SCHOOL INFORMATION

1.

Provide a brief description of your school, unique programs and community.  Include total enrollment and demographics (number and percentage of low income, bilingual, and migrant students. 

Lincoln Elementary consists of general education classes along with two lifeskills classrooms and one autism classroom.  As of September 7, 2006, Lincoln Elementary had 426 students enrolled in grades K-5.  This number includes 23% minority students and approximately 33% low income students. 

Within the next year our goal is to continue transforming Lincoln into a higher achieving school in which teachers integrate technology to improve student learning.  The focus will be in the three specific areas of literacy, math, and customer focus. 

Currently Lincoln Elementary is in its fifth year of Open Court Reading.  This series is very compatible with CORE reading information.  Lincoln dedicates two uninterrupted hours per day to reading instruction.  The building reading program is also supported by additional interventions for at-risk readers.  These interventions include the district reading program, additional para-educator time, resource room, and a recess reading program.  This year Step-Up to Writing has been adopted and is being implemented K-5.  This is integrated into Open Court Reading.  We expect this to show improvement in our WASL writing scores. 

Lincoln is in its second year of implementing Everyday Mathematics in grades K-5.  This challenging curriculum has increased our functional level test scores for the 2004-2005 school year.  We continue to expect increasing scores on both the MAP and WASL tests. 

The school climate will support students at all educational levels both socially and academically.  The Lincoln staff has been trained and is using Love and Logic as a means of discipline and encouragement.  Lincoln educators are also working on character development using Character Counts, focusing on one character trait each month.  In addition to meeting current state and district assessment standards, Lincoln has set specific student achievement goals.  It is our intent that 90% of all students will achieve the established Kennewick School District MAP scores for reading and math.   The Lincoln staff believes these goals will also apply to the WASL, grades 3-5.

2.

Summarize the results of the following:

a.

Staff Surveys

Using the current results from the Harris Survey, the overall satisfaction of the staff was rated at 9.2 out of 9.3.  Student and parent results were equally impressive.

b.

Family and Community Involvement

Using information from surveys, improved communication with our customers will be a goal for Lincoln Elementary.

3.

Strengths:

1)  Our staff teaches building wide curricula in reading, math and writing, as they are intended to be taught.

2)  We teach the standards on which we are assessed (EALRs/GLEs, WASL)

3)  Our staff works as a cohesive unit with monthly curriculum team planning, along with weekly team planning.

4)  All curriculum taught is research based.

5)  Our staff holds themselves personally accountable for all students to succeed.

6)  Our staff focuses on the purpose of educating students and follows the practices of highly achiveing schools.

Weaknesses:

1)  Lincoln needs to continue to focus on teaching the adopted curriculums to the fullest extent. 

2)  Lincoln struggles to find time in the day to remediate 4-5 grade students reading below grade level.

3)  Lincoln struggles to find time for math interventions for at-risk students.

4)  Providing effective interventions and accomodations for special needs students in both the general education and lifeskills/autism classroom is becoming more difficult due to the number of students who need these accomodations.

5)  The Lincoln staff uses technology to the fullest extent.  One concern would be maintaining the equipment and the technological skills of the staff.

4.

Professional Development

1)  Training in Step-Up to Writing

2)  Re-training on Open Court Reading

3)  One staff meeting per month will be dedicated to staff development to be identified by staff.  Current topics include incorporating AR into Open Court Reading, establishing a school wide at-home reading program, parent communciation, PERR, and reflective questioning. 

5.

Curriculum and Instruction

Needs identified:

1)  To improve our assessment scores in all areas

2)  To improved teacher effectiveness in the classroom

3)  To improved consistent teacher assessments (STAR, Morrison-McCall, etc.) throughout the school

6.

Clarify Needs and Research Proven Effective Strategies

The solutions to our challenges are within our staff.  The first need is to coninue to implement and instruct our students using the Open Court Reading series.  We have proven results in reading success from our WASL and functional level scores using this program.  We will continue to improve our reading instruction by implementing WASL stem questions that relate to Open Court stories at all grade levels.  The second need is to improve math instruction.  We are in the second year of Everyday Mathematics (a nationally researched program).  We realize the need to fine-tune this curriculum to utilize all of its strengths.  The third need is to implement our Step-Up to Writing curriculum on a school-wide basis.  We will continue to work on improving teachers' instruction based on purpose, engagement, rigor, and results (PERR).