February 11 PTA Meeting
A Plan for Greatness
Brent 2015-2020 Strategic Plan
Brent will become a highly effective, inclusive,
field experience school where all students grow
and advance through productive struggles in a
whole-child approach that promotes academic,
social, and emotional development in order to
produce confident, self-reliant, and selfmotivated students ready for any opportunity.
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Strategic Plan
Objective and Scope
Objective: To take Brent from very good to indisputably great, by building on
areas of strength and addressing areas of challenge in four main categories:
1. Our core curricular approaches: Responsive Classroom, Reggio-inspired EC,
Readers/Writers Workshop, Investigations Math
2. Advancing the potential of every student: differentiated learning and
individualized attention for all students
3. Strengthening our flagship “specials” program: World language, art, music,
science, and physical education
4. Becoming a field experience school
Scope:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Understand Brent’s current approaches in the four areas
Evaluate Brent’s current performance/results
Identify strengths, gaps, and areas for improvement
Examine best practices, including those at comparable schools
Develop options/recommendations, short- medium- and long-term actions,
and resource needs
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Findings: Strengths
– Highly integrated, mutually reinforcing curricular approaches drawing from the
best in education research and experience
– “Whole child” philosophy—Brent’s range of full-time specials and field
experiences are distinguishing characteristics
– Small class sizes and curricular choices allow for easier differentiation among
students requiring more support or more challenge
– Well-defined school-wide system to identify needs for extra support
– Specials program highly valued and highly rated
– Field experience widely valued, most field trips aligned with curriculum to offer
opportunities for greater learning depth/motivation
– High-quality, dedicated teachers and staff
– Variety of best practices in deepening curricular approaches, incorporating field
experiences, and parent communication
Brent has made strong investments in best education practices and is early on its
path to greatness—can learn lessons from more mature schools and be the best
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Findings: Challenges
– School-wide progress has been inconsistent: Brent has fewer advanced students and
more below-grade level students than comparable schools. Nearly a quarter of Brent
students are below grade level in reading and math and 33% below grade level in writing,
compared to an average of 12.5%, 10% and 11.5% in reading, math and writing at comps
– Behavior is the #1 challenge identified by teachers but there are no consistent staffing
resources dedicated to responding to acute behavioral challenges
– No formal program to identify/serve advanced students (except above-grade level math
for grades 3&4); no staffing resources dedicated to enrichment, no curricular
enhancements
– Brent’s curricula are best when fully articulated K-5th grade, but Brent lacks sufficient
resources or curricular adjustments to mitigate effects of late entry/early departure
– General education and specials teachers and staff filling gaps that detract from academic
support without adding value: lunchtime duty, recess duty
– Insufficient parent knowledge about curricula means parents have not been fully engaged
in extending their child’s education
– Professional development for teachers or specialists’ time inconsistently prioritized,
requires more acute focus
– Teachers ultimately responsible for delivering majority of academic and behavioral
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interventions with limited time and support
Why? We Work With Limited Resources
• Brent is significantly under resourced (people, funding) versus comparison
schools
– Given current academic and behavior needs, Brent has just 1 full time
reading specialist, 1 full time literacy support person, and 30% of the
science teacher’s time for math support; and only a half-time social
worker and half-time psychologist for behavior support
– In contrast, Stoddert has 7.5 specialists for academic support; plus a full
time social worker, full time counselor, and half-time psychologist for
behavior needs
– Mann has 3.5 full time academic support staff and a high-quality
instructional aide (PTA funded) in every class to ensure teacher/student
support
At Brent: Bulk of academic interventions and behavior management is the
responsibility of teachers in the classroom with very limited support
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Also, Brent’s prioritization of its limited
resources (time, money) differs
• Brent prioritizes “whole child” with music, arts, science,
language, and physical education
– Comparable schools choose .5 language, and/or .5 arts, and/ or .5 music,
and/or no explicit science or field experience program
– We will continue to prioritize student experiences in all five specials
classes
• Comp schools have explicit strategies for prioritizing
specialists’, teacher and student time: e.g. getting students to
grade level by 2nd grade as gap accelerates thereafter
• PTA funds at other schools highly prioritized for academic
support and enrichment: e.g. high-quality teaching aide in
every class; enrichment personnel
• Professional development for teachers closely monitored and
aligned with performance priorities/gaps
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What Are We Going to Do About
It?
&
How Are We Going to Get There?
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Short-Term Recommendations:
Building Brent’s Support Team ($150k)*
• Reprioritize PTA funds to hire a behavior tech ASAP to address SY
2014-15 challenges—already in progress
• Redirect school budget and PTA funds to hire as many high
quality teacher partners as possible for SY 2015-2016, ideally
four
– Most flexible staffing resource to address wide range of needs
– Behavior, academic intervention and enrichment support;
– Frees up teacher time for academic support/enrichment
planning with more staff available for lunch/recess duty
– Frees up “specials” teacher time to enhance specials offerings
instead of delivering academic support
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*Conservative Estimate
Short-Term Recommendations:
New Approaches
Academic support and enrichment
• Develop prioritization strategy for intervention and use of specialists’ time
• Audit and prioritize professional development resources to address critical gaps
• Put system in place to identify above grade level students
• Analyze and determine possibility of enrichment modules such as Jr. Great Books or other
curricular extensions to provide enrichment opportunities for all students—plan for launch
of pilot in SY 2015-16*
• Create Matriculation Committee (staff) to develop curricular interventions for students
who enter or leave Brent at non-standard points
Communication and best practices
• Identify a Communications Coordinator* (staff member) to develop additional and
improved communication channels with parents
– New parent orientation and redesign of Back to School Night
– Curricular and assessment information
– Amplify grade/class communications
• Create a systematic mechanism for staff to identify and share best practices (around
communication, field experiences, math fluency, reading skills, etc.)
*May require additional funding beyond initial $150K
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Short-Term Recommendations:
New Approaches
Specials
• Shift language instruction to grades 2-5; move to .5 world language with focus on broad
applicability to follow-on language acquisition*
– Shift to 0.5 language allows for greater emphasis on academic support, arts, music and
physical activity exposure for younger grades
• Determine ways to incorporate greater opportunities for physical movement and organized play
throughout the school day
Field experiences
• Rebrand and integrate field experience approach versus museum magnet
• Identify a Field Trip Coordinator* (staff member) to develop vertically articulated field
experience program
• Create Communication Protocols for field experiences
• Establish formal partnerships
• Create a database of parent contacts
• Design plans for Field Trip Journey Brent Journal
• Identify a Field Experience Lead Teacher for each grade; parent field experience lead in each
class
*Requires DCPS approval
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Medium- to Long-term
Recommendations (2-5 years,
additional $250K)
• Increase and prioritize PTA and DCPS budget to support a
high-quality teacher partner in every class
• With enrollment growth, integrate a full-time social worker
and counselor to build out behavior support team
• Develop Individualized Professional Development Plan for
all staff members (aligned with foundational approaches)
• Hire an enrichment coordinator to expand school-wide
enrichment approaches; become a Schoolwide Enrichment
Model (SEM) school
• With enrollment growth, integrate a Dean of Students to
manage support, enrichment, and behavior strategies
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What’s the Vision?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Brent achieves (SY 16/17) and retains DCPS “reward” status based upon a
combination of test scores and rate of improvement (primarily achievement gap)
Brent reduces by 50% the proportion of students below grade level and increases by
50% the proportion of advanced students
All classrooms have a full-time aide. Aides in grades 1-5 are graduate students
completing their Masters in Education degrees
Brent has a behavior management team in place to support daily intervention and
long-term behavior change
All GenEd teachers have received professional development training/are credentialed
in RC, Investigations, RW workshop, behavior management and differentiated
instruction within 3 years of joining Brent
Brent has a robust and resourced support program for struggling students; majority of
students at grade level by end of grade 2
Brent has a robust and resourced schoolwide enrichment program to deepen learning
and challenge all students
Brent has a well developed and integrated specials program that gives students
meaningful engagement and exposure to art, music, science, and language;
incorporates rigorous physical activity into the school day
Brent has a well-developed field studies program that is curricularly aligned and takes
advantage of DC’s offerings, with dedicated staff, parent volunteers, and established
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relationships with key institutions
What does it take to get there?
• An additional $350,000 to $450,000, with
about $150,000 in hand at current PTA and
DCPS enrollment/funding levels
• Measured student growth and increased
fundraising
• Focus, prioritization and increased effort on
the part of teachers and staff
• Focus, prioritization and increased effort on
the part of parents
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Enrollment & Configuration Update:
SY 2015-2016
• Brent will grow to 382 students, not 400
• DCPS has committed to funding:
– The creation of an additional classroom
(converting current staff lounge)
• 4th grade classroom
– The conversion of our four, end of hallway spaces
to useable, adult/student spaces
– Beautifying our student bathroom spaces
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