literacy and math, teachers will utilize their TEAM
planning/PLC times to create quality literacy/math lessons; teachers will develop and
utilize frequent grade level literacy/math based common assessments that will monitor
learning; teachers will utilize a grade level FLEX model that will focus on differentiated
instruction based on the students mastery, monitor student progress more strategically
and make structured and meaningful lessons that are aligned to the Common Core
Standards. In order to develop and improve David Cox in terms of behavior and culture,
staff members will participate in a PILOT school to learn more about Response to
Instruction, the principal and CMM team will use planning times to monitor the
effectiveness of the ICMM student behavior plan. Also, a school-wide student behavior


plan will be enacted and monitored, and DC will implement a school store that will
require students to earn Dolphin Dollars for actions that went above and beyond.
Many staff members such as teachers and assistants will attend seminars, conventions, as
well as workshops that will introduce them to new teaching strategies for differentiated
learning and introduce other teaching techniques to use in the classroom.