Goals For School Improvement
All students will improve in Reading.
All students will improve in Writing and Language Arts.

School Activities To Which The External Team Was Requested To Direct Comments
The School's Instructional Activities
The School's Assessment Activities
The School's Communication Activities
The School's Overall Improvement Process

Improvement of Instruction
Be Rudloff
Kathy Muller

Summary/Review of Processes/Actions Taken:

The school has been involved with continuing staff development, implementation, and monitoring of HPL Strategies.

The school has completed K-12 Reading/Language Arts Assessments that are aligned with their Standards (Summer 2000)

The school provided Six-Trait Evaluator Training for teachers in February of 2001. Student papers were scored and evaluated in February and March of 2001. Language Arts Portfolios were established.

The school has been involved in continuing training and utilization of HAL (High Ability Learner) Plan to improve reading instruction

The school purchased Test-Mate Clarity from Terra Nova to help interpret achievement data for State reporting

The school is working toward tracking mastery of standards through Power-school.

Commendations On Accomplishments:

It is apparent that all involved parties within the Laurel School District really work very hard to provide the best possible education for students as well as work to improve instructional aspects of their entire program.

A variety of staff in-services have been held with the purpose of improving instruction. The school is to be highly commended for these efforts.

APL Instructional In-services appear to have been highly effective as the training has been positively accepted and implemented by staff and observed and evaluated by the administration.

AR Reading Data provides very strong documentation and support for staff regarding reading progress of students.

Plans are in place to evaluate curriculum annually.

Further Considerations:

1. Continue to conduct annual evaluations of your curriculum (as planned) and make appropriate changes as necessary and appropriate to meet the needs of your particular students.

2. Use all assessment results to guide instruction. It may be helpful for your Assessment Committee and Instructional Committee members to meet after test results are received to discuss results to be shared with all teachers. Some type of systematic process to achieve this should be established.

3. Areas of strength could be celebrated and plans made to address areas where improvement may be needed. In time, you may wish to consider using teacher-made tests to help measure student growth as these tests most closely match instruction.

4. Continue to develop writing portfolios including rubrics as student guides to writing, as well as for teacher/student evaluation purposes and guides to focus future instruction. Consider charting these writing results to ensure growth over time.

5. Continue to seek the input of staff volunteers as well as the Instructional Committee regarding your on-line lesson plan project.

Assessment Committee
Dr. Joe Reinert

Summary/Review Of Processes/Actions Taken:

The Action Plan for the Reading & Language Arts Assessment includes:
· Strategies
· Classroom Management Systems
· Norm-Referenced and Criterion Referenced Testing
· Reading Renaissance
· Six Trait Writing Program

Commendations On Accomplishments:

1. The strategies chosen (Classroom Management Systems, Norm-Referenced and Criterion- Referenced Testing, Reading Renaissance, Six-Trait Writing Program) to implement the "Reading and Language Arts Assessment Plan" fully cover the action plan.

2. The school district has a long-term vision that showcases assessment in its ongoing improvement process.

3. Only one action plan was chosen. This allows the school district to ooncentrate efforts in achieving this action plan.

4. The co-chairpersons for Assessment have been trained are very well versed in the process.

Further Considerations

1. Consider expanding the assessment beyond Norm Referenced Tests (NRT). Possibly a bank of Criterion Referenced Test (CRT) questions or Performance Based Assessments to cross- validate the NRTs which are currently being used. (I believe it is still the responsibility of the teacher the assess their students with CRTs and use NRTs as a check to see if the standard has been met.)

2. Great job by the Board, administration, teaching staff, and support staff. Keep up the good work.

Assessment Committee
Dave Hawkins

Commendations On Accomplishments:

1. The attitude towards school improvement is positive and productive. It is obvious that Laurel- Concord took the recommendations from our last visit seriously and worked to address these positively.

2. The school improvement process is a shared venture by the Board of Education, administration, staff, and community. Ownership in the success or failure of school improvement appears to be shared by all of the stakeholders.

3. The process is focused, but flexible enough to address issues as they arise. (Example: the steering committee had the ability to address school safety and develop a school safety plan and emergency packet.)

4. The underlying target of all school improvement effort is increased student achievement.

5. A program with multi-assessments is in place. The major purpose driving the assessment program is enhancement of student leaming through improved instruction.

Further Considerations

1. Using quartiles in the assessment process seems to work well when percentiles are used. When the switch is made to percent, the quartile process breaks down. The assessment committee may wish to revisit cut-scores that call for 25%, 50% and 75% to define quartiles.

2. The use of the CMS software program should be an improvement in the assessment of reading- speaking-listening standards as required by the state. To follow through and put the CMS program in place in the classrooms will enhance this piece of the assessment program.

3. The organization of the school's work into Instruction, Assessment, and Communication committees seems to be effective and productive. The success with on-line communication is outstanding. The work that is unfolding with the lesson plan project is also exceptional. Keep up your efforts and continue to provide release time to help staff manage the workload.

Communications Committee
Jesse Wolf

Summary/Review Of Processes/Actions Taken:

I have enjoyed my visits to Laurel-Concord School. It seems to me that they approach education and the problems that arise from a pragmatic point of view. They simply want to know what works and how they can all have a part or role in the way their school is run. It is always invigorating for me to see what they have accomplished since our last visit.

I am also impressed because I believe they believe in site-based decision-making. I do not believe this means they let anyone be a slacker when it comes to their education system. Yet, they also embrace the person(s) with vision. It has become a rather mutual admiration society. They are not afraid to expect a lot from everyone (administrators, teachers, students, parents, board or education members, or people of the community), and they dole out the praise and thanks whenever someone goes beyond the initial expectations.

They obviously have committed themselves to involving technology in their school improvement process. They have invested a lot of money and trained a lot of people to use the technology. Then they tie their school improvement process in to the increased use of that technology.

They put everything on their server and open it to public inspection. In fact, it goes beyond public inspection. They basically open it to worldwide inspection. This is really a healthy sign. They know what they want to achieve and they go after it. Then they are willing to accept viewing from both the inside and the outside, and (I suspect) they are willing to move forward if someone else has a better idea.

They are also not afraid to share their work with others. It is really a very unselfish approach to doing things. If it can be helpful to someone else, then so be it.

Commendations On Accomplishments

1. I had the opportunity to meet with the "Communication" committee chairs. They were very positive and wanted to be the best at communicating as possible. The baseline data they have collected seems reasonable and gives them some good insight into where they can go from here. Some of their indicators ranked a little low on surveys, but they were trying to deal with those concerns. It is a very open process.

2. Their approach is more of, "How can we solve these problems?" rather than, "How can we explain the low rankings?" They also take a, "Why not?" approach to suggestions for solving concerns rather than a defeatist attitude.

Further Considerations

1. The school needs to concentrate some efforts into dealing with the concerns expressed on their ratings of indicators, especially among the staff. I believe the committee is concerned about some of the lower rankings.

2. Apparently some staff members require additional information to get them on board with the processes. I do not believe this means falling into a lock step approach to educational reform.

3. The "Laurel System" seems to work very well for them. Being from a neighboring community, I know that the majority of their patrons are appreciative of what they have accomplished. The tie-ins and buy-ins with the com munity are very strong.

4. The next step from my perspective is to continue what they are doing. Keep seeking input from all members of the community and keep trying to bring everyone up to speed. Sometimes it's easy for the visionaries to get way out front, but you need to allow the regular members the opportunity to catch up. If there are people who have not bought into the approach, give them time to express their concerns and make suggestions for change. The school has come too far to let small matters bankrupt the whole system.

5. I want to commend the Laurel community, administrators, staff, patrons, and students for being such a good example of positive expectations. I think their system works for them because they try not to leave anyone out of the process. The school has been a good role model for many of the rest of us who operate under different visions of school improvement.

Communications Committee
Dr. Brad Conner

Summary/Review Of Processes/Actions Taken:

The Communication Co-Chairs provided an overview of the ACTION PLAN developed for improvement of school-community communication. Seven individual strategies were outlined in this Action Plan. Discussion with the Co-Chairs of this subcommittee focused on the areas of the School Homepage, Power-School software, parent access to school facilities and school information and communication channels among the school staff, administrators, board members and community members. A rating scale was also shared in which the school staff had conducted a self-rating of their progress toward achievement of the NCA goal in the area of Communication, using a 4-point matrix.

Commendations On Accomplishments

Scores on the rating scale were generally quite high, reflecting a high level of satisfaction with goal achievement among the staff. Comments from staff members, and other evidence of success shared with the NCA External Visitation Team during this visit consistently confirmed the high marks being represented on this self-rating scale. Numerous activities and procedures are in place to encourage open communication among all parties in the district and it appears that parents and staff are taking advantage of these opportunities to interact, express concerns, and ask pertinent questions about the academic progress of Laurel-Concord students.

Four areas on the rating scale reflected the possibilfty of a need to improve. -However, neither the external team members conducting the interview nor the two cochairpersons could pinpoint the reasons that these areas might have been rated lower than the others. Two areas seemed to deal with how the district was using data to accomplish its goal:

1.) Data Collection

2.) Analysis and Use of Profile Data.

It was suggested that further discussion with staff might be helpful to clarify why these areas were rated low. It is possible that staff and parent survey data may be examined more closely to determine if areas of weakness could be identified. Continued monitoring of the access and frequency of use of both Power School and the district's Homepage may also be helpful. It may be too early to collect enough data regarding parent and community use, but in time this data will become more valuable in confirming the use of these methods of communication. On first glance, it would appear that these communication methods are being received well by staff and parents. This needs to be confirmed. As data becomes more available, efforts need to focus on using this information to pinpoint areas where communication channels can be improved. Simply knowing the number of times parents are accessing the information is only the first step in determining how to make the communication system even better.

3.) Understanding of Process and Commitment

4.) Goal Selection and Rationale

Again, staff and reviewers were a bit puzzled as to why these were not rated higher. The cochairs indicated that some staff might still be confused about where the whole NCA School Improvement process is headed. However, when questioned about the district's leadership, ability of staff to accept the task, make a commitment and share in the vision, it became clear that these components were very strong. Staff were highly complimentary of the work of their superintendent and the leadership displayed by their administrators. They also expressed a belief that their school board was very supportive of the process, has been willing to allocate necessary funds and release time for staff training and is willing to take some risks in allowing their staff to determine the future directions for school improvement activities.

While the self-rating scores would suggest some continued areas needing improvement, the amount of effort and involvement among staff being shown by this district toward open communication is commendable. Staff comments seem to confirm a high level of trust and respect for the leadership being shown in the district and a commitment to keeping lines of communication open at all levels. Their goals to continue to increase parental access to student information support this level of trust and honest desire to work as a partner with parents to help their children improve.

Further Considerations

1. Overall, the steps being taken in the Action Plan to improve communication appear to be appropriate and seem to be right on schedule toward success. District staff should be commended for their efforts to open the doors of their school in nearly every way possible to their community.

2. Continued review and clarification to staff of the purpose and ultimate goal in mind for this Target Area may be helpful, as well as the path being forged to reach that goal.

3. As additional data becomes available to quantify the use of the communication methods being made available, this data should be carefully analyzed in order to more precisely target the needs of the community, staff, students and parents in keeping everyone on the same page toward success. Once done, it is quite likely that other areas of improvement will become a greater concern and both the school staff and community members can feel secure that a positive, effective system of mutual trust, respect and communication is in place.

School Improvement Process
Dr. Jack Gilsdorf

Summary/Review Of Processes/Actions Taken:

Brief History for the North Central Association Review: In the early to mid 1990's LaurelConcord was one of the first school districts in the State of Nebraska to engage in pursuit of the HPL (High-Performance Learning) designation that was then being promoted by the Department of Education. This three-sided model (an equilateral triangle) was focused on three dimensions of schooling: equity, quality learning, and accountability. Schools were encouraged to do a selfanalysis and to begin efforts on any side of the triangle on any issues of local concern, but to recognize that all three aspects needed to be considered in the planning and implementation of the school improvement process. The messages then given schools were that the process of school improvement was continuous, that schools could change their goals as they accomplished them by their own measures and their own judgments, and then schools could move on to other goals. External teams would validate the school's efforts through their periodic visitations. At that time Laurel-Concord chose to focus on three goals: improvement of staff relations, student management issues, and classroom management issues.

At the time of the last external team visit in April of 1999, the school had changed its goals to focus on improving instruction, development of an assessment system that would inform curricular and instructional decision-making, and immovement of staff-teacher-student communications. At this time the North Central Association was strongly encouraging schools to select at least one goal that focused on improvement of student performance. At the same time, the Department of Education was forecasting implementation of the STARS (School-based Teacher- led Assessment and Reporting System) Accountability System and encouraging school districts to adopt state standards, do curricular alignment with state standards, and to develop student assessments for both formative and surnmative purposes. The formative purpose was to guide curricular and instructional decision-making by teachers and principals throughout the year; the surnmative purpose was to provide documentation at least once a year to the local community and the state that student achievement was meeting state content standards and local achievement standards.

Despite these divergent external pressures and requirements (should schools focus school improvement activities on student outcomes or system improvement?) the leadership of the Laurel- Concord schools has maintained a consistent and steady course moving toward a most appropriate and long-range visionary goal: the development of an information "system" that will inform all decision-makers (students, teachers, parents, administrators, board of education, and community) of what each needs to know in a timely and appropriate manner so as to enhance the probability of the decisions they make based on that infon-nation being as efficacious as possible in bringing about improved school performance directed to enhanced student perfonnance. The goals articulated in 1999, however, remained 'hiput" goals as defined by the North Central Association school-improvement process or "management goals" as defined by the state accreditation process.

In the intervening years, the North Central Association has moved to requiring its schools to have at least one "student outcome" goal. Further, the Association is moving toward the time in the near future when its schools will be required to show improvement in at least one of two
areas:

1) either improvement in developing its capacities as measured pre and post by the Capacities Assessment Instrument

2) or improvement in actual student performance in some selected area.

In either case, the schools will be asked to demonstrate their improvement by providing "growth scores." The growth scores will be documented by showing "baseline" data at the onset or in the early phases of the school improvement cycle and comparing those "pre-intervention" scores with "summative" or end-of-cycle data on identical measures. This should provide schools with a means to evaluate the strength and success of the interventions or the changes teachers have made in what or how students have been taught.

Current Status of the School Improvement Process

For the current five-year (1999-2004) improvement cycle, the Laurel-Concord Schools have chosen new goals that meet the criteria of the North Central Association for school improvement goals. These goals are:

1. All students will improve in reading.

2. All students will improve in writing and language arts.

The school has also completed the following:

1. The school currently has base-line data on multiple measures in each of those two areas at multiple grade levels.

2. The school has trained its teachers in a variety of new instructional methods.

3. The school has purchased and put in place software packages that permit extensive documentation of student achievement throughout the year and timely feedback to students and teachers of what efforts are still needed to be successful.

4. The software program permits the school to track which daily lessons are aligned with which of the state standards, so time on task and identification of instructional strategies used can be linked with student achievement results.

5. Further, the information system permits teachers and parents to have daily communication on the performance of students and expectations for what needs to be done (e.g. homework assigm-nents) either via computer or telephone messages.

6. The information system in place is extensive and complete, and is even capable of monitoring how often it is utilized and by whom.

Commendations On Accomplishments

1. The school information system that has been developed and put into place is exemplary. It provides for "virtually" every element of the schooling process. It provides a framework for documentation of all that occurs. The author knows of numerous schools that have one or more of the elements of the Laurel-Concord system, but no other Nebraska school that currently has such a complete system. The schools' system provides a framework to support research, self-improvement of staff and students, documentation for legal issues that might arise, accountability to students, parents, the local community and the state. When it is fully implemented it should provide the structure to give feedback to teachers and students that can enable them both to improve their performances. Teachers should be able to teach better and students should be able to learn better.

2. A unified and integrated model of instructional practice has been put into place. Only time will tell to what extent all teachers will fully internalize and utilize these instructional methods and strategies. However, it gives the school a common vocabulary, sets common expectations, and provides the basis for systematic analysis of practice that can focus on improvement.

3. Providing support personnel both to input data for teachers and to facilitate communications among the various audiences is exemplary. It does not solve all the problems of this being a time-intensive process for teachers, but it helps. After the initial stages of development, with practice, both input and extraction of useful data should promise to be easier, but it will never be easy.

4. Both the administration and the Board of Education should be complemented for having a vision of what they could build and the tenacity to stick to their vision. This is exemplary leadership. None of this "systems" investment has a guarantee of direct payoff in terms of improved student achievement or improved teacher performance. However, once it is fully developed and implemented it promises to be a great support to teachers, students and parents in raising the capacity and improving the odds for improved performance of all students. It is a tribute to their belief in teachers and students that given the proper support they can be more productive and successful.

5. What is being built is also a tribute to the dedication and hard work of the LaurelConcord teachers and support staff. It is also a tribute to their courage and professional dedication to be willing to become more transparent and accountable to virtually everyone. Few schools would attempt what Laurel-Concord has begun. The school has become a model district for the rest of the state in demonstrating how it can work.

Further Considerations

1. Like a new and improved model airplane that still needs a talented and skillful pilot to get maximum results in terms of performance, the school information system presents only the possibility of higher performance. The school has built a "system" that can communicate among its many parts, quickly and effectively. However, if it is not utilized or under-utilized, or if it is utilized improperly, or if it results in miscommunication, it can ultimately be no more successful than untimely communication or no communication at all.

2. The school information system should be able to more clearly indicate where problems lie. However, by itself, the system can't tell the school where solutions lie. Teachers who have taught a unit, assessed student progress and received quick and timely feedback only to discover that some of the students have not learned appropriately will still need to discover how they can more effectively re-teach those students. Both the North Central Association and the State Department of Education are working on developing links to assist schools in finding effective alternatives to any unsuccessful current practice.

3. In general, the school appears to have internalized well the various phases of the NCA school improvement process, to have chosen an effective steering committee, to have established other appropriate standing committees, to have established the necessary timelines and assigned responsibilities, and to be well on its way to implementation of its plans. Now there is the continuing need to "stay the course."

4. The school is reminded that it is to have completed the NCA Capacities Assessment early during the current five year cycle and will be asked to complete it again prior to the visit by the External Team during the fifth or reporting year of the cycle. While it is a decision of the school as to who all is involved in completing the Capacities Assessment, it is generally recommended that in schools the size of Laurel-Concord all of the teachers should be involved and an average of their perceptions be entered as the school scores on each of the variables.

5. The school is reminded that the North Central State Committee has requested that schools complete their Report of Results by the fall of their fifth year (generally reporting student achievement data of the previous spring) and have the external team visit completed before Christmas in the fall of the fifth year and the report of the external team to the state offices by February I of that school year. This earlier schedule is required because the external team reports need to be reviewed by the State Committee in March of each year prior to taking them to Chicago for review by the Commission in April of that reporting year.

This may be perceived as speeding up the reporting cycle by many NCA schools that assumed they would be reporting to the Commission the "end of year student performance data" of the fifth year of the cycle. It really means that few schools will likely have had three whole years of implementation of any new interventions or strategies prior to completion of their first reporting cycle. Should schools be dissatisfied with their progress and their report of results as that time, they have the option to maintain the same goal or goals for the next cycle of school improvement.