A.    School Overview

            Scotchtown Hills Elementary is a comprehensive school located in Laurel, Maryland.  Proudly, we are not a school identified for improvement due to our student’s ability to meet Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) in all subgroups in both reading and mathematics during the 2008-2009 school years. Our instructional staff provides the students at Scotchtown Hills with a rigorous educational program aligned with the Maryland Content Standards and the Voluntary State Curriculum (VSC).  Students follow a schedule that supports uninterrupted reading and language arts instructional time block of 135 minutes in grades K-2, 105 minutes in grades 3-5, and 90 minutes in 6^th grade.   Time allotments in mathematics have been modified in order for teachers to utilize an instructional block of 75 minutes for K-2, 90 minutes in grades 3-6 and 110 minutes for all children in Pre-kindergarten.  Within grades K-5, there must be at least 60 minutes of instructional time that is uninterrupted. Our Social Studies and Science curriculums have also adopted new time allotments so that teachers will provide students with dynamic cross-curricular support in reading and mathematics.  We will allot 45 minutes for Science instruction everyday in grades K-2, as well as 60 minutes in K-6.  Students in grades K-5 will participate in Social Studies content every other day for 45 minutes, while 6^th graders will do so for 90 minutes.  Students who are part of the Talented and Gifted (TAG) Program participate in a weekly pull-out program geared towards meeting the differentiated instructional needs of students focused on a more accelerated academic level. 

            Our students wear uniforms and participate in a variety of after-school enrichment programs sponsored by teachers, parents and the PTA.  In order to prepare our students for the 2009 administration of the Maryland School Assessments (MSA) in science, we will continue to provide students with engaging explorations and investigations that will enhance their ability to question, make observations, as well as communicate accurate and systemic findings.  Our vision as a community of educators is to increase student achievement across each grade level content area by selecting research-based instructional activities that will enhance the performance of all subgroups making Annual Yearly Progress during the 2009-2010 academic school years.

Scotchtown Hills is a comprehensive elementary school with a population of 554 students of which 316 are African-American, 92 Hispanic, 46 Caucasian, 25 Asians, 28 American Indian/Alaska Native, 32 Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander and 15 students who represent our Indian population.  We have an exceptional core of special educators who work with the 43 students qualifying for services at Scotchtown Hills.  Our faculty consists of 24 fully certified classroom teachers in Pre-kindergarten through sixth grade.  Seven of our teachers hold an Advanced Professional Certificate (APC); while seventeen have a Standard Professional Certificate (SPC).  Among our staff, we have no teachers among our staff currently holding a Conditional Certificate.  The range of teaching experience spans over 28 years.  Within our staff, we have 18 teachers with 0-5 years of experience, 9 teachers with 5-10 years and 12 teachers with over 20 years of teaching children.  Our teachers participate in various on-going professional development opportunities in order to enhance delivery of instruction for all students. 

We are an ESOL center currently supported by four ESOL teachers (of which two are new to our staff this school year) whose responsibility is to service our growing population of students whose native language is not English.  We will continue to work diligently in order to provide effective Reading and Language Arts instruction, so our students will acquire the tools necessary to achieve successful language acquisition.  The administrators and instructional staff are actively working towards improving the partnership between school and our ESOL parents by engaging community volunteers to act as resources and translators within our school.  Our part-time Parent Liaison will be on hand to work as a facilitator between our school and the neighboring Spanish-speaking community.  We want to ensure that every family feels they are a vital part of our learning community.

There is currently one Head Start class housed on site.  There are currently 15 three and four year old students participating in our program at Scotchtown Hills.  We support two full-day Pre-kindergarten programs at Scotchtown Hills.  With the addition of the Pre-kindergarten classes, it is our intention to continue to provide comprehensive multi-disciplinary services and developmentally appropriate learning experiences to assure that our children are given a positive start in their education and will be ready for kindergarten. 

Scotchtown Hills is in its ninth year of qualifying as a Governor’s Green School by carrying out conservation activities undertaken in partnership with WSSC (Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission), The Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and the City of Laurel.  Our students are also participating in a Recycling program sponsored by the Reading Specialist.  In this program, a variety of objects are being created using recyclable materials familiar to children (juice bags and snack wrappers).  We are fortunate to work with local restaurants and vendors in order to sponsor various fundraisers for the community and our students.  Our Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) is very active in providing concerts, educational programs and evening events.  Parent-member volunteers have provided many resources by way of working within our school during Back-to-School Night, Teacher Appreciation Week, Scholastic Book Fair, and Science Fair, drama productions, evening parent/teacher conferences, producing a weekly newsletter and serving on our School Planning and Management Team (SPMT) in order to help monitor and develop our School Improvement Plan (SIP).  The PTA was instrumental in initiating and organizing a student versus teacher basketball game that has now become a tradition at Scotchtown Hills. 

B.     Major initiatives and School-wide Reform Strategies for Targeted Subgroups

            Once again, our students performed successfully on the 2009 Maryland School Assessments and Scotchtown Hills made its Annual Yearly Progress goals.  We will continue to focus on both reading and mathematics throughout the 2009-2010 academic year.  Although our subgroups made annual yearly progress in both reading and mathematics, we must provide additional support to our 6^th grade students (5^th graders during the time of testing) who fall within the Hispanic, Free and Reduced Meals (FARM), and Special Education (SPED) subgroups.  It was within our Special Education subgroup that data showed Scotchtown Hills making AYP in reading due to the limited number of students within that subgroup, as well as the confidence interval determined for the 2008-09 administration of the Maryland School Assessments.  Scores for the subgroup were significantly similar on the mathematics component of the 2009 MSA. 

            Our Special education students will benefit from the weekly collaborative planning between classroom teachers and special educators who are involved in the co-teaching inclusion model used at Scotchtown Hills.  Teachers will pay close attention to the individual goals (particularly in math) stated within a students’ Individualized Education Program (IEP) and provide well-planned lessons and activities that will ensure true differentiated instruction based on their academic needs.  Based on our overall reading and math scores on the 2009 MSA, SRI’s (Scholastic Reading Inventory) and Formative Assessments, students will benefit from direct differentiated instruction, modification of instructional delivery, staff development based on the process of language acquisition in ESOL students as well as developing stronger reading comprehension skills while working with informational text.  Improving our student’s ability to use and comprehend unfamiliar vocabulary words and effectively integrating the use of small-flexible groups during math instruction at all grade-levels will also help meet the needs of our low-performing students as well as sustain and/or accelerate student performance on the MSA.  Although we did experience a slight gain in our students math performance overall, we will continue to focus on measurement, numbers and place value, in addition to problem solving.  By making better use of our science and social studies curriculum through weekly collaborative planning, we will enable our teachers to support math instruction and reading comprehension. 

            Providing on-going support in using the Mathematics and Reading/Language Arts Curriculum Framework Progress Guides (CFPG) will help teachers to become confident in utilizing the materials and resources appropriately though out the school year.  Collaborative Planning meetings with our ESOL and Special Education resource teachers will expose staff to the variety of interventions, instructional strategies and activities developed to improve student achievement for our low-performing ESOL, FARM and Special Education students. 

            The School Planning and Management Team will continue to meet, plan and monitor the School Improvement Plan.  The SPMT team’s mission is to be pro-active in guiding the students, instructional staff, parents and surrounding community towards an educational environment that produces independent learners who will become positive members of society.  Data collection and analysis will be a high priority.  By monitoring student progress through daily assessments, utilizing the new web-based data system Performance Matters and creating effective assessment tools that measure the quality of instruction, as well as student performance; we can stay focused on meeting the initiatives stated within our SIP.  During the school year, SPMT members will be exposed to a variety of methods used to effectively implement a SIP, as well as continue to develop and understand its structure and purpose. 

            Quarterly Data Utilization Meetings will be established in order to provide the opportunity to analyze school-wide data (SRI, DRA’s, Benchmarks and classroom assessments) so teachers and administrators will make informed instructional decisions for students performing on or below their instructional grade level.  Special education personnel will be included in all collaborative and grade-level meetings in order to insure the development of rigorous differentiated intervention strategies for all students.  Questioning strategies, Accountable Talk© and development of high-level thinking skills will be emphasized to increase our student’s ability to appropriately respond to brief-constructed responses (BCR’s), extended-constructed responses (ECR’s) and aid in comprehension of informational text.  In order to increase time on task, reading and math skills will be emphasized in the content areas of social studies and science.

C.     Parental Involvement

            Parents are a vital part to the success of our children.  We have many parents who work within our school as volunteers, substitute teachers and mentors.  We have been fortunate to maintain an active Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) at Scotchtown Hills that works diligently to provide our students with a variety of after-school events, fundraisers, in-school assemblies and community involvement opportunities.  This year, we welcome an entirely new executive board.  The focus of this year’s PTA members is to continue to support academics, while increasing the number of active PTA members and the involvement of parents within their children’s classroom. During the upcoming school year, the PTA and SPMT will work collaboratively to encourage an increase in the number of parents and mentors visible within the school building.  Members of the community and PTA will be invited to our monthly SPMT meetings to discuss the effectiveness of our School Improvement Plan.  Our parent member of SPMT is a vital link between the school and its community.  They provide a strong representation of the ideals and opinions of the parental community and contribute greatly to the continued success of our school programs. They will be involved in the on-going monitoring of various activities stated within our Monitoring Tool, as well as participate in the process of planning, organizing and drafting the 2009-2010 SIP.

            The staff and administration are committed to improving the level of communication between home and school to provide clarity in student expectations and the mission of the school.   We will also work together to implement evening programs that will benefit and support a parent’s ability to work with their child at home, particularly in reading and math.  Providing parents with workshops that expand their understanding of reading instruction and math applications can provide them with the confidence to work with their child outside of school. 

            Each teacher is a member of our PTA and actively supports the range of events sponsored by the organization. In order to strengthen the communication between home and school, a weekly newsletter goes home with each student.  This “Did You Know” communication piece is organized through the collaboration of parents and administration.  We are also continually updating the school website to provide an interactive tool for teachers, students and parents to utilize. 

D.     Safe and Orderly Environment

            Scotchtown Hills has maintained a safe and orderly environment that supports learning and reaches out to the community.  We have sponsored the Salvation Army Can Food Drive, Hat/Mitten tree for Homeless Children, Bear Drive for The Crisis Intervention Team of Prince George’s County, Hoops for Heart sponsored by the American Heart Association, Pennies for Patients, and a variety of environmental projects including our participation in the Governor’s Green School sponsored by The Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the city of Laurel.  We proudly participate in the GOLD program which supports peace and peaceful activities in the school building. 

            Our attendance rate for the 2008-2009 academic school years was 96.6%, which was an improvement over the 95.7% demonstrated during the 2007-2008 school years.  Our suspension rate did not exceed 2% for the year.  An inter-school discipline referral process was implemented to provide documentation of recurring incidents, provide teachers with a scaffold of procedures, as well as aid our school in limiting the number unnecessary discipline referrals (PS-74).  Scotchtown Hills will continue to implement a monthly positive behaviors program which mimics the Positive Behavior Intervention System (PBIS) during the 2009-2010 school year.  Together with a modified school-wide discipline policy and rewards system, we will encourage positive behavior choices throughout the school and within our local community.   Administrators will continue to utilize a Reflection Sheet that guides children to an understanding of their responsibility for each negative action or response.  It encourages students to reflect on better choices when resolving a conflict. Those students receiving no negative reminders throughout the month will be rewarded with a special activity to be planned and coordinated by each grade level.  Those students needing additional support in making positive behavior choices will be provided with activities to support their individual needs.  Students participating successfully throughout the school year will be recognized at a culminating ceremony.

            Because we experienced an increase in the number of tardies and absences among our students last year, our office will continue to work diligently to follow the steps and procedures stated within the Scotchtown Hills Truancy checklist in order to provide parents with accurate documentation and allow a positive means of improving the promptness and accountability of our students.  We experienced an increase in the number of students attending school on a regular basis (up 96.6% in 2008 from 95.7% in 2008).  To encourage student attendance each week, classes that have 100% attendance rate will have Scottie Dog rewards displayed above or beside their door.  Those classes will also be recognized during morning announcements.  Grade levels will be encouraged to create a reward system among classrooms to facilitate teamwork and effort.   

            A uniform policy for students was adopted so that our children would be able to concentrate on their individual abilities and academic success.  We also expect and support a professional dress and demeanor for our instructional and support staff.  We recognize that as role models, we must put forth every effort to demonstrate the life-long lessons that develop from those early elementary school experiences.   We will continue to support our school-wide behavior plan and expect students, staff and all visitors at Scotchtown Hills to be respectful, polite and mindful of others.

E.      Strategies to Attract (and Retain) Highly Qualified Teachers