Feedback and Analysis from Our Second Round of Conferences

At Riverside Elementary School, we are continuously looking for ways to assist our students so that they can increase the amount of ownership they take for their learning. As a result, this year, we restructured our parent-teacher conferences. No longer were we going to to keep our students out of the loop on conference night. We weren't going to continue leaving our students to wonder (or even worse, to worry) about what was being talked about with their teacher while he/she waited for mom and/or dad to return home.

So we made a shift to involve our students in their conferences. We invited all of our students to attend their conferences to give them an actual place at the table when talking about their education. Our parent-teacher conferences became student-involved conferences.

I solicited feedback after our first round of conferences (in September), which I shared with everyone via this blog on October 18, 2014. After conferences in February, I, again, solicited feedback on the structure of our conferences to see what (if anything) had changed after our second implementation.

Feedback comparison - data (link) from our student-involved conferences in the fall vs. in the winter

The preference for student-involved conferences increased slightly in the winter However, more students attended their conference in the fall vs. the winter. This led us to begin to brainstorm what we (at the school) could do to further encourage our students to attend their conferences. Some of our initial ideas include:

• Move the conferences back to Tuesday and Thursday evening - this is planned for Highland CSD's '15/'16 school calendar
  
• Offer child care service
  This was unsuccessfully attempted this year. Options to explore in the future would be to seek-out high school students in need of volunteer hours, and/or pay an associate for their time
  
• Do something with our students to build their excitement
  ie. Have students write and send an email or letter to their parents inviting them to their conference

There were two other issues that stood out from our feedback that will need to be addressed going forward:

• We have to communicate clearly with parents that if they are wanting to speak privately with the teacher then we are more than willing to set-up an additional separate meeting for that conversation to take place.
  
• We need to be more aware of scheduling conferences for families that have multiple students within our building. It is nearly impossible to schedule back-to-back(-to-back, etc.) conferences without everyone getting off schedule

And finally...

Above are a sampling of some of the comments that parents left re. our second attempt at student-involved conferences

Celebrating and Reflecting

As educators, too often, we fail to take the time to celebrate and reflect on what we've accomplished.

Recently, I was in Cedar Rapids for some professional development at the Grant Wood Area Education Agency with our building leadership team. We were attending our third session of their Leadership for Continuous Improvement series focused on Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS, also/formerly known as RtI or Response to Intervention). Our entire team walked away from this professional development feeling good after we were given the opportunity to look through some our student data and reflect on our progress.

As a result, I'd like to use this space to share a major celebration!

Accuracy scores are: 55, 67, 70, 83, 95
Fluency scores are: 48, 62, 58, 54, 67

A couple of things to note:

• Fluency refers to how many correct words students can read when given one-minute to read a passage
  
• Accuracy refers to how many errors students make when reading their one-minute passage
  
• Kindergarten and first grade scores are not included in the above data. The reason for that is because neither grade takes this test during all of the above listed testing periods.
  
• We had previously used DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) as our universal screening assessment to obtain this information; this year we switched and began to use FAST (Formative Assessment System for Teachers). There are subtle differences between the two assessments, but overall they are both very similar.

The successes that we've been able to achieve (shown above) have not been an accident. While attending our third session of the Leadership for Continuous Improvement MTSS series, we were able to reflect on some of the specific things that we've done, building-wide, that have led to these accomplishments.

Key Components of MTSS - highlighting some of what we've been able to implement:

Universal Screening

• For at least the past three years, we have used a universal screener with all of our students (K-5) in the area of reading. Each student is tested three times each year (fall, winter, and spring). Previously we used DIBELS and now this year we are using FAST to screen and collect data.

Evidence-based Curriculum & Instruction at Universal Level

• These are all of the different examples of instruction that our teachers are using with all of our students. This is their core or tier one instruction. Examples - guided reading groups, read alouds, shared readings, close readings, independent reading opportunities, think alouds, word study, vocabulary instruction, PALS (Peer Assisted Learning Strategies) instruction, teaching by following the gradual release of responsibility model (I do, we do, you do together, you do alone)

Evidence-based, Instructional Interventions at Targeted and Intensive Levels

• This is tier two instruction. These are things that not all of our students need to receive. This includes students working in small groups and/or one-on-one with a teacher. It includes our Flex teams where all of our students are shuffled and shared to get the extra support that they need. We have had a lot of success in this area, throughout our building, with using some of Sharon Walpole's materials. Currently, we have a small group of teachers learning about 95% Group (in hopes to share this information with all of our teachers so that any of our students that would benefit from this instruction would be able to receive it).

Progress Monitoring - are the interventions working?

• We progress monitor all students who are not proficient on their FAST universal screening assessment, weekly. The remainder of our students are progress monitored at least once a month. Personally, I think that one of the biggest reasons for our students' growth has been how we have had our students taking ownership for their progress monitoring. Each of our students has a data binder that they use to set goals and then chart their progress against those goals. I think that our student involved conferences (as well as the more informal and regular instructional conversations that our teachers have with our students) also help contribute to this sense of ownership that we are trying to ingrain into our students for setting and achieving their own personalized goals.

Data-based Decision Making

• This is something that our individual teachers do on a continual basis. As structured teams, we do this within our weekly grade-level Professional Learning Communities (that meet during our Wednesday professional development time) and during our monthly data team meetings. Furthermore, this is the grouping and regrouping of our Flex teams and providing teachers additional time to collaborate and plan within their Flex teams.  We have data walls displayed throughout our building, and we use data to help us decide whether to continue interventions, change interventions, or add interventions. It is also how we determine who qualifies for tier three instruction.

Poster showing all five of the MTSS components fitting together like a puzzle