Meet the Challenge at Stanton Middle School
The "Meet the Challenge" program at Stanton Middle School has realized incredible successes. Through an innovative partnership with Selbyville Middle School, Stanton Middle has replicated Selbyville's "Meet the Challenge" program and implemented data-driven instructional changes that have raised student achievement, begun closing the achievement gap, and elevated the school to a commendable school rating.
The collaboration between Selbyville Middle and Stanton Middle was made possible through Lt. Governor John Carney's "Models of Excellence in Education" project, an initiative started in 2002 to celebrate schools and programs that successfully raise student achievement and to aide sharing those models with other schools around the state.
How does it work?
- Meet the Challenge addresses the instructional needs of individual children through data-driven instruction and teacher collaboration. Teachers at Stanton Middle began the program by looking at the available data from student testing and identifying five instructional needs in both reading and math to focus on during the 2006-07 school year. For each of these needs, a teacher leadership team created a series of ten activities for students to complete and a short assessment to gauge their progress on each instructional need. Students who scored above 80% on the assessment participated in an enrichment program, while those scored lower were given remediation. Students still needing additional instruction met two days a week for extra time with teachers. As part of the initiative, students completed ten-minute warm-up activities based on these instructional needs in all their academic classes, not just their reading and math classes. In this way, every teacher in the school was involved in making sure students were receiving the instruction they needed to raise their achievement.
- Teachers at Stanton Middle built on this first year of work by coming together this summer to identify specific instructional needs for every grade level, to create activities for those needs, and to craft assessments. With these activities, teachers will be able to further target the individual needs of their students based on grade level.
- Stanton Middle also began a program called “Hip Children” as part of Meet the Challenge. Each teacher identified four students they felt could benefit from a "close-to-the-hip" mentoring relationship. They met with these students individually, and worked collectively to ensure their needs were met. There were between 150 and 160 Hip Children identified by teachers last year and the program is continuing on this year.
What are the results?
- Meet the Challenge helped Stanton Middle School move from being a "School Under Improvement" in 2006 to being a "Commendable School" in 2007. The percentage of students meeting or exceeding the standard went up 5% in reading and 8% in math for the whole school, with African American, Hispanic, and low-income students making even greater gains in math and reading. Stanton Middle also made strong gains with its special education students.
- According to Stanton Principal Carolyn Zogby, teachers in Stanton Middle have become consumers of data, as well as trainers to help other teachers use data effectively. They helped create a shared data system to access information about all students to help guide instruction throughout the year. By creating instructional needs activities and assessments, they have been able to gain ownership of the data, using what is available to structure learning activities that meet the needs of their students. This use of data culminates each year in Data Day. Teachers at each grade level spend time going over all the data from the year and distilling three accomplishments, two strategies that proved effective at meeting the needs of students, and one goal for the next year to help them build on their successes. They then come together as a school and do the same activity, creating team goals for the school community to be met the following year.
- This work has taken considerable time, the commitment of the whole staff, and the understanding that in order to meet the needs of all students, teachers had to change the way they delivered instruction. After a year of implementation the results are already very strong, and together this school community is finding ways to make sure it only gets stronger in the years to come.
How does Vision 2015 address an instructional focus?
Vision 2015 recommends:
- Finding and replicating best practices from schools around the state and around the world
- Implementing assessments that measure student gains and give teachers the information they need to help all students succeed
Where can I learn more?
Stanton Middle School
Read The News Journal article on this partnership.
