The assistants often go beyond work in the
classroom by engaging with parents. “[The
assistants] are always willing to come and sit during
our parent conferences,” one teacher said. “When a
parent makes a comment, they can say, ‘Well, I’ve
been to your room and I’ve seen this.’ They’ve got
your back.”
The third intervention tier is used specifically to
support special education students. Parents are
brought into the process early to help identify the
best possible interventions. Parents say they are
well-informed about the RTI program and that the
school handles remediation very well, with students
feeling no negative effects of being identified for
further assistance. A parent, writing to the school
to express gratitude for its work with her child
who has attention deficit disorder, wrote: “I have
watched your teachers, your staff, and the countless
families and there is no lower standard given here.
Regardless of a child’s racial background or a
family’s financial standing, everyone is treated the
same- with absolute care, concern and gratitude
that your child is here. I could not have found a
better educational setting for a child if I had made it
myself.”
John Sevier Elementary presents learning
opportunities beyond the school day, primarily
through clubs and various fun educational events.
For example, Community Connections program
helps students connect to the “outside” world by
learning about water safety, taking field trips to the
East Tennessee Discovery Center, and creating
extracurricular events to help students learn about
butterflies, managing savings, and staying in school.
The school’s chess club meets twice a week,
and the school’s running club has more than 150
students who often run with their parents. Other
enrichment activities include short-term camps
centered on technology and supports, as well as
an afterschool program called Mind Stretchers
that offers enrichment or remediation based on
individual student needs. Additionally, the school
offers intersession classes for students during
scheduled breaks between grading periods.
19
Pathways to the Prize
Lessons from the 2012 SCORE Prize School Winners
USING DATA TO ENHANCE
STUDENT LEARNING
John Sevier Elementary administers a comprehensive set of assessments so that teachers know what
students have learned and retained over time.
Video: “Using Data to Enhance
Student Learning” (1:49)
http://tnscore.org/scoreprize/lessonsschools_elem2012.php
Formative assessment. Every day, most teachers
administer exit tickets as a method of formative assessment to determine where students need additional help. The tickets can be simple written notes
where students identify what they learned during
the lesson and what they still need help with. Exit
tickets can also present a more complex challenge.
For example, an exit ticket given to students after
a lesson on the energy pyramid asked students to
consider what would happen if a new type of herbivore was introduced into the ecosystem that forced
the existing frogs to compete for grasshoppers.
Some assessments use creative approaches, such
as formative writing samples that take advantage of “pinch cards.” Teachers write sentences
with incorrect punctuation and post them on the
interactive white board. Students “pinch” the card to
indicate the type of sentence (declarative, interrogative, exclamatory, imperative), then justify their
answers and add correct punctuation marks. Math
assessments ask students to solve problems using
multiple types of processes so that the students
learn many ways to demonstrate their knowledge
and check the accuracy of the work.
Summative, interim, and diagnostic assessments.
John Sevier Elementary administers benchmark and
summative assessments in addition to the formative and classroom assessments mentioned above.
Several—such as the STAR Reading and Math tests
and Brigance—serve diagnostic and progress monitoring purposes. The benchmark assessments are