Culture of Continuous Improvement
Haltom High School

Haltom High School is to be commended for their efforts in the continuous improvement of their school. Teachers at Haltom High School in the Birdville ISD feel more involved in the process of change as they are part of several focus groups with a voice in what happens at Haltom High School. Results from the 2010 HSTW Assessment indicated that 51 percent of the teachers felt Haltom had an intensive emphasis on continuous improvement, up from 27 percent in 2008. Seventy (70) percent of the teachers reported that “they strongly agree that the goals and priorities for their school are clear,” and 66 percent reported “they strongly agree that teachers and school administrators work as a team to improve student achievement at their school.” Further evidence of faculty fulfillment is the decreasing turnover of teachers each year—16 new teachers this school year compared to 50 new teachers in 2007—which, according to one teacher, “expresses happiness in leadership and expresses commitment to our students.” Another change is that teachers now lead professional development activities during faculty meetings and campus staff development days.

High Expectations
Booker T. Washington High School

Booker T. Washington High School and the School for Careers in Engineering has a proud tradition of producing capable and successful citizens and workers.  The school has accepted the challenge of raising expectations for all students, so that all students receive the same depth of learning as the engineering students do.  To make this happen, the teachers are practicing the use of higher level questioning, tuning protocols to boost rigor of assignments, strategies for boosting student engagement (such as smart stations), and interdisciplinary collaboration with peers through focus teams.  Administrators are sharpening their protocols for walkthroughs to provide formative feedback for improvement of instruction.  This campus deserves recognition for its commitment to ongoing improvement through high expectations for all.

Teachers Working Together
Port Arthur Memorial High School

Memorial High School has undergone many changes in the past two years.  Converting to block scheduling, moving to a new building, instituting a freshman academy, creating a unique ten-period schedule, and merging the career technical campus onto the main campus. The freshman teacher and campus leaders collaborated to develop rigorous and relevant interdisciplinary projects, hold effective team-parent meetings, involve parents, recognize student progress, infuse literacy into all lessons, and analyze data together.  Next year, the sophomore academy will continue to support the cohort of students, while the incoming freshmen will receive even more specialized attention.
Another group of leaders worked together was CTE. Team meetings, starting in the summer and continuing throughout the school year, became the hubs of the wheels of progress.  Documented action plans, data, and student work have provided evidence that “Together Everyone Achieves More.”  These two teams have already set plans in motion for the 2011-12 school year and beyond.

Students Actively Engaged
Paducah ISD

The entire staff at Paducah Independent School District—under the leadership of Mr. Tra Hall, principal—has worked throughout the year to intentionally increase student engagement across all departments and grade levels. Teachers have implement ted a variety of methods to actively engage students, specifically in the area of technology. This year, the school implemented a 1:1 laptop initiative for all students in grades 7-12 and since that time, teachers have designed lessons requiring students to take more ownership of their learning. Students are spending more time researching, presenting, and creating as a result of efforts on the part of staff members. As part of the school’s focus on using technology to increase student engagement, many teachers at Paducah have used resources such as Twitter and Diigo to find new resources for teaching and learning in all curriculum areas.

Extra Help
El Paso Irvin High School

El Paso Irvin High School created a Freshmen Academy (Rocket Academy) beginning in January of this school year. The academy consists of three interdisciplinary teams with each team having a common planning period every other day on an A/B block schedule. Each team has set as a priority of having every student reach mastery in each class by requiring students to complete all work and attend mandatory extra help sessions either at lunch, after school or on Saturday. Teachers meet with the freshman administrator and counselor to discuss the needs of students and develop ways to help each and every student to succeed.

Academic Studies
Socorro High School

The Project Based Learning team from Socorro high school worked effectively as a team throughout the spring semester to develop high quality projects and support one another in the process.  They met on a regular basis and provided each other feedback and support in a true example of a professional learning community.  Warm and cool feedback was provided as they helped each other build high quality examples of inquiry based projects.   The team also worked together to develop a presentation for the faculty on Project Based Learning in May and will lead a half day workshop in July for the entire faculty on effective Project Based Learning.  Their dedication will ensure Socorro students have increased opportunities for challenging work in all classrooms.   Members of the team were Lynn Cordova, Louis Foix, Victor Hernandez, Miguel Chavez, and Ohana De La Riva.

Programs of Study
Cypress Creek High School

This large urban school in Cypress Fairbanks ISD  has taken the initiative to make transformational instructional and structural changes to meet the needs of their diverse student population.  The staff used the Technical Assistance Visit (TAV) report as a tool for implementing change. CyCreek High took an integrated approach working with the District to make significant changes in their course framework as they identified their Academy structure and Programs of Study within each Academy.   They have engaged all faculty and staff in continuous improvement by placing them in focus teams.  An attitude prevails at CyCreek that all staff are responsible for identifying and addressing school improvement challenges.  An  energy of transformational change –change designed to enhance teaching and learning and improve student outcomes for ALL students- exist on the campus. 

Career/Technical Studies
South Grand Prairie High School

South Grand Prairie High School has a unique way of letting parents know about students choices for Programs of Studies one evening each winter. Based on the school mascot’s theme (Warriors), the school hosts a Tribal Showcase to inform parents and students of choices. Each cluster and/or program sets up a booth with information, student testimonies, student work, and other items of interest. Post-secondary partners have booths highlighting careers in various clusters. Counselors are available for individual questions. The college and career center is open where parents and students may use computer software to explore careers, salaries, employment outlook, and other career-related information to students. Student’s art work is displayed and the art department has a pottery demonstration. Small groups of talented student-musicians rove the school and perform for small groups of parents and students. Student council members serve as guides and parents grill hot dogs outdoors and provide other refreshments. The event increased parental participation in choosing a high school experience and attendance increased over 300 percent. 

Guidance
Burton High School

Burton High School developed a system of guidance and advisement grades seven through 12. All students are assigned to an adult mentor for six years. Students develop strategic , measurable, attainable,  realistic, and timely (SMART) goals each six weeks in the area of personal, career, and academic goals. Each six weeks students revise goals, and chart progress including charting progress of benchmark scores and adjust plans. At the end of the year, students choose next steps for their Program of Studies during advisement time and hold a student-led conference to inform parents of their decisions. Burton High School developed self-advocacy skills through this process. The superintendent stated, “Students don’t just make one goal and stop, they push themselves to the next level. We can see progress in all areas of their lives.” 

Teachers Working Together
La Villa Middle School

La Villa Middle School has done an outstanding job of creating a culture of teachers working together using student and school performance data to review and revise school and classroom practices. Six weeks benchmarks over taught curriculum are analyzed by administrators and teachers which guide teachers to plan new lessons based upon the results. LVMS has a flexible master schedule allowing for regrouping of students as needed for specific targeted instruction. Data analysis is firmly in place with TEKS checks, benchmarks, DMAC (a web-based tool for scoring and analyzing TEKS based assessments) notebooks with disaggregation and distribution charts for each student in every teacher’s classrooms. Ongoing discussions and planning sessions occur in PLC meetings where the teachers and principal keep a focus on student achievement and doing whatever it takes to move all students forward.

Quality Professional Development to Support Teachers
Truman Middle School

Truman Middle School has done an outstanding job of creating opportunities for quality job-embedded PD to support teachers to work together with their departments and core focus team chairs in professional learning communities to improve upon best practices in lesson planning, teaching and learning strategies. During PLC’s and other teacher meetings, Mr. Molinar, principal, and Mrs. Kostyniak, Literacy focus chair, helped TMS teachers to incorporate more reading and writing to learn strategies as well as more opportunities for students to have hands-on technology lessons. With an emphasis on language development for Truman’s ELL learners, the strategies emphasized were: Word Walls, Frayer Model, Journals, Cornell Notes, and Exit or Entrance slips. The word walls were student and teacher created with key vocabulary words, definitions, sentence examples, and graphics or pictures based on SIOP to help increase memory and brain based learning.

Aligned Academic Core
Mabank Junior High School

Mabank reached an Exemplary rating because they studied how to increase rigor in mathematics and science and focused on aligning the math and science core curriculum to add more challenge, acceleration, and appeal to students’ interests. They accomplished this by implementing the hands-on Connected Math Program (CMP) curriculum with multiple uses of manipulatives and cooperative group activities. The math and science departments adjusted their scope and sequence to better align to the new TEKS, TAKS, and College and Career Readiness standards. The math and science teachers designed unique and varied homework reviews and projects while displaying and demonstrating student made products. Examples of these motivational activities were the Math Super Bowl and the Science “mini- car” competitions on speed and distance. Writing across the curriculum literacy goals became integral to daily math and science as part of each math students’ CMP open response writing, while every science student writes every day in response to a science concept, warm-up, or experiment while creating science foldables for future studies.

Interventions for At-Risk Students
Watauga Middle School

Watauga Middle School has done an outstanding job of setting up, guiding, and maintaining interventions for at-risk students with their impressive school/parental/community involvement efforts and their MMGW focus teams. WMS’s High Expectations and Redo, Guidance and Advisory, and Transitions teams have led the way as well as their innovative Community Involvement Fund grant and their unique 21st Century before and after school program. WMS has instituted multiple before and after school student and community involvement classes, new parent involvement activities for incoming and outgoing parents, and a highly popular English class for parents who speak Spanish and wish to increase their English skills and better support their child with school work at home. In addition, High Expectations/Extra Help designed and instituted a unique Redo/ICU process while Numeracy/Leadership designed color-coded data progress charts where classes, departments, and grade levels post and graph growth in hallways, classrooms, and in the teacher’s lounge and workroom.

Use of Technology for Learning
North Ridge Middle School

By using technology and I-Pads to monitor progress on daily and weekly assignments and assessments, principal Steve Ellis and North Ridge Middle School (NRMS) has transformed their school in less than one year. NRMS designated specific administrators and "lifeguards" for each grade level with I-Pad monitoring procedures and processes, lunch redo-sessions, school-wide sweeps, and daily communication involving all teachers including the coaching staff. NRMS has shown impressive campus improvement each six weeks and a dramatic drop to their failure rate. They have experienced additional multiple positive effects on developing relationships, and together with the principals and teachers, changed each student’s outlook on school and achievement. Their best practice technology-based model aligns with doing traditional school practices differently based on a student data-based concept using “real time” student data to change learning outcomes. NRMS’s administrators’ provided daily follow-up and created a shared leadership culture by analyzing student assessments and assignments alongside their teachers while fostering a culture of continuous improvement in partnership with their students, teachers, and parents.

Engaging Classroom Practices
La Villa Middle School

La Villa Middle School has done an outstanding job of creating challenging academic content and real-world applications through monthly integrated Project Based Learning (PBL) assignments that all students and all departments participated in. La Villa has presented and shared their PBL approach to countless numbers of schools and teachers at regional, state, and national conferences. For example, the Math Based Integrated Learning projects produced by 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students were based on the Seven Wonders of the World and Mathematics Tessellations in the Real World. The rest of the district decided to join La Villa MS in creating monthly projects which culminated with a district wide show case of the top 3 projects in each category. All students, teachers, parents, and faculty were invited to this exciting event where students explained their projects and creations to the viewing public.

Continuous Improvement Through Strong Leadership
Dr. Darin Jolly, Mabank Junior High School

Dr. Jolly cordially hosted and conducted campus tours and made presentations so that our other MMGW Texas sites could visit Mabank as our first MMGW demonstration school in Texas. Through innovative and decisive leadership, Darin Jolly, principal of Mabank Junior High, explained to others how he redesigned the master schedule to provide multiple opportunities for students to get extra help and time to achieve grade level standards. Using Google-docs, Dr. Jolly and his staff designed multiple master schedules to provide the extra help through such options as the “re-do lunch bunch” (3 days a week), “brunch-before school tutorials” (5 days a week), and the “Encore period”. During Encore, the seventh and eighth grade teams rotate students in flexible groups based on TAKS benchmark results. The students are divided into three tiers and receive TEKS/TAKS intervention/re-teach time based on objectives mastered. All students benefited from this effort including those who were just points away from commended levels-so that proficient and advanced levels of rigor are covered helping to propel MJHS to Exemplary status for the first time in their school’s history.

Comprehensive System of Guidance & Advisement that Involves Parents
Landrum Middle School

If you want to see the old adage “it takes a village to raise a child” in action, visit Landrum Middle School. Parents, teachers, and community members truly have a unity of purpose when it comes to supporting the school’s vision to provide a quality, rigorous education for every child—every day. Starting at the sixth grade level, the Landrum staff works with students to develop a “college and career plan” to help students think about the future and make informed choices about their future. In addition, all eighth graders prepare a 5-year plan that helps pave the way for a smooth transition to high school. During their time at Landrum, students receive support from Landrum alumni, the Rotary Club, a Texas A&M organization, Texas Scholars, and other community groups who mentor, provide career information, share college experiences, fund scholarships, and sponsor college visits. In addition, the school offers a variety of parent engagement to learn about college requirements, the college application process, and college scholarships & funding. This year, approximately 150 parents will graduate from the PIQE “parent academy.” In short, Landrum is the epitome of a learning community working together to develop a college and career readiness culture for their children.

High Expectations and a System of Extra Help
La Vernia Junior High School

When La Vernia Jr. High School joined the MMGW family in October, they immediately embraced the concept of high expectations and extra help described in the book The Power of ICU. Within a matter of weeks, the LVJHS focus team created their own model of ICU –called Bear Watch, and quickly proved that “believing is seeing.” La Vernia JHS teachers, staff and administrators believe every student will make the effort to complete every assignment IF the teachers and staff provide extra time and additional support. They put this belief into action by organizing the “gift of time” (additional time to complete work each six weeks), Bear Lunch (a lunch time and advisory block), and Saturday School for any student who did not complete their work . Advisors, classroom teachers and administrators kept and monitored a list of all students (in Google Docs) who needed the extra help and support daily, and “lifeguards” (support staff) helped students “remember” they were missing assignments and escorted students to the extra help areas. Everywhere students went they were confronted with these questions: “Who do you owe?” What do you owe?” What do you need?” “What can I do to help?” It didn't take long before the extra effort began paying off. By the end of the first semester, 90% of 6th graders, 89% of 7th graders, and 93% of 8th graders completed every assignment! Based on the data, the staff made some adjustments, and they BELIEVE they will SEE even greater success by the end of the year. At LVJHS, it’s all about high expectations and extra help. 

Literacy Across the Curriculum
Jane A. Hambric Middle School

The staff at Jane A. Hambric School understands that literacy is the key to student achievement in all subject areas. Their literacy focus team has worked diligently to develop and implement a school-wide literacy plan. Not only have all staff members participated in the required professional development in this area, the teachers themselves have taken the lead in providing on-going, job-embedded training. Instructional coaches regularly plan with teachers and model literacy lessons in the classroom. Members of the literacy focus team provide support  and training in specific literacy strategies—like Cornell Notes, RAES, SEEP, the Frayer Model, and journaling; and all core areas practice these strategies in their classrooms. Instructional coaches conduct observations to monitor effective implementation of literacy strategies, and they provide feedback to teachers during reflection sessions held during team meetings. As a result of the staff’s dedication and collaboration, the students of Jane A. Hambric School are reading and writing in every classroom.

Two years ago, Mt. Pleasant Jr. High School began a transformation.  Through their membership in the Texas Making Middle Grades Network, the campus has received SREB coaching support and professional development resulting in the lowering of failure rates and an increase in student achievement.  Today, a campus that was once like thousands of others in the state, is unique.
I would like to share some comments of their students:
“at first I hated re-doing my work and I made a 25 on my first math benchmark, I started working harder and re-doing my work and on the next benchmark I made a 78”

“At other school, the teacher just accepted whatever I turned in but here they expect you to do your work.”
“A word of advice for incoming students, just do it right the first time.”
“at the junior high grades are not based on what a teacher thinks you should get, grades are based on what is in your brain”
According to the 2010 MMGW Survey results, Mount Pleasant Jr. High outperformed all