ARHS - Copy of School Improvement Plan 21-22

Algonquin Regional High School

School Improvement Plan

For the School Year 2021-2022

Mission
Educate, Inspire, and Challenge

Core Values
Integrity Empathy Inclusivity Equity Perseverance Respect

Profile of a Graduate

Our Students Will Be:

Collaborators

Enrich the learning of self and others through teamwork.
Solicit and respect diverse perspectives and contributions.
Seek, contribute, and react to feedback to achieve shared outcomes.
Recognize and leverage strengths to build collective commitment, action, and understanding.

Critical and Creative Thinkers

Transfer and connect knowledge and skills to deepen understanding.
Demonstrate thinking that is clear, rational, open-minded, and informed by evidence.
Use disciplinary knowledge and skills in routine and innovative ways.
Make informed decisions, solve problems, and use a variety of tools to deepen learning.

Communicators

Articulate thoughts and ideas using oral, written, and non-verbal communication skills for a range of purposes and audiences.
Listen to decipher meaning, including knowledge, values, attitudes, and intentions.
Use technological skills and contemporary digital tools to explore and exchange ideas.

Socially and Civically Engaged

Demonstrate personal, civic, and social integrity through ethical and empathetic behaviors.
Recognize individual and communal impact on others and the natural world.
Value and embrace diverse cultures and unique perspectives through mutual respect and open dialogue.

Growth-Oriented

Cultivate positive attitudes and habits about learning.
Pursue one’s own interests and curiosity to experience new learning.
Consistently improve the quality of one’s own thinking by skillfully analyzing, assessing and reconstructing.
Persist to accomplish difficult tasks and to overcome academic and personal barriers to meet goals.

Healthy and Balanced

Develop and demonstrate awareness, sensitivity, concern, and respect to connect with self and others’ feelings, opinions, experiences, and cultures.
Use reflective practices to understand one’s personal strengths, challenges, and passions.
Make choices to support a lifestyle that is healthy, both physically and mentally.
Demonstrate resilience through the ability to manage emotions, stress, and challenges.

Algonquin Regional High School

Mission Statement

Algonquin Regional High School is a community committed to providing a safe, supportive, and challenging learning environment which fosters critical and creative thinking. We believe respect, responsibility, and collaboration are essential to individual growth and academic achievement.

Academic Expectations

Students at Algonquin Regional High School will:

Read critically, by analyzing, interpreting and evaluating text
Synthesize information from diverse sources, to produce coherent summaries, arguments
and positions
Speak and write effectively, using standard English in a manner appropriate to purpose and audience
Acquire and apply mathematical and technological skills, to interpret information and to solve problems
Explore, develop and express individual creativity; set goals and objectives; and manage time effectively
Demonstrate competencies in all curriculum areas identified by the Massachusetts Department of Education
Be challenged in an intellectually stimulating and engaging environment

Social Expectations

Students at Algonquin Regional High School will:

Develop the skills to work both independently and cooperatively
Demonstrate respect for themselves and others, as well as for diversity in the school community
Be active participants in the school community

Civic Expectations

Students at Algonquin Regional High School will:

Become aware of their roles and responsibilities as members of local, national and global communities
Contribute to these communities as active participants

School Council Membership

Sean Bevan, Principal

Leslie Rutan, Community Member

Ashleigh Girard, Student

Sarah Coldwell, Student

Amelia Sinclair, Student

Ed Wiser, Parent

Luke Herbold, Student

Kevin Fruwirth, School Resource Officer

Gregory Manousos, Parent

Mari Fellenbaum, Student

Melissa Shields, Parent

Mark Yusikones, Parent

Algonquin Regional High School:

2021-2022, Overview

1. School Data Profile:

Academic class sizes consist of courses in English, Language, Alternate Language, Math, Science, SIPP and Social Studies. These courses range in class sizes from 7 (AP Calculus, Bio Concepts) to 30 (several).
62.3% (187 of 300) of all academic classes fall between 15-24 students, 20% (61 of 300) are in the range of 25-30 students. 15 academic classes have 28 students.
ARHS Data profile

3. Enhancement of parental involvement in the life of the school

The principal communicates with families 2-4 times per month via email and conducts screencasts and/or videoconference calls as needed in an effort to share critical information about the school’s main initiatives, parent programs, and student news.
The ARHS Twitter feed and Instagram account are helpful in communicating with families: the ARHS Twitter account has 250+ followers, and the Instagram account has 1,100+ followers. The principal relies on Instagram to communicate news and other information to students as it’s a platform that students access more frequently than Twitter or Facebook. Anecdotally, students and families share that the account provides a fun and comprehensive overview of the program during the week.
Parents remain engaged in the healthy operation of the school through a variety of groups and avenues, including:

Informational parent forums and meetings to help parents to become better informed stakeholders in their child’s education:

Open House Night and Parent-Teacher Conferences: Teachers and parents meet each of these nights to share important insights into the child’s school performance. This year, staff will prioritize how students learn in teachers’ classes over classroom policies and procedures.
Guidance Parent Talks: Guidance counselors offer frequent parent/community events on topics ranging from the college application process, financial aid for college-bound seniors, the transition for rising eighth graders, etc.

4. Extra-curricular activities

Our students participate in several athletic events as well as a myriad of extracurricular and co-curricular clubs and events. Many of these offer students the opportunity to compete locally and nationally. Our programs are designed to provide all students with an opportunity to pursue their passion and to instill in them a sense of curiosity and personal choice.

Some details about our Athletics program:

70% of the student body participates in athletics during their years at Algonquin.
13 MIAA State Championships including girls gymnastics (2012, 2012), girls’ soccer (2009), girls’ tennis (2009), baseball (2006), and boys’ soccer (2004, 2005), girls rugby (2011-2015), boy’s rugby (2021)
55 District/Sectional Championships
9 consecutive Mid/Wach League Sportsmanship Awards
MIAA Sportsmanship Honor Roll, 2013-18

5. Means for meeting, within the regular education programs at the school, the diverse learning needs of as many children as possible, including children with special needs currently assigned to separate programs

Algonquin Regional High School employs many strategies for meeting the various needs of our learners. These include conventional special education interventions and the RISE program.
We have dedicated considerable professional development resources this year to increase our staff’s cultural competence, focusing specifically on culturally responsive pedagogy.

District Strategic Objective 2020-2026	District Strategic Initiatives 2020-2026
1.Empowering Learners: Implement instructional practices that engage students in developing and demonstrating their knowledge and skills through rigorous, innovative, and relevant learning experiences.	1.1 Cultivate a shared understanding and common vision of high-quality instructional practices that develop all students toward the profile of our ideal graduate. 1.2 Collaborate within and across schools to ensure consistent implementation of high-quality instructional practices. 1.3 Systematically promote opportunities for innovation in learning and teaching. 1.4 Provide opportunities for students and educators to use technology to solve problems, learn and communicate.
ARHS Action Steps 2021-2022	Person Responsible	Date
Inventory the DLCS curriculum standards and coordinate with educators to identify which of the power standards are already being addressed through existing curriculum and instruction.	SBLT members Applied Arts department chair Digital Literacy Leaders (DLLs) Instructional Technology Specialist	2021 Sept-Dec
Identify power standards for DLCS and in which grades and content areas these standards will be addressed.	SBLT members Applied Arts department chair Instructional Technology Specialist, DLLs	2021-2022 Sept-June
Continue to integrate DLCS standards in our DLCA course.	Applied Arts Department chair DLCA teachers Digital Literacy Leaders Computer Science Teacher	Full year
Students will develop advanced research skills including advanced searches, digital source evaluation, and synthesis of information and practice those skills throughout Grades 9-12	Library Social Studies Department (Research Paper, Grade 9 and Civic Action Project, Grade 11)	Full year

District Strategic Objective 2020-2026	District Strategic Initiatives 2020-2026
2. Equity of Opportunity: Provide all students access to challenging and culturally responsive learning experiences that meet their individual needs.	Develop and implement coherent systems for collecting and using student learning data to better understand the needs of individuals and groups of students. Develop and implement consistent systems to identify and address students’ individual needs for the full range of learners. Foster culturally responsive and inclusive communities and environments that provide equal access. Ensure excellence in the continuum of educational programming for Student Support Services. Ensure quality, coherence and equitable access for courses and programs.
ARHS Action Steps 2021-2022	Person Responsible	Date
Create common summative assessments in like courses, using the resulting student work to identify ways to potentially close achievement gaps between typically performing and underperforming students	District Leadership Building Leaders All Staff (teachers, specialists, student support, custodians, admin assistants etc.)	2021-2022
Examine varied school and teacher practices and their impact on student achievement through a close analysis of student data, seeking to identify best practices for better serving members of historically underperforming subgroups	Data Team PLC Building Leaders	2021-2022
Create a shared vision/understanding of a culturally responsive classroom environment and instruction.	District Leadership Building Leaders All Staff (teachers, specialists, student support, custodians, admin assistants etc.) Students	2021-2022
Launch “World of Difference” program to develop peer mentors to help implement the civics standards identified in the History and Social Science Framework.	District Leadership Building Leaders All Staff (teachers, specialists, student support, custodians, admin assistants etc.) Students	Fall 2021, programm- ing to begin Spring 2022
Audit our building resources for cultural responsiveness and inclusivity (i.e. bathrooms, clubs, sports, publications, food service, events)	Building Leaders	2021-2022
In curriculum teams, audit units of study across content areas to include diverse voices and perspectives.	Building Leaders All Staff (Teachers, Specialists, Student Support, ELD, Reading Specialists)	2021-2024
Conduct team classroom visits through a lens of cultural responsiveness and inclusivity.	Small, multi-disciplinary team, with reporting out to all staff	2021-2024 yr1 - plan yr2 - implement yr 3 - analyze/ refine
Develop a teacher toolkit that includes professional learning opportunities and builds teacher capacity for culturally responsive teaching.	District Leaders Building Leaders All Staff PD Committee	2021-2022

District Strategic Objective 2020-2026	District Strategic Initiatives 2020-2026
3. Healthy and Balanced Learners: Prioritize social, emotional, and physical well-being of students.	3.1 Develop and implement a coherent and systematic approach to social and emotional learning (SEL) Pre-K-12. 3.2 Develop a comprehensive approach to health education Pre-K-12.
ARHS Action Steps 2021-2022	Person Responsible	Date
Create professional development opportunities to support SEL implementation using the CASEL framework	SEL Director SBLT Members	Fall 2021
Inventory district and school wide activities and programs that address SEL in reference to the CASEL framework	SEL Director District SEL Committee Guidance Student Support Services Health and Fitness Chair Nurses	2021-2022
Inventory library SEL holdings to ensure they are current and relevant to existing programs and courses.	SEL Director Principal SBLT Members	Fall 2021
Implement a screening tool - identified by District leaders - that will assist in the identification of specific students and, more effectively, student profiles that require assistance and support	SEL Director NASA SEL Subcommittee Principal	Fall 2021
Inventory state health curriculum standards and coordinate with educators to identify what is being addressed through existing curriculum and instruction.	District Wellness Coordinator and Nurse Leader, District Health Curriculum Committee SBLT Members Health and Fitness Chair	2021-2022

Professional Learning Topic/ Approach		Time Allocated		Person Responsible	Date
Common Assessments: Creation and Refinement		6-8 hours		Building leaders Department heads	Fall 2021
Training on CASEL frameworks		2.5 hours		SEL Director	Spring 2022
Inventorying DLCS		1.5 hours		Building leaders Director of Technology	Spring 2022
Measuring Impact- Early Evidence of Change: Changes in practice, attitude, behavior and/ or outcomes you should begin to see if the initiative is having its desired impact. These are not measurements of interim results. Early evidence benchmarks might be based on observations or surveys
Early Evidence Benchmark	Date (by when)		Status (future work, in process, completed)
Staff review/implementation of CASEL standards	Winter/Spring 2022		Future work
Curriculum Team analysis of student work: midterms	February 2022		In process
Curriculum Team analysis of student work: final exams	June 2022		Future work
Staff-generated DLCS inventory	June 2022		Future work

School Improvement Plan, 2021-2022