Running head: SCHOOL ASSESSMENT

Leah Maynez
School Assessment
Arizona State University
PPE 310 - 18965
February 7, 2016
Dr. Lineberry

SCHOOL ASSESSMENT

Assessment

Assess Your School

Assessment Results
Overall Grade: F

During School: 60%

Keep going! You're already well on your way to an Active & Healthy Schools environment. Get
teachers and staff involved, perhaps introduce some additional activities, and you'll be looking
great!

Curriculum: 60%
Looking good in some key areas. Keep up the great work!

Recess / Lunch: 50%

Room for improvement. Help students get more out of your recess and lunch programs by
providing additional information and resources, or by rescheduling recess time for after lunch.

After School: 40%

Room for improvement. Use Active & Healthy communications (such as a newsletter) to encourage
AHS fundamentals and have a significant impact on students' activity choices.

According to the School Assessment Tool, the school I am currently student teaching at,
Shepherd Junior High School, received an F as their overall grade of being an Active &
Healthy school. Most strengths are during school and within the school curriculum. One
strength is that healthy snacks are available to students. While the second strength is that healthy
lunches are offered to students. From what I am aware of, students can only purchase water from

SCHOOL ASSESSMENT
vending machines. The lunch menu includes different lunch specials everyday along with daily
sandwich combos, subs, salads, fruit and veggie choices, as well as vegetarian food items.
However, there is a lot of room for improvement in my school. Two categories of
weakness are recess/lunch and after school. Specifically, two weaknesses are that there is no
social support program that promotes physical activity after school and that no type of
communication is sent home to promote physical activity amongst families.
A suggestion to improve the policies placed at my school, which was provided by the
School Assessment Tool, is to use Active & Healthy communications, such as a newsletter, to
encourage . . . and have a significant impact on students' activity choices (Gopher, n.d.). From
what I have observed, students do not receive any kind of newsletter to take home with them. I
believe it would be very beneficial to incorporate a very simple monthly tri-fold newsletter to
send home with students. The newsletter could discuss upcoming events as well as include a
section discussing healthy eating habits and physical activities to do as a family. I believe by
sending home newsletters will not only promote healthy lifestyle habits amongst students and
their families, but also strengthen the family and community relationship and involvement with
the school.
An example of a social program listed by the School Assessment Tool was Walking
Buddies. Walking Buddies is a social program that encourages students to choose an active
transportation such as walking, riding a bike, or skateboarding to and from school or other
events with a friend (Walking Buddies, n.d.). The program involves students, parents, and
teachers. An adult has to witness and sign off students walking buddies log sheet and after
certain amount of points students turn in their log sheets to teachers for a reward (Walking
Buddies, n.d.). By incorporating this program, I believe students will become more motivated to

SCHOOL ASSESSMENT

be active. Discussion about this program and reminders could also be added to the monthly
newsletter to further promote physical activity amongst students and their families.
The after school category received the lowest score in the School Assessment Tool. I
believe I can use the results from the School Assessment Tool to support my reasoning in
incorporating newsletters and a social program to administration and teachers to engage in
promoting healthy behaviors outside of school. As stated before, by incorporating newsletters
and a social program, parents and students will become more engaged in promoting healthy
behaviors amongst their community.
My potential signature assignment topic is on physical activity and academic
performance in late childhood and adolescents. The information I obtained supports my
understanding that physical activity is not really promoted at my school. Therefore, anticipate
some type of physical activity incorporated in lesson may be new and unfamiliar for my students.
Overall, I gained insight on how I can support my school in becoming a more active and healthy
environment.
School Context
I am student teaching at Shepherd Junior High School in the Mesa Unified District.
Shepherd Junior High is a public school that enrolls students from grades 7 and 8 (Shepherd
Junior High School, n.d.). In 2014, there was a total of 718 students enrolled (Shepherd Junior
High School, n.d.). According to AZ Report Cards (n.d.), Shepherd Junior High School is a Title
1 school that received an A letter grade for the academic school year of 2013 2014.
In 2014, 41.8% of the total amount of students enrolled were on free/discounted lunch
(Shepherd Junior High School, n.d.). Although I could not find the average class size online,
according to School Digger (n.d.) there were a total of 39.5 full time teachers, which led to a

SCHOOL ASSESSMENT

student/teacher ratio of 18.1 in 2014. I also could not find the proportion of ELLs online;
however, according to my mentor teacher at Shepherd Junior High School, there is only 2 ELLs
in the entire school.
Shepherd Junior High School is in a suburban area in Mesa. In 2010, the ethnic makeup
of Shepherd Junior High School was 75.1% white, 4% African American, 15.6% Hispanic, 3.4%
Asian, 2% American Indian, 0% Pacific Islander, and 0% two or more races (Shepherd Junior
High School, n.d.). The ethnic makeup of the surrounding 85205 zip code area was 80.7% white,
2.2% African American, 13.2% Hispanic, 1.3% Asian, 0.8% American Indian, 0.2% Pacific
Islander, and 1.5% two or more race (Shepherd Junior High School, n.d.).
The following test score graphs were gathered from School Digger. There are two graphs
comparing AZ MERIT Test Scores between Shepherd Junior High School, the district, and the
state for the year 2015. Following is a graph of the AIM Science test scores for eighth grade
compared between Shepherd Junior High School, the district, and the state for the years between
2009 and 2015.

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E-Portfolio Link
http://leahmaynez.weebly.com/school-assessment.html

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8
References

AZ Report Cards. (n.d.). Retrieved February 5, 2016, from

https://www.azreportcards.org/ReportCard?school=4977&district=-1
Gopher. (n.d.). Retrieved February 05, 2016, from http://www.gophersport.com/resources/activehealthy-schools/
Shepherd Junior High School. (n.d.). Retrieved February 05, 2016, from
http://www.schooldigger.com/go/AZ/schools/0497001376/school.aspx
Walking Buddies. (n.d.). Retrieved February 07, 2016, from
http://shapeab.com/programsevents/walking-buddies/

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Criteria

Assessment

SCORE:

School
Context
/Writing
Style

SCORE:

Exemplary:

Proficient:

Unsatisfactory:

Points (5)

Points (3)

Points (1)

A minimum of 2 strengths
and 2 weaknesses were
described
Assessment was
completed online and
posted to your E-Portfolio
A direct link was placed
at the end of your
document to the
assignment in your EPortfolio
Suggestions to improve
school policies were
clearly stated
At least 2 suggestions to
engage stakeholders were
provided
School context contained
detailed information on
grade levels
% free/reduced lunch
enrollment,
proportion ELLs
average class size
urban/rural/suburban,
ethnic makeup
state test scores
AYP status
All of the following are
listed in the file document
name submitted
Lastname.firstname.assign
ment#.course#
This rubric was added to
the last page of the
document submitted
Your document was in
APA 6.0 format,
including cover page,

A minimum of 1 strength
and 1 weakness was
described
Suggestions to improve
school policies were
stated but lacked
sufficient detail
At least 1 suggestion to
engage stakeholders was
provided
Assessment was
completed online and not
in your E-Portfolio
A link was provided to
your E-Portfolio to this
assignment, however it
wasnt a direct link to this
assignment
School context contained
some detailed information
on
grade levels
% free/reduced lunch
enrollment,
proportion ELLs
average class size
urban/rural/suburban,
ethnic makeup
state test scores
AYP status
Most of the following are
listed in the file document
name submitted
Lastname.firstname.assign
ment#.course#
This rubric was added but
not at the end of the
document submitted
Document was in APA,
however errors were

Assessment was not

completed online or in
your E-Portfolio
No direct link was
provided to this
assignment in your
E-Portfolio
Strengths and
weaknesses were not,
or poorly described
Suggestions to improve
school policies were not
stated
No suggestions to
engage stakeholders
were provided
School context
contained
little detailed
information
on
grade levels
% free/reduced lunch
enrollment,
proportion ELLs
average class size
urban/rural/suburban,
ethnic makeup
state test scores
AYP status
Few of the following are
listed in the file
document
name submitted
Lastname.firstname.assi
gnment#.course#
This rubric was not
added

SCHOOL ASSESSMENT
body and reference
section with no errors

10
found in formatting of the
sections

to the document
submitted
APA was not used