Welcome Back to the 2013-2014 School Year

Welcome to the 2013-2014 School Year!

We have successfully completed our first full year of school-wide Learning Cultures implementation.  All classes 6-12 fully implemented the following formats:  The Lesson, The Learning Conference, and Independent Work Time.  All classes grade 6-9 plus high school English, Social Studies, Math, and 11th grade science implemented the model fully.  It was an immense undertaking, but we finished the year with a deeper understanding of the model, and ready to build and improve upon our work to launch our 2nd full year.

We'll be going over more data in detail next week when everyone is together (and I've finished analysis of the high school data from summer school), but to give you sneak peak, below is our middle school performance.

Our Results

Middle School Exam Results

There are many, many things to be said about the New York State Common Core results for the middle school exams.  That is another blog post.  Suffice it to say, I found utility in the data in looking how we compared to our peers.

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In ELA, our students out-performed all other Learning Cultures schools in the UA network and we also outperformed the New York City Averages in all middle school grades.  If you've been following the Common Core Results Statewide, you'll know this also means we outperformed all of the other large urban districts in New York.   In addition, our students were either the top or 2nd to the top performers of all  UA schools.

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In Math, we again out-performed all other UA Learning Cultures schools (except for 8th grade math).  Our performance relative to the City was not nearly as strong as our students' ELA performance.  However, given that ELA classes are entering the 3rd year of Learning Cultures and Math is entering it's 2nd (like the ELA classes of last year) coupled with a targeted coaching focus around math this year, we're predicting increased gains this year.

High School Exam and Graduation Results

Four Year High School Progress Report Comparison

2009-2010 was the inaugural year of our high school which began with the Class of 2013 as our first group of 9th graders.  Using that year's data points as baseline, the color coding below allows you to see high school growth (red being bad and green being good)

For the last two years, UAI high school has demonstrated strong growth in student progress (credit accumulation & regents passing).  This year, our Learning Environment Survey showed improvement after two years of negative growth.  

2012-2013 UAI Regents Performance Comparison 

Looking at last year's student performance on Regents exams (inclusive of all testing months - January, June & August), there is no doubt that our efforts in the classrooms this year was evident in the success of our students.  This past year in all but two subjects, average Regents score and overall passing increased.  In English and US History, the percent of students achieving scores of 85 or higher (the mastery level on the Regents exam) nearly doubled!

With Learning Cultures in entering its 3rd year in literacy and it's second year in all other subjects, we look forward to continuing this growth!

School Quality Review

Our overall school quality review was a well-earned Proficient with the following strengths, needs and goals.  From Final Quality Review Report:

The school uses the Learning Cultures (LC) curriculum that is aligned to the Common Core and New York State learning standards and engages students in rigorous academic tasks to promote college and career readiness.

To have an outside evaluator come in and assess all of the work and effort our team put into establishing Learning Cultures school-wide last year, coupled with measurable achievements in state tests and student progress, we are clearly making strides in the right direction!