School Improvement Plan

Dover Shores Elementary School
2008-09

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PROFILE

Dover Shores Elementary features a curriculum that focuses on educating the entire child through emphasis on eight key areas:

Academics
We use a variety of instructional tools such as Houghton Mifflin Reading, Thinking Maps, Everyday Math, Scholastic Reading Counts, and Scott Foresman Science and Social Studies to address different learning styles. The curriculum is vertically aligned to ensure continuity. Writing is pervasive in all academic areas. We use the Write… from the Beginning writing program. Also, the teachers are trained in brain-based teaching and learning and incorporate related strategies into their instructional methods. Curriculum-based field trips are included in the school year.

Arts
Recognizing that active participation in hands-on art and music activities reinforces cognitive skills, Dover Shores has a full-time art specialist and a full-time music specialist ensuring that all students receive extensive exposure to the arts. The school maintains a 16-station keyboard lab. Students receive instruction through visits to the keyboard lab and chorus room.

Character
Peace by Piece, Comprehensive Guidance, Learning for Life, Peer Mediation and ongoing student recognition are but five strategies used to address character development. Staff, students and the community focus on monthly character themes. These themes are interwoven throughout the curriculum, emphasized on the morning video announcements and displayed on the marquee.

Wellness
The character, health and emotional well being of Dover Shores students are further addressed through lessons in violence- and drug-free living (in cooperation with the Orlando Police Department); self esteem enhancement; swimming lessons; water, fire, bike, and personal safety; and fitness, human sexuality and nutrition.

Technology
The school and community joined together in a commitment to enhance and maintain technology. We maintain a thirty station Dell™ computer lab, retrofitted two wings of the school and equipped each classroom with an average of three computers and an up-to-date color printer. Students are receiving technology instruction through weekly visits to the computer lab, and teachers are learning strategies for integrating technology into the curriculum. Parents and members of the community are readily able to keep abreast of the latest news and events by logging on to the Dover Shores Web page. We are also maintaining the school television studio.

Community Partnerships
Dover Shores continually reaches out to all parents and the community through large and small community service initiatives. Through a partnership with the city of Orlando, Dover Shores offers SPARK, a before and after school program. Beautification Day is another joint effort between the school and the city’s Green Up Orlando program to beautify our school grounds. Thanksgiving baskets and Christmas presents are prepared and distributed to needy families in the community, and warmth and good cheer are delivered to our nearby nursing home neighbors through regular visits and performances from Dover Shores' students. Students are given two weeks of swimming instruction through a program financed by the PTA. Dover Shores provides space for Cub Scout Pack 140.

Services for Diversified Families
In recognition of the diverse population served by Dover Shores, the newsletter is prepared in both English and Spanish. Many parents are members of the Parent Leadership Council that addresses issues and concerns related to LEP students. School activities such as Read Around the World celebrate global diversity every year. In addition, family reading and math nights are popular activities for parents and students alike. Special programs are offered for students with special needs such as the Emotionally Handicapped, Specific Learning Disabled, and Varying Exceptionalities. These programs allow children to receive special instruction and to be mainstreamed in a regular classroom as much as possible. Facilities are provided free of charge for adult ESOL and art classes.

Committed Staff
Perhaps the greatest resource at Dover Shores is the staff. Administrators, teachers, and staff members pride themselves on providing a warm, welcoming, safe and inviting atmosphere for students and parents alike. Teachers are organized by grade level into a community of learners providing mutual support and opportunities for each other and ensuring that they are available to students, parents, and each other. Staff members are encouraged to attend on-going continuous education classes. Dover Shores currently has one teacher with National Board Certification.

Dover Shore's Vision

Learning Today to Lead Tomorrow!
At Dover Shores we have a responsibility to provide a well-rounded, liberal arts education for our students. In modern colleges and universities, the liberal arts include the study of literature, languages, philosophy, history, mathematics, and science. In Classical antiquity, the term designated the education proper to a freeman (Latin liber, "free") as opposed to a slave. We have a responsibility to provide our students with the learning tools and knowledge that will “free” them to become our future leaders. As Epictetus, a Roman slave who earned his freedom, said 2000 years ago:

“Only the educated are free.”
We strive to make all academic decisions based on our belief that at Dover Shores Elementary all staff and students are Learning Today to Lead Tomorrow.

This motto denotes our beliefs that:

1. All staff members must be learners today in order to be better teachers tomorrow.
2. All staff members must be learners in order to lead their students and colleagues.
3. All staff members must believe that all Dover Shores’ students can learn and become effective leaders, regardless of their social or economic backgrounds.
4. All staff members are responsible for laying the academic foundation that will enable all of our students to graduate from high school and be prepared for college, if they so choose.
5. To expect anything less of our students and ourselves would be a travesty.

District’s Vision

To be the top producer of successful students in the nation.

Development of the School Improvement Plan

The district ENDS Policy, Charter School District Performance Goals, and the Comprehensive Academic Achievement Plan (CAAP) were all used to develop our school improvement plan. The plan is a tool for identifying and creating a desirable future for our students and school. The school improvement plan process will enable us to anticipate and manage the complex changes that we face. Furthermore, because our School Advisory Council is broadly representative of our school’s community, we are confident that our school improvement plan reflects a shared vision of success for all of our students.

We began the strategic planning process by developing and clarifying a vision statement for our school. Our vision statement expresses the "desirable future" we want to create and is presented on the previous page.

In order to assess the needs of our school, we collected and analyzed a great deal of data. From these data we identified a number of priority needs, which are stated in our plan. These needs formed the basis for our plan this year.

The mission of the Orange County Public Schools is, “To lead our students to success with the support and involvement of families and the community (Pending final approval).” Based on this mission, we reviewed the Performance Goals from the Charter School District Contract and built objectives around the goals that reflected the priority needs of our school. OCPS also has five Supporting Conditions to help accomplish the district’s mission. We reviewed the Supporting Conditions and selected supporting conditions that related to our needs assessment.

The purpose of the OCPS CAAP is to create curriculum consistency for all students and provide instructional strategies that meet the needs of our diverse student population. To make this happen, developmental, accelerated, and remedial strategies have been incorporated into this plan to ensure student achievement.

Our school improvement plan focuses on how we will work toward meeting the needs at our school. We used the results of our needs assessment as a starting point to select and develop three-year objectives. We used the needs assessment results to address budget, training, instructional materials, technology, staffing, student support services, specific school safety, discipline strategies, student health and fitness, including physical fitness, parental information on student health/fitness, and indoor environmental air quality. The SAC’s assistance was used to prepare the budget for next year so that it effectively supports the school improvement plan.

Annual objectives were developed to identify where we would be at the end of each year of our three-year objectives or objectives based on the Supporting Conditions. Finally, action plans were written, which outlined the activities that needed to be completed in order to reach our annual objectives. These action plans are clearly defined activities that show what we will accomplish in working toward our objectives.

Our school is committed to improving access to high quality instruction for all students. This includes increasing the percentage of African-American and Hispanic students enrolled in the gifted program.

The four state education goals, Florida’s six priorities, as well as statutory requirements, were addressed in developing the plan. Not all goals and priorities are directly included in the plan since only the highest priority needs are included. Many other activities take place in the school that support the state goals and priorities but are not specifically mentioned in the plan.

Once our plan was completed, it was reviewed by our community, the area superintendent, the superintendent, and the school board. This review focused on determining how much progress toward state goals and the district's mission would result from the implementation of the plan. When the school board approved our plan, they agreed that achieving the annual objectives would produce adequate progress toward meeting these important goals.

The actual implementation of our plan will be evaluated at two points during the school year. The first review of progress will be in December-January with the area superintendent. The mid-year progress review will determine if we are on schedule in completing the action plan activities that are written in our plan and data showing progress at the middle of the school year. The final progress report is made after the school year is over. At that time, we will determine if we accomplished our annual objectives. We will use those results to begin our needs assessment for next year.

Reading Objective

District Mission: To lead our students to success with the support and involvement of families and the community.

Baseline Expectations (Percent of Students)

Reading Performance: Elementary: 85 Middle Schools: 65 High Schools: 60

Reading Learning Gains: Elementary: 70 Middle Schools: 75 High Schools: 75

Reading Lowest 25% Learning Gains: Elementary: 70 Middle Schools: 75 High Schools: 65

Narrative to Describe Major Steps to Meet Baseline Expectations in Reading Within 4 Years:

All teachers, K-5, are providing a daily 90 minute block of uninterrupted reading instruction. During this time, teachers are addressing fluency, phonics, vocabulary, phonemic awareness and comprehension. Instruction is provided in both whole groups and small groups and is differentiated to meet the reading levels of all learners. Also this year, we will implement a supplemental computer reading program called “Study Island.”

Again this year we will be offering an after-school tutoring program for those students who are below grade level in reading. To ensure that there are no impediments to attendance, we will be offering bus transportation this year.