The Fort River School Improvement Plan includes:
 

Mission and Belief Statements
Guiding Principles
Goals for 2007-2009"
 

Mission and Belief Statements

Fort River School Council

            The mission of Fort River School is the development of each young person.  We seek to ensure that every student is a successful learner, is fully respected, and learns to respect others.  We seek to be a community whose central values are learning and caring, for young people and adults alike.

• Learning is a process in which each learner constructs his or her own understanding in interaction with others.  We are committed to providing an environment, experiences, and assistance that enable young people and adults to do this.  Every student can be a successful learner and deserves the instruction, high expectations, and support that he or she needs to learn.

• We expect students to become confident and capable lifelong learners; skillful and responsive communicators; critical and creative thinkers; and responsible and active contributors.  We seen to enable them to progressively expand their knowledge, understanding and skills in the areas of reading, writing, speaking, listening, mathematics, science, social studies, the arts, physical education, health, technology, individual and collaborative work, and problem solving.

• We seek to foster the self-esteem of every member of our school community and to create an environment in which students and staff engage in meaningful work, experience satisfaction and enjoyment, develop mutual caring and respectful relationships, and have a sense of being in charge of one’s own life.

• We seek to learn about and become effective in eliminating practices, attitudes and behaviors by which people are mistreated, denied their full dignity or the realization of their full potential, including those based on gender, race, socio-economic background, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, disability, etc.

• We are committed to providing a safe and healthy working and learning environment for all students and staff.

• We seek a full partnership with parents in realizing our shared goals for students, for staff, and for our school.

GUIDING PRINCIPLES – FORT RIVER SCHOOL

1.      We are a community in which we strive to see that every student feels a sense of membership, welcome, and belonging; in which all students are respected and respect others, and in which every young person is cared about as a whole human being.

2.      Our primary mission with regard to academics is to see that every student achieves at least at grade level standards and gets the instruction and support needed to learn and perform at least at that level.  Students achieving below this level deserve the resources of instruction, time, energy, strategies, materials, etc. they need to close the gap between their current level and the standard level.  We also seek to provide intellectual stimulation for every student and to challenge every student to stretch himself or herself and to strive for excellence.  

3.      We are committed to developing a culture of achievement that every student feels a part of and in which every student develops a strong sense of herself or himself as a competent, life-long learner.

4.      One of our primary missions is to see that every student and staff member develops a sense of social responsibility for the social whole and a deep commitment to social justice. We seek to ensure that students develop some of the skills, knowledge, attitudes, and perspectives needed to put that commitment into action, both collectively and individually, now and throughout their lives.  We seek to have all students see themselves as connected to all humans, and as world citizens.  We value both differences and similarities among ourselves and among all peoples; and reject oppression and violence in all their forms. 

5.      We are committed to being a community in which students are empowered  -  to be in charge of their own learning at least some of the time (pursuing their own interests through self-directed learning), through opportunities for leadership, through having their thinking deeply respected, etc.

6.      We seek to be a community in which students experience and develop caring, hope, confidence, enthusiasm, self-discipline, and self-respect, and in which they learn to cooperate.

7.      We are committed to being a community in which diverse learning styles; the arts and physical education; and individual and non-conforming differences are valued and respected.

8.      We seek to be a community in which we learn about, value, and commit to, the preservation and restoration of the natural environment.

9.      We are, and want to increasingly be, a school where the adults are themselves a community of learners, engaged in ongoing learning both individually and collectively.

10.  The purposes of a Fort River education include learning and providing a foundation for future life-long learning.  It is also our purpose to prepare students: a) to contribute to closing the gap between our social ideals (of justice and the common good) and our current social realities; b) to envision and work for a better world; and c) to experience productivity, satisfaction, fun, and connectedness throughout their lives.

School Improvement Plan Goals

Fort River School

2007-2009

1. To improve student learning through continuous improvement in instruction
   1. Establish as a consistent teaching practice that teachers will share the objective for each lesson with students at the beginning of the lesson and review it again at the end of each lesson, so that students become more focused on what they are expected to learn, can self-assess, and become more aware of themselves as successful learners
   2. Teach vocabulary explicitly at every grade level, using research-based methods
   3. Implement the new language arts curriculum overview, including specific teaching of comprehension strategies and text analysis at each grade level
   4. Deprivatize our teaching practice so teachers observe each other, look at student work together, analyze data together, and support each other’s development thoroughly
   5. Emphasize the teaching of a relatively small number of conceptual “big ideas” in each subject area at each grade level to bring greater focus and coherence to our teaching
   6. Implement strategies to assist students with attentional issues to be more successful in school
   7. Establish benchmarks in multiple curriculum areas to specify targets and track student progress
   8. Ensure, through good teaching, programmatic and individual support, and work with families, etc. that 90% to 100% of our students develop the reading skills needed to read, with good comprehension, the texts at the benchmark level or higher, for their respective grade levels
   9. Consistently hold high expectations for every student

2. To assist staff and students in developing and enhancing the commitment, skills, and understanding needed to foster social justice, and preservation and restoration of the natural environment, now and throughout their lives
   1. Provide professional development for staff regarding issues of race and class
   2. Develop procedures for addressing bias issues and concerns among staff so that anyone with a concern has easy access to established avenues for addressing it that lead to dialogue, growth, understanding, and resolution, and do not necessarily engage the supervisory process
   3. Further develop the scope and sophistication of our instructional approaches with students throughout the elementary grades with regard to issues of social justice and the history of efforts to promote social justice, so that students are better equipped to be active throughout their lives in developing a more just world
   4. Support individuality and differences in a way that helps make this a safe school for diverse sexual and gender identities
   5. Expand recycling and composting in the school, and provide instruction to help students understand environmental issues at a developmentally appropriate level

3. To further develop and maintain a school culture of achievement, a sense of belonging for all, and empowerment of students in which each person, regardless of age, is valued and treated as a whole human being
   1. Foster and enhance a school culture of belonging, inclusion and caring that includes all, and in which each individual contributes to the whole community and the community celebrates and supports each individual
   2. Continue to create a culture of achievement that includes everyone and leads each student to develop self-narratives that say, “I am capable and am expected to learn,” “Effort makes things possible that may have seemed impossible,” etc.
   3. Continue weekly assemblies that celebrate learners and their learning and that foster items “a” and “b” above
   4. Create opportunities for student leadership, stewardship, and involvement in democratic decision-making where appropriate
   5. Fully implement “exploratory time,” in which students pursue learning of their own choosing
   6. Foster the development of the habits of mind of “questioning,” “making connections,” and “persevering,” in all students

4. To enhance communication and connection between the school and the parent/guardian community (with special attention to those groups who have indicated lower rates of feeling welcomed and included)
   1. Initiate new outreach to parents of incoming kindergarteners
   2. Consistently send home monthly curriculum letters from each classroom teacher (except in months when there are parent conferences or report cards).
   3. Communicate with parents about homework – policies, expectations, rates of completion, etc.
   4. Communicate with parents about attendance issues, as needed
   5. Provide opportunities for parents to meet in both affinity and mixed groups, to build community and to support student learning

5. To prepare for and to implement an effective transition to a new building principal if Russ retires at the end of 2007-08.
   1. In collaboration between the School Council and Russ, develop a monthly log of key tasks and issues to be addressed, which provides a somewhat detailed record of the roles Russ currently plays
   2. Create a principal’s advisory team that assists in the transition process, and supports the principals
   3. Develop a list of qualities desired in a new building leader
   4. Foster open communication among the Superintendent, the staff, parents, and the School Council
   5. Facilitate a transition process that includes communication between Russ and the new principal