School Leadership Team
Conference: HQS 3
Nancy Cline and Leatha Williams
October 1, 2013
Why the West Virginia Standards for
High Quality Schools?
 These standards describe the seven common
standards expected of schools to ensure a high quality
education, in an engaging learning environment.
 The policy represents a coherent and aligned set of
expectations necessary to transform schools into
outcome focused, innovative, accountable learning
organizations that can prepare all students to be
contributing citizens for the global, digital age of the
21st century.
Standard 3: Provides a StandardsFocused Curriculum with Engaging
Instruction and a Balanced System
of Assessment
Each school team will develop a non-content specific
school improvement goal and plan specifically for
instruction based on the 3rd WV Standard for High Quality
Schools, diagnostic observations and recommendations
that they will take back to their school to implement as
measured by their school wide plan.
Objectives
1. All SLTs will reflect and rate their school on highly
effective practices in HQS 3.
2. All SLTs will compare and contrast their school’s
diagnostic with the high quality practices in HQS 3.
3. All SLTs will prioritize the needs as identified from the
SLT discussions on HQS 3 and the school diagnostic.
4. All SLTs will write goals for their Strategic Plan.
5. All SLTs will specify what evidence will be used to
measure successful completion of their school
improvement goals.
Strategic
and
Specific
• What exactly
is to be
accomplished?
Measurable
Attainable
ResultsOriented
Time-bound
• How will one
know when goal is
accomplished?
• Is there sufficient
time to
accomplish the
goal?
• Does it align to the
HQS and/or the
Diagnostic
recommendations?
• When will one
achieve this goal?
• When will one
undertake
activities to
achieve our goal?
Discussions and Protocols
Visible Thinking Strategies
Think-Pair-Square-Share
This is an active reasoning
routine that promotes
understanding of multiple
perspectives and evidence.
Strategy Highlights:
1. Posing a question, idea or topic
2. Asking student to come to an
individual understanding
3. Allow thinking time to form an
opinion/answer
4. Discussion and consensus at all
levels
5. Congress or reporting out
Connect Extend Challenge
This is a visible thinking
routine, which allows
students to connect new
ideas to prior knowledge.
Strategy Highlights:
• Encourages high order thinking for
students
• It acts as a formative assessment
(informative assessment) for the
teacher
• It encourages the students to have
ownership of their learning
because the take stock in ongoing
questions, concepts that are
puzzling or difficult as they reflect
on their own thinking.
Activity 1
Utilizing the HQS and the
Diagnostic
Activity 1: Connect Extend Challenge
School Diagnostic Report
15-minutes Think Pair Share
Connect
• How are the ideas
and information
presented
CONNECTED to
what you already
knew?
Extend
Challenge
• What new ideas did
you get that
EXTENDED or pushed
your thinking in new
directions?
• What is still
CHALLENGING or
confusing for you to
get your mind around?
What questions,
wonderings or puzzles
do you now have?
Activity 2: Vision
It is one year from right
now and you are looking
back at the school year,
HQS 3, the Diagnostic and
the challenges.
Describe what ways your
school is different and what is
the evidence based on the
HQS 3 and the Diagnostic
recommendations?
Question: Where do we want to be?
School Wide
Improvement: Goal
As a school leadership team
go back through
the HQS Rubric and
Diagnostic and identify
2 to 3 items that will address
the barriers as well as help the
school accomplish the vision
for a year from now.
Each team should come to
consensus on the items.
Question: How will we get there?
Diagnostic Observation
• There was no process school wide for opening and closing
class procedures.
• There is no protocol school wide for student conversations
such as think-pair-square-share. The majority of the
classrooms were traditional in nature and mostly teacher
centered.
• Teachers were observed utilizing a variety of teaching
strategies in limited capacity. However most of the strategies
were reported as lower level thinking strategies and not
learner-centered.
Example 1: Putting It Together
HQS3
• 3.B. 1: All teachers align
curriculum, instruction, and
assessment to Next
Generation Standards.
• 3.C.3: All teachers plan
lessons that actively engage
students, involve varied
grouping patterns and
promote student
interaction.
Observations
• Teachers reported that several
had been trained on the
Instructional Practices Inventory;
however the process has yet to
be utilized at the school.
• Both administrator when asked
about the greatest challenge
facing their school responded
instructional leadership and
changing instructional practices.
School Goal Example 1
• During the 2013-2014
school year, Team USA
School will increase the
time students are engaged
in “active” learning by 10%.
Example 2: Putting It Together
HQS3
Observations
School Goal Example 2
Goal Writing Framing Statement
During the 2013-2014 school year,
__________ School will increase
____________ by ______%