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Illinois School Board Journal
May - June 2001

'Blueprint for Success'
One district’s plan for school improvement

By Rob R. Hawkins

In an age of diminishing resources and increased accountability, student progress and school improvement cannot be left to chance.

That’s why Freeburg Community Consolidated School District 70 has developed a Blueprint for Success to ensure continued school improvement. This blueprint provides a structure to make certain the mission and vision of the district and its schools is achieved and that all stakeholders are involved.

CCSD 70 is a pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade district of just more than 900 students located 20 miles southeast of St. Louis, Missouri, in a growing residential area. The district has long enjoyed an excellent reputation and solid support from the community.

The district’s Blueprint for Success is an eight-pronged plan, monitored component by component throughout the year by administrators and the School Improvement Team.

The first component is the belief that all children can learn and all students must be taught! To accomplish that, districts must identify how children learn and then devise an instructional program to meet the needs of that student. It is important to recognize that children do not learn within a common timetable.

In order to ensure students are not left behind, the district has implemented an after-school tutoring program staffed by certified teachers. This is not a study hall. Individualized instruction is offered as needed and the program is available to all students at no cost.

While there is some cost to the district in hiring certified teachers to staff the room, the benefits are remarkable. The program is well attended and has been effective at reducing the number of retentions and students attending summer school because they have not met the promotion criteria.

The district also has created a transitional program for at-risk students: STARS (Successful Transition of At-Risk Students), designed to guide academically at-risk students to success without special education services.

Many students who struggle in class do not qualify for, or need, special education services. With intensive appropriate treatment and support, they are able to perform successfully in the standard program. Sometimes this involves reinforcement with phonics, or maybe a review or practice with math facts. Whatever is required is implemented with the goal of returning the child to the standard program as soon as possible.

Academic, social and behavior goals are written with each child to ensure success. Parents of STARS students must make a commitment to be involved in their child’s program at school. The program also has been used effectively to transition students from special education back to the standard program.

In order to realize meaningful school improvement, CCSD 70 also believes it is necessary to teach the "whole" child. It is imperative to offer activities in the fine arts and other areas. This has sometimes been a struggle. Like most public school districts, CCSD 70 has limited resources. Through careful planning and programming, the district has been able to offer foreign language as well as a hand bell choir, chorus, instrumental music and even performing arts in the curriculum.
The second component is the active exploration and implementation of new techniques and strategies. Some commercially distributed programs come backed with research to prove their effectiveness. The Accelerated Math Program, the Accelerated Reading Program and Reading Renaissance are examples of programs brought to the district as a result of the school improvement team reviewing new teaching strategies.

The district also recently built an outdoor learning laboratory as a result of a literature review on effective schools. Mounting evidence shows outdoor learning can increase achievement and teach students valuable skills. Building on a natural tendency for children to be attracted to nature, the district takes advantage of the outdoors as a learning laboratory. The Parent-Teacher Organization, as well as several individuals, helped the district build an outdoor classroom. The School Improvement Team delegated the planning and use of the classroom to several teacher volunteers who have provided meaningful lesson plans for other teachers to use.

A review of relevant literature also brought about the district’s looping program (where grades one and two stay with the same teacher for two years), a transition program to middle school and the introduction of foreign language into the middle school curriculum.

CCSD 70 also has used focus groups and action research to gather data and make more informed decisions about school improvement. As a result of data from student focus groups, several changes were made, including the introduction of peer mediations and aggression replacement training as well how the district communicates with parents and families.

The third component is the continuing effort to protect and expand instructional time. District administrators are asked to monitor instructional time on an ongoing basis. All requests for field trips, ceremonies, assemblies, etc., are evaluated to determine if the benefits students receive from those activities outweigh what they will lose in the classroom. Many activities provide meaningful experiences for boys and girls. Unfortunately, limited by instructional minutes in a day and days in a year, priorities must be established.

After careful examination, the district determined it could add instructional minutes by revising the schedule. Two hallway breaks were eliminated and the lunch break was reduced by a few minutes, picking up an additional 10 minutes in each school day. Over the course of 176 attendance days, this added more than 29 hours of instructional time in a school year!

For years, CCSD 70 dismissed students who did not ride a bus 10 minutes earlier than bus-riding students. This was done to reduce congestion in front of the building at dismissal time and to allow students walking home a head start. By constructing a staging area for the buses behind the building, the district was able to dismiss all students at the same time, picking up 10 additional minutes of instructional time, resulting in another 29 hours of instructional time over the course of a school year.

This component points out how crucial it is to review procedures and programs annually to determine if they meet the needs of today’s students.

In meeting those needs, the district also has long operated a before- and after-school childcare program. The building is open from 6 a.m. until 6 p.m. While this program is tuition-based, accommodations are made
for those who cannot afford the program.

An instructional component was added to the after-school childcare program that includes homework assistance and alcohol, tobacco and other drug prevention instruction. This gave the district an opportunity to expand the school day for another group of students and provide meaningful instruction.

Component four is extensive, meaningful parent and community involvement. Evidence indicates that students with parents who are actively involved in their education perform better in school. In order to accomplish this, CCSD 70 stresses parent involvement at every grade level.

Parents must be given an opportunity or avenue to become involved in their child’s school. Many parents participate in the volunteer program. From 900 students in the district, the district counts well more than 200 parents who volunteer in the school on a regular basis. Other parents choose to participate in the Parent-Teacher Organization. Over the past three years, the Parent-Teacher Organization has contributed $70,000 worth of technology and classroom enhancement materials and support.

CCSD 70 also has a community-mentoring program that allows community members to donate one hour a week to an at-risk child in the district. The program has grown every year and now has more than 25 adult mentors. Many more are needed. A high school mentoring program was begun last year, partnering with Freeburg High School District 77 to match senior students with CCSD 70 students for a semester. This has proven to be a valuable tool for both high school and elementary students.

Finally, the district promotes positive communication between the school and community, as well as between the school and home. Besides the notes that go home from classroom teachers, a Principal’s Newsletter is sent home with all elementary students every Friday, as well as various other newsletters and notes to keep the community and families abreast of what is going on at the school. The Board of Education receives a weekly update regarding events, issues and activities of the school district.

The fifth prong of the plan is to have administrators who are accessible and visible in the community and the school. When the building level administrators see a child in the hallway, they are most certain to call that child by name. The administrators are at the doorways to the school each morning, greeting students, parents and staff.

Building level administrators are community as well as school leaders, each involved in some capacity. CCSD 70 is represented in the Rotary and Optimist clubs as well as the local Chamber of Commerce. It is imperative that community members be able to put a face with a voice and develop relationships with school leaders, whether or not they have children in the schools. These are the people who help define the reputation of a school in the community.

Finally, administrators must be accessible to parents, teachers and students. Administrators adhere to a 24-hour rule with regard to responding to communication. Sometimes the situation needs more time before an issue can be resolved, but certainly some return communication can occur within 24 hours.

Component six is to accept responsibility to educate the boys and girls of the community and to be held accountable for progress. For several years the district has posted data from the Illinois School Report Card on its Web site. This has allowed not only the community but the world to review performance as a school district.

The district also surveys parents and teachers annually and uses data from those surveys to plan for improvement. The core questions on both surveys remain the same from year to year to measure progress and identify areas of concern. Data from the surveys is made public and is open for review and discussion.

The seventh component of CCSD 70’s plan is to make thoughtful decisions, based on review of
literature and local data when allocating staff development money. Most schools have limited funds available for the professional development of staff. It is crucial then to make certain that those resources are used wisely.

Staff development opportunities tied to local School Improvement Goals or aligning the curriculum to the Illinois State Learning Standards are given priority for staff development money. Building level administrators and the School Improvement Team should be empowered with the authority to use the professional development resources to help achieve the School Improvement Plan goals and the State Goals for Learning.

The final prong of the Blueprint for Success is to celebrate school history. A display in the lobby recognizes an Honor Roll for all teachers who have ever worked for CCSD 70 and their years of service. The district also has a small museum in the main lobby that houses district pictures and artifacts. In order to know where the district wants to go in the future, it must first celebrate where it has been and pay tribute to the students, teachers and parents who got it there!

Like any worthwhile endeavor, planning must occur to ensure success. This Blueprint for Success has been found to be an effective roadmap to follow for school improvement.