- Data Overview
- Data Analysis
- Contributing Factors/Root Causes
- Next Steps
1. Data Overview
MSDE report card data is not available for our school program. In years past, the Pre-K Program and recently, the Head Start program, collected student outcome data through the Work Sampling system (WSS). This data was collected per the direction of the Early Childhood Education Office. Given its focus on literacy and mathematics, its performance oriented assessment, and its immediate availability to our staff, our teams made use of this data for the purpose of our own data analysis and goal setting. It provided overall proficiency levels and allowed an analysis of content areas. This past year, however, quantitative student data was collected in a different manner during the 2004-05 school year due to the fact that approximately half of our teachers are involved in a system-wide professional development initiative, Teachscape, and the student data collected was primarily for the purposes of research, and thus, was not made available for individual school use. Only one of our Pre-K classes collected the WSS data. All classes used report cards, though the Pre-K and Head Start programs do not use the same one. Due to the variance in data collection measures, our school devised "benchmark" assessments that were collected by all teachers at our school three times during the year. It included ten (10) indicators in the areas of literacy and mathematics. In addition, the Developmental Reading Assessment was used to assess youngsters who demonstrated beginning levels of reading at Level I or above. The Pre-K report card was used as corroborating evidence to confirm strengths and weakness, and provide additional information in the area of social and emotional development.
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2. Data Analysis
Our data analysis indicates that in the literacy area, our children met mastery levels (80%-95%) for Pre-K literacy indicators in the areas of Alphabet Recognition (ten or more letters), Beginning to Understand Book and Print, and writing their name legibly. Phonemic Awareness, as measured by Letter-Sound Match (ten or more letter-sounds), fell short of mastery levels (69%). In the area of mathematics 87.5% of our fours in Pre-K and Head Start mastered numeral recognition 0-5 and 63% of our children exceeded mastery at the Pre-K level, and mastered 0-10. Similarly, 93% of these same children mastered counting out objects to five and 86% mastered through 10. Recognition of shapes (4) fell shy of the 80% criteria, at 78.5%. Pre-K report card ratings for June 2005 were examined and suggest that fewer than 70% of the children were considered to be secure with exploring the sound of words; and recognizing numerals 1 to 10, corroborating the benchmark assessments discussed. In addition, the report card review found that fewer than 30% of the children were found to be secure with resolving conflicts appropriately. Forty-three of 110 Pre-K students, or 39%, demonstrated beginning levels of reading at Level I or above; 28% were assessed at Level 2, 19% at Level 3, 8% at Level 4, and 5% from Level 6-14. Kindergarten attendance did not meet standards this year. A review of absences found that the majority of these were due to illness. Pre-K and Head Start attendance also dropped this year, form 88% to 86.2%. Though extended illness and chronic health conditions were the primary reasons for this drop in attendance rate, regular school attendance will continue to be a focus for improvement.
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3. Contributing Factors/Root Causes
A visual inspection and analysis of our data finds similar performance levels among the two race subgroups (Black and Hispanic). Both subgroups include youngsters who are also ESOL, including both data of relative strengths as well as relative weaknesses. While language acquisition is certainly a factor impacting student achievement, parent involvement and chronic absenteeism both appear to be contributing factors to building or limiting a child's success in the Preschool environment.
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4. Next Steps
Administration and staff will continue and strengthen our efforts to involve parents in their child's preschool classroom and program, including innovations that will provide parents opportunities to observe student work, access parent-child activities and link to early childhood sites and resources. An Attendance committee will be formed which will convene monthly to examine student attendance and rectify chronic absenteeism. Teachers will prepare to implement the new preschool curriculum which will emphasize literacy development mathematical thinking, and introduce co-teaching models of instructions. School-wide emphasis for the children to utilizing problem-solving strategies, impulse control and anger management will be continued in order for children to develop and/or use problem-solving skills to resolve typical problems or concerns that arise in the school setting, including getting along with others, ignoring distractions, waiting for turns, and dealing with disappointments.
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