Huntsville City Schools

1. Huntsville City Schools Curriculum Audit Report Board for Education August 16, 2012 Dennis King, Ed.D.

2. Visit Summary • Site Visits • May 14-17, 2012 • Schools Visited • Ridgecrest Elementary, West Mastin Elementary, Blossomwood Elementary, Westlawn Middle , Ed White Middle, Hampton Grove Middle, Johnson High and Grissom High Schools

3. Visit Summary (con’t) • Process • Half-day visit at each school • 30 – 60 minutes with the principal • 60 minutes with key teacher leaders (leadership team) • Classroom Visits focusing on English, Language Arts and Math

4. Data Collection • Pre-visit survey was distributed to the principals for completion by the school’s teacher leadership team • Areas of focus: Curriculum, Instruction and Collaboration • Teacher and Principal Reflection • To what extent do we engage in this behavior or address this issue? • How much will a change in our practices of this team increase the achievement of students? • How much effort will it take to significantly change our practices regarding this issue?

5. General Observations • Principals and teachers truly care about students and student learning. • Strong site based management creates challenges for systemic implementation of the curriculum and key school improvement initiatives.

6. Curriculum- Summary • The curriculum contains inconsistencies in implementation throughout the district. • The viability of the curriculum is up to individual teacher’s interpretation. • Alignment to the district reading curriculum in elementary schools was not consistent.

7. Summary - Instruction • Intensive interventions were either within the classroom or in selected intervention programs determined by the school. • Schools did not discuss district-wide intensive reading or math interventions

8. Summary - Instruction • A wide variety of student engagement was taking place in the classrooms • Technology use by students lacked consistency throughout the district.

9. Summary – Teams/Collaboration • Teachers and principals indicated that most meetings take place informally or as Response to Intervention (RTI) meetings. • Teams struggle to have effective meetings. • Collaboration has been a challenge and teachers are not able to discuss the specific curriculum in their schools.  

10. Team Summary • Summative common assessments are being developed but lack formative assessments system-wide. • Teachers utilize data rooms to help guide student support from the STAR targets. • Teachers look at data from STAR exams, however, collectively, they do not discuss classroom student performance of students in the same content or grade level. • Teams could not show specific evidence of their meetings such as common assessments, learning targets, SMART goals and team protocols.

11. Recommendations • Development of a district conceptual framework for school improvement – including areas such as Professional Learning Communities, Curriculum, Assessment, Data and Interventions • Identify common products that will be produced from schools/team to support the district conceptual framework • Implementation of the district curriculum though a common curriculum format

12. Recommendations • Alignment of school improvement plans to the district conceptual framework for school improvement • Provide professional development for principals and teacher leaders on key concepts within the conceptual framework • Onsite coaching and monitoring to embed the critical concepts of the conceptual framework into each school site