MOUNTAINSIDE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL UIP 2017-18 District: Fountain 8   |  Org ID: 1000  |   School ID: 6138  |   Framework: Improvement Plan: Meets 95% Participation  Open
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UIP Narrative Brief Description Prior Year Targets Current Performance Trend Analysis Priority Performance Challenges Root Causes

Priority Performance Challenges

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Directions: Based upon your analysis of trends, select a limited number (no more than three or four) of Priority Performance Challenges (PPCs). Provide a rationale for why these challenges have been selected and address the magnitude of the performance challenges. View the Quality Criteria for the Priority Performance Challenges section.

Notable Trends:
(from previous section)

Academic Achievement (Status): Students at Mountainside have demonstrated academic achievement reflecting a saw tooth pattern of achievement with spikes and troughs in all three grades assessed. This past year's PARCC/CMAS assessment achievement data all show decreases from grade level to grade level, but demonstrate relative stability with the same cohort of students longitudinally across assessment years. Student Achievement was below the school's goal of at or above the median score in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade ELA and Math, and in 5th grade Science.

Academic Achievement (Status): As compared to the state average measured by the CMAS assessment in science and the ACCESS for Mountainside's ELL population, student achievement is significantly higher than the state and district averages. Additionally, as measured by the ACCESS assessment, there is no gap between the achievement of students as members of student subgroups and the overall student population taking the assessment.

Academic Growth: Academic Growth as measured by the ACCESS indicates student growth significantly higher than the the state median of 50 percent. The median growth percentile for Mountainside's students is at 62.

Academic Growth: Academic growth data also demonstrates a saw tooth pattern with spikes and troughs over the past three years in the two grade levels where growth information is available.Last year's PARCC/CMAS assessment growth data show decreases in the median growth percentile from the previous year. There was one grade level growth score that was above the school target of academic growth, 4th grade ELA, otherwise the other three cohort scores fell below the goal of at or above the state median score.

Performance Challenge(s)

STEM Teacher Conceptual Understanding
-Lack of understanding/comfort in integrating and implementing STEM cross-curricular lessons, activities... -Teachers have an opportunity to observe modeling of "Inquiry" structured, or Engineering Design Process lessons from peers to observe successful STEM integrated lessons.
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Building Culture and Community
Develop a culture of a collaborative community within Mountainside Elementary School.
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English-Language Arts
Teachers will implement the Colorado Academic Standards for reading, writing, and communication with evidence-based writing tasks, academic language, and cross-curricular literacy.
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Provide a rationale for why these challenges have been selected and address the magnitude of the overall performance challenges:

Priority Performance Challenges:         
During the collaborative process conducted in mid-April Mountainside Elementary School staff members identified a need to focus building leadership and major improvement strategies through the creation of ''solution teams'' in three specific areas: ELA (English Language Arts), STEM- (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math), and Building Culture and Community.

Familiarizing and implementing the district's Teaching and Learning Frameworks as a structure to design instruction. (This work will be reflected by a positive change in the growth trend data in all content areas, specifically addressing our decline in Reading growth.)
  • Collaboration between grade level teams and building leadership
  • Deconstruction of Colorado Academic Standards to arrive at clearly defined learning targets
  • Development of targeted formative assessments that align to Colorado Academic Standards and are integrated into the grade levels' instructional implementation
  • Focus teacher and student attention to be able to address the following 3 critical questions:
    • Where are we going (in our learning)?
    • Where are we now (our current level of understanding)?
    • What do we need to do to close the gap between our current level and our expected level of understanding?

Continuing a focus of STEM activities embedded in how we provide students opportunity to engage in inquiry-based learning, collaborative problem-solving, and engineering based activities. This needs to continue even after the conclusion of the 3 year DODEA STEM grant as teachers strive to continue to provide engaging exploration opportunities for students attending Mountainside both through curricular options and extracurricular activities.


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