2024-25 Priorities
Entering the second year of our Cruiser Professional Learning Community, we worked with the principals and assistant principals to focus on the work that will improve district performance. Each of the following points of emphasis support our district goals of raising academic performance and improving attendance.
Academic
- We must have significant academic gains this year. In the first year of building a PLC there often is no improvement because year one is more about getting an honest assessment about where you are and where you need to be than it is about changing what you do and how you do it. In year two we are making curricular and instructional improvements that will get us moving to where we need to be.
Last year we met four academic achievement goals and saw improvement in many areas.
The four achieved goals were in grade 3 ELA at Glendening Elementary and Grade 5 ELA at our Glendening, Groveport, and Madison buildings. See our academic goals at
GMS Academic Goals 24-25.pdf. We are following cohort improvement; on page 2 there is a helpful explanation about how to read the cohort performance results.
- All buildings of the same grade levels must collaborate throughout the year. All elementary buildings need to work with all elementary buildings. All middle school buildings need to work with all middle school buildings while involving the high school as much as possible. The principal teams and the Office of Teaching and Learning will encourage teachers to meet and have opportunities to work with the teachers in other buildings who teach the same grade level and content. Essentially working together as if they are in the same building, teachers who work together horizontally across the buildings will deliver consistently high-performing students to the next grade and next Groveport Madison building.
- Everyone must ensure on grade-level (and above grade-level) instruction and assessment, standards alignment, and rigor. High expectations and improved performance must be everyone’s intent.
- Improving our performance is a function of how we approach testing. Testing environments must reasonably prepare students for OSTs. Students need positive assessment practices in their classrooms and teachers who encourage them to do well on tests. Consistently promoting each test as an opportunity to do well is as important as giving students the knowledge and skills for the test. Strong teacher-student classroom relationships also promote positive attitudes about testing because students who like their teachers want to learn from them and want the teacher to be proud of them.
- Teachers must be greater than the technology. Teachers have special talents and abilities that far exceed technology. The tech tools help deliver the instruction but are never a substitute for teachers. Teachers make real connections and establish trust with students. Students who trust their teachers learn from them. How the teachers and students work together are at the heart of every successful classroom.
Attendance
- Students must come to school to learn from their teachers. Across the district we are improving our attendance and reducing our Chronic Absenteeism rate. Middle School North Principal Chris Mosure is the leader of our district Chronic Absenteeism Team and is beginning to work with Stay in the Game! Through a combination of changing practices and providing incentives, Stay in the Game! will help us design and immediately implement a plan to raise our attendance. Principal Mosure is building a team to design a plan and work with other districts that have dramatically improved their attendance. We are focusing on staff attendance, also. We work better together when we are together.
Classroom Visits
We're visiting every classroom in the district. Recently we've begun working with principals and assistant principals on a strategy to get them into classrooms more often so they can be more aware of great things that are happening and how to work with all teachers to help students learn. The 5X5 strategy has the principal going into at least five classrooms for five minutes each at least two days a week to identify what glows and where we can grow. Assistant principals go into five classrooms for five minutes each at least once a week. In all, the building principal teams should visit fifteen classes a week. The principal will share the glows and grows with the building teachers without using teacher names.
To begin the process, we will do the first round of 5X5s with the principal teams. Then we will continue the classroom visits. We have used the 5X5s to visit over one-hundred classrooms..
Field Trips
Field trips have not been eliminated. As we continually focus on learning, we're constantly trying to maximize our students' time with their teachers. Most of the time we need to ensure that we keep students and their teachers engaged in the classroom. Ensuring classroom learning with our teachers is vital to student success. Occasionally, though, there are worthwhile off-campus experiences that are aligned with classroom learning and can extend students' understanding of their teachers' instruction.
So how do we review possible field trips before approving them? We consider the following when reviewing field trip requests:
Are the field trip activities aligned with Ohio Learning Standards?
Will the field trip improve student learning and achievement?
Are the field trip activities and learning opportunities consistent among all district building with the same grade-levels?
Will the field trip interrupt state testing or occur during the preparation for state tests?
When a teacher is on a field trip with students, is there a significant negative impact on other students and classes that usually depend on the teacher each day?
English Learners
Expanding EL service to help high school students graduate. We recently needed to take a fresh, practical look at how we distribute our EL staff. In particular, we needed to address urgent credit deficiencies and state competency requirements among EL students at the high school. Without reworking our EL staffing to bolster our high school service, high school EL students would have overwhelming challenges to earning a high school diploma. We could not ignore how difficult it is to learn high school subject content when language is such a tremendous barrier to overcome. Without addressing the issue, the reality is that most GMHS EL students would be at-risk of not graduating high school. Our current EL structure at the high school has EL teachers both going into classes to support students and teaching classes devoted to English Learners.
Gifted Service
We're moving gifted services back to neighborhood schools. For several years K-8 gifted services have been delivered at Sedalia Elementary and Middle School North only. Students in other Groveport elementaries and middle schools whose families wanted gifted services for their gifted-identified children were transported by bus from their neighborhoods to the Sedalia or North buildings.
This year we are providing gifted service training to all district teachers so students can remain at their neighborhood schools to receive gifted services. Students who want to remain at Sedalia and North can continue there this year.