School Improvement Plan

What is a School Improvement Plan?

A School Improvement Plan (SIP) is a strategic blueprint that schools use to enhance student learning and improve educational practices. It outlines specific goals for improvement, actions to achieve those goals, and methods for measuring progress.

Key Points of a SIP:

Goals: Clear objectives the school aims to achieve to enhance student outcomes.
Actions: Steps and strategies the school will implement to reach its goals, based on research and effective practices.
Monitoring: Regular review of progress with adjustments made to ensure the school stays on track toward its improvement objectives.

The purpose of a SIP is to provide a clear roadmap for schools to improve educational outcomes for all students, particularly focusing on eliminating disparities and ensuring equitable opportunities for every student.

Every school in Washington State is required to have a School Improvement Plan.

Monitoring and Adjusting:

A SIP is not set in stone. It's reviewed regularly, with progress monitored against the set goals and activities adjusted as needed to stay on track toward improvement.

Visit the Issaquah School District SIP website to learn more about SIPs.

District - School Improvement Plans

Achievement Goals

Based on fall 2022 i-Ready assessment data, our goal is by the spring of 2024, 85% of Cedar Trails students in grades 2-5 will meet benchmark on the spring i-Ready assessment in their overall reading.
Our goal is for students at Cedar Trails to reach their personal growth goals. Specifically, our target is for at least 65% of students below benchmark to be on track to meet their stretch growth goal and for 90% of students at or above benchmark to be on track to meet their typical growth goal based on their first and last i-Ready Reading Diagnostic assessments.

Guiding Questions

Reflecting on previous action plans

What actions were successfully implemented?

Established our vision and mission:

Inspiring every heart and mind to positively impact our community.

Creating and nurturing an inclusive environment that: Celebrates diverse personal strengths, Collaborates, with the common goal of progress, Cultivates positive relationships, Captures the excitement of possibility in order to support flexible and resilient learners ready for the future.

Opening a new school during a global pandemic with supply chain challenges
Created a building schedule that includes Success Blocks and common team planning
Learning our new students through many data points (BEISY, i-Ready, ELL WIDA, etc.) and anecdotal notations
Grade levels established curriculum maps that were revisited throughout the school year to help keep everyone on track of teaching each of the core curriculum components
Grade level teams met weekly and shared their team meeting notes with the administration team (principal and dean of students)
Created a data team to review reading data to determine which students needed what level of intervention and support
- Established MTSS (Multi-Tiered Systems of Support) teams
  - Tier 1 team to help establish our school-wide expectations and our PBSES/SEL work
  - Tier 2 team to review ongoing data to identify a student coordinator to actively work with classroom teacher to find next best steps for children identified as needing this level of accommodation or intervention support
- Initiated Success Blocks in reading with an intervention teacher at the beginning of the school year and then moved to including further intervention groupings with grade level classroom teachers
- Learned and implemented new curriculum (Words Their Way) in Success Blocks
Beginning UDL and inclusive practices Professional Development with the creation of a 5-year action plan:

5-Year Plan

Year 1: Staff is able to identify UDL as an inclusive strategy (PURPOSE)	August Retreat Days: CORE TEAM introduced inclusion/UDL to staff and generated strategy posters bases on modeling, vision/mission February PD: Identified UDL Strategies and shared BINGO board of strategies for staff to mark when the strategy is modeled by presenters March Staff Meeting: What does inclusion mean to us at Cedar Trails? Inclusion Calibration activity May PD: Common Inclusion Definition and 5-year plan shared, using i-Ready data to learn about scaffolds and reflect on barriers and how they can be reduced (barriers in UDL categories) June PD: UDL Category based reflection and goal reflection: Did we meet our goal? What strategies are we using already? What classroom management and academic strategies are we accessing already? What should we think about for next year? What systems did you use in your classroom to remove barriers to student learning?
Year 2: Staff is able to explain the purpose and importance of UDL to support inclusive practices (INCENTIVES)	Co-Teaching for early adopters and ELL classroom clusters Importance of UDL through building book study – One Without the Other, overlap with MTSS team Reference guidelines in instructional practice (3 categories) – case studies in staff room (core team provides anonymous students from i-Ready reading reflection activity) Tri 1: Engagement Tri 2: Representation Tri 3: Expression Understand impacts of UDL in classroom Early adopters for “lab classrooms”
Year 3: Staff understand connection of UDL Guidelines and baseline daily instruction (SKILLS)	Plan around Guidelines, Lesson plan with UDL framework in mind Understanding continued engagement and practice, lab classrooms Staff utilize resources/tools, MTSS team support
Year 4: Staff experience and build a toolkit of inclusive practices (RESOURCES)	Early adopters: using resources to plan lessons (resources including TIME) UDL Study: book study, video reflection Resources that align with the framework How to build a toolkit (teams, padlet, wakelet, as a team/individual ~ where to gather resources and how to share it with staff) Identify routines embedded in classroom instruction Continue Lab Classrooms with MTSS team support
Year 5: Staff intentionally plan with inclusive strategies (ACTION-PLANS)	Plan and Reflect on Lesson Plans Time to plan which routines will work in individual classrooms Lessons to teach student routines Continue Lab Classrooms with MTSS team support Year 6: Reflection of 5-Year Plan

What was observed? What evidence did you use to determine impact?

Students and families shared regularly how much they loved our school community
Our core team and our Tier 1 team created year-long systems and supports that helped students know and show the CTs expectations and routines/structures
As a new school, we continuously review and revise our Tier 1 systems and supports as we settle into our new building and get to know our students
Data Team was able to see student growth and move students out of Success Blocks
Our SBA data showed great outcomes across all three grade levels (3rd, 4th and 5th)
The individual teachers Student Growth Goals (SGGs) showed tremendous growth from beginning to end of the school year
Our Tier 2 team data showed that students that were receiving additional accommodations and/or interventions were making progress
Attendance continued to be a challenge throughout the year despite individual efforts made for students that showed greater truancy

How did actions impact disproportionality and equity?

Recovery service meetings for students served on IEPs helped us get to know our families and students right away and begin supporting the students right away
Students served in ELL were supported through push-in/pull-out services, GLAD strategies across the building in all classrooms and a GLAD building leader to support the GLAD efforts in the classroom
We gained a 0.5 FTE ELL teacher midway through the year to help support our large number of students served in this program
Our counselor and PBSES coach hosted a parent night to help support families with the ongoing trauma associated with COVID-19 and anxiety as a barrier to student success
We leaned heavily on our Family Partner Liaison to communicate with families that had barriers to the U.S. school system and getting their children actively involved in school; staff were trained and had access to Language Line and Alboum to help with translation needs throughout the school year.
Students in financial need quickly became a focus as we got to know our students and their families. We started a “Breakfast Snack Club” to help feed our identified students that needed this additional breakfast and snack support. This breakfast snack program increased on-time arrivals for a couple of our students in this group.
With being a new building and learning new needs, we used a lot of resources, internal and external, to support our students and their families.
We hosted specific events for our students that are supported in our LRC II classroom.
Truancy continued to be a challenge for a few students despite our efforts to engage their families and these individual students in school.

What actions would you continue or change?

This year we are looking forward to technology changes. Technology in the classrooms will make i-Ready an easier and more reliable tool to support.
We are continuing our Success Blocks with classroom teachers starting right away with a RGR group at each grade level that the data supports this need. Our 5th grade group is expanding their Success Block to math which also includes a co-teaching experience with our LRC I teacher and one of the 5th grade teachers.
We are continuing and expanding our professional development on UDL and inclusive practices. Our PEP/SAGE teacher along with a core team classroom teacher are doing several PD sessions in the second half of the year with the school team.
We are continuing to establish our school community, especially now that COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted and parents are able to volunteer on a consistent basis in our building and classrooms.
Something we would change is our goals and the way they are written to collect accurate data and information that supports positive student growth.
Co-teaching is happening across our building with our MLL teacher and our cluster classrooms as well as our LRC I teacher and a 5th grade teacher taking district trainings to grow this practice.
Our hope for next year is to do more engagement activities with our students and their families that are served in our ELL program. For example, we would like to host a separate curriculum night and a family engagement night for families served in this program.

Backed by Data

Schools use multiple data sources to inform their planning. Progress toward school improvement in overall achievement and disproportionality is monitored using state and district measures using a common School Improvement Data Dashboard.

Data Workbook for Elementary School

Process
Findings

Process

In August of 2021, we had a district data person come to Cedar Trails to do a mini lesson on Homeroom and how to collect data on our new students. We then worked as a Building Leadership Team (BLT) to create our SIP goal with individual grade level teams working on their student growth goals that supported our overall and gap-closing SIP goals. We did ongoing data reviews as a school as well as in our data team, Tier 2 team and BLT. We invited representatives from the i-Ready program to do deeper data dives with our teaching team during PD sessions. Here are some of the data results:

Last year’s overall goal: By the spring of 2024, 85% of students grades K-5 will meet benchmark on the spring i-Ready assessment in overall reading.

Fall/Spring i-Ready Reading DATA (At Grade Level ~ Tier 1):
- Kindergarten: Fall: Did Not Test Winter: 77% Spring: 88%
- 1st: Fall: 52% Spring: 77%
- 2nd: Fall: 54% Spring 75%
- 3rd: Fall: 76% Spring 93%
- 4th: Fall: 62% Spring 73%
- 5th: Fall: 64% Spring 86%
- OVERALL AVERAGE: 82% was our average in our 1^st year of this goal (spring 2022 average)

Additional overall Goal: 90% of 1st and 2nd graders will meet benchmark on the Spring i-Ready assessment in the Phonics domain.

1st Grade: Fall: 53% Spring: 77%
2nd Grade: Fall: 48% Spring: 68%
OVERALL AVERAGE: 72.5% was our average (spring 2022 average)

Our goal was written for a 3-year trajectory. Coming off a global pandemic with at-home learning, we feel we had great growth, but look forward to seeing continued growth over the next two school years. We adjusted our overall goal to include students that would still be at Cedar Trails in the spring of 2024. We took away the second part of our overall goal to focus on our gap-closing goal.

We started our Success Blocks from the start of year with our TLAP teacher and saw significant growth with our students served in this program. A couple students were able to move out of the TLAP intervention group into the grade level Success Blocks once those began in the winter/spring. Our 3rd grade students have shown great growth in all their assessments. Their SBA data shows this same BIG growth, with a large majority meeting grade level expectation (based on preliminary scores). Our 4th and 5th grade students also showed great preliminary outcomes on the ELA SBA.

ELA SBA Spring Preliminary Data:

3rd Grade: 4 ~ 48%, 3 ~ 20%
4th Grade: 4 ~ 43%, 3 ~ 24%
5th Grade: 4 ~ 63%, 3 ~ 27%

Gap Closing Goal: By the spring of 2024, 80% of our Kindergarten and 3rd grade cohorts of students scoring below grade level in i-Ready Reading will have reached 80% of their stretch goal for the year.

Students scoring BELOW as of Spring 2022:

Kindergarten TOTAL: Fall NA, Spring 12%
- Tier 2: 12%
- Tier 3: 0%
3rd Grade TOTAL: Fall 24%, Spring 7%
- Tier 2: Fall 17%, Spring 5%
- Tier 3: Fall 7%, Spring 2%

NOTE: Students that fall in the Tier 2 and Tier 3 level are not surprises. For example, many of these students are served in our TLAP Success groups, ELL or in LRC I programs.

Findings

Truancy: One of our known barriers that caused disproportionality was truancy, including significant health concerns following/during a global pandemic and just returning to school. We continue to work with individual families to support on-time arrivals and improved daily attendance.
Title: As a new building and in returning to full school from a global pandemic, we learned in January that we qualified for “title” status. This status helped us fund our breakfast program through the support of the Issaquah Schools Foundation as well as create a math tutoring program for our students that needed this support the most. We continue to work with the Issaquah Food Bank to support our families through the PowerPack program.
Tier 2 Work: We assigned student coordinators for each child that popped up through data or through teacher referral to do a deeper data dive and add in additional accommodations and/or interventions to support the students with their individual needs.
Trauma Informed Work: Our PBSES coach and counselor were able to provide ongoing just-in-time PD to support our trauma informed practices. This was especially helpful as we came out of the COVID experience.
Kindergarten Para Support: Our students in our kindergarten class had less “normal” life experiences and many were new to speaking English. Our kindergarten paras worked with the kindergarten students in class to support their academic and social needs, but also worked with this cohort at recess times and during lunch.
Reading: As we analyzed overall achievement, we found that our reading scores are steadily improving. This indicated to us that we should continue our goal and the majority of our action steps, adding new ones to continue to propel us forward. The work that we did last year in analyzing the data for all of our individual students helped us to name and identify all our students who are being impacted by disproportionality. While we recognize there is still much work to be done and many barriers, we felt that the goal and projection we are on is the best way to continue to see growth.

Throughout our work, we continued to ask why students were not progressing at the same rate as their peers and what barriers might be present for the individual students. Many factors and barriers were discovered as potential root causes. These include extensive COVID absences, continued attendance issues, intense behaviors that limit access to quality instruction, extraneous family matters, students identified through our Child Find process and those who are in our Tier 2 system. To help reduce these barriers, we continue to work closely with families of students who struggle to attend school on a regular basis. We worked all year with district behavioral specialists who helped us identify and put programs in place for students with intense behavioral needs. We continue to wrap around our students with extraneous family matters at school and help to find resources outside of school. We have continuous meetings with Tier 2 members to bolster our systems of supports for our students most at risk.

In addition to all of this, we recognize that there is still much work to be done and possible root causes that may not have been identified as of yet. We continue to look at individuals and ask why progress is slow and what can be done to support each child.

As a result of our work this first year in our building, we created a common data collection tool that will help us collect ongoing data on our students to regularly review as a school team as well as in our grade level teams and in our MTSS team.

School-Based Action Plan

Action	Implementation	Impact: Evidence/Monitoring
Most teachers wrote their Student Growth Goals around reading.	Continue PD around reading: small groups, using adopted curriculum, using book room, supplementing appropriately Building Leaders are committed to assessing needs, developing and delivering just-in-time PD Whole school data review Commitment to reading focus Commitment to PD that centers around reading and math reading	Exit Tickets after each PD Time for staff to implement new learnings Achievement Data Growth Data
New Title Math Program: Bridges	Commitment to modeling Title Math after Title Reading in the way data is analyzed and used and groups are formed Commitment to small group math time Work during small groups in math reading and well as skills	Achievement Data Growth Data
Strengthening Tier 1 Math	PD around math reading – math vocab, math story problems, math discourse, math conversations, etc. Use extra time that Title Math Teacher has to model Tier 1 Strategies in classrooms	Exit slips after PD Achievement Data Growth Data
Strengthening Book Room	Clean and organize book room for maximin use Dedicate Para time to keeping Book Room organized Train staff on how to use book room, what is already in there and professional books that can help guide reading groups Look into purchasing additional resources to strength Book Room and encourage use	Monitor use of Book Room Achievement Data Growth Data
Participate in CR-TFI	Form small committee to participate in CR-TFI Participate in CR-TFI Review data in small and large groups Develop Action Plan Implement Action Plan	Even though this is a behavioral tool, improving Tier 1 behavior will allow more students to access instruction and improve scores. Achievement Data Growth Data Behavior Data Tier 2/3 Data and Percentages
Math Night	Plan and conduct Family Math Night Emphasis the connection between reading and math	Math Night turn out Math Night Feedback Achievement Data Growth Data
Continue to strengthen Tier 2/3 Systems	Staff training around how to access T2/3 Adapt forms and systems as needed to maximize system Include interventionists as experts in meetings and with help with intervention cycles	Use of Tier 2 system Tier 2/3 Data and Percentages Achievement Data Growth Data
Attendance Meeting with families	Track attendance closely Send emails alerting families when attendance is becoming an issue Train staff on when to alert Admin to attendance-related concerns Hold Family Meetings when needed	Improved attendance Attendance Data Achievement Data Growth Data
Family Engagement Training	PD to staff about how and when to engage families including conference and other meetings Encourage the use of volunteers again Encourage and participate in activities that partner with our community again: Field Trips, Volunteers, VOICE, PTA Events Assess needs Develop additional trainings/events based on needs Start Watch Dogs program Use of Site Council and PTA Board and forums	More parent involvement in day-to-day functioning More parent involvement in volunteering, PTA and events Feedback from Site Council and PTA Board and forums Parents indicate an understanding of systems
Parent Education	Determine need through student behavior, staff feedback, parent feedback Develop articles to include in E-News Consider more family nights based on needs	More parent involvement in day-to-day functioning More parent involvement in volunteering, PTA and events Parents indicate an understanding of systems
Continue to strengthen PBSES Systems	Train staff, students and parents on current systems Train staff on use of SWIS Engage in calibration activities around when, what and how to enter concerns in SWIS Participate in CR-TFI Hold expectation assemblies multiple times a year Update families on systems	Even though this is a behavioral goal, improving Tier 1 behavior will allow more students to access instruction and improve scores. Achievement Data Growth Data SWIS Data Tier 2/3 Data and Percentages

SIP Team & Final Review

Principal: Tera Coyle
Site Council/PTSA Review Date: February 10, 2023
Supervisor Review: Susan Mundell, January 23, 2023
School Board Review Date: February 15, 202

Leadership Team: December 16, 2022

Melissa Skone, Kindergarten
Kayla Strand, 3rd Grade
Amy Senior, Para
Eve Winter, TLAP
Laura Biller, Dean of Students
Reyna Yamamoto, 1st Grade
Katlin Wright, 4th Grade
Julianna McDowell, Specialist
Kaitlin Nuth, SpEd
Glidys Lozano, Counselor
Kathleen Blanding, 2nd Grade
Jessica Suarez, 5th Grade
Deanna Buder, MLL & Parent

Checklist

Action plan includes use of educational technology.
Action plan includes strategies for family engagement.
Action plan includes strategies for engaging students and/or addressing the social, emotional and/or mental health needs of students and barriers to learning
Action plan includes a school-based action to implement one (or more) of Culturally Responsive Practices, Universal Design for Learning, Trauma Informed Practices, &/or the 4 High Leverage Instructional Practices.

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