JAMES MONROE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
ILLINOISPROGRAM(S) PARTICIPATED IN: Sprint 2014
TEAM MEMBERS
Ricardo Trujillo, Principal
Trinidad Lopez, Teacher Leader
Bryan Quinlan, Assistant Principal
ABOUT THE SCHOOL
School Type: Selective
Grades served: 7-12
Enrollment: 1295
PROBLEM
FOT (Freshman On Track) can keep climbing in our city; the recent increases only mean need for more innovation- not that our job is done. What we see on the ground level is that 8th Graders don’t graduate with purpose and don’t show up as Freshmen with drive and concrete long-term plans.
SOLUTION
- True School Choice Metric (Every 8th Grader needs to be accepted to at least 5 high schools from which he/she will choose; this will metric will be part of a suite of data. As high schools have College Persistence and On-Track, Elementaries can have High School Graduation and On Track); we document all this on a personalized tracker listing each students’ data for all staff to see “Articulation Tracker”
- High School 101 Workbook with articulation activities with accountabilities of teacher, student AND parent (created via in-house Teacher Consultancy Project providing financial and professional development to our highest performing teachers)
- Data Platform of all student level data eventually becoming a portfolio sent to the high school aligned to CTE, IB and other indicators.
KEY LEARNING
We interviewed Summer School kids, primarily in 8th grade, but also in others. These were the kids that the system failed, needed to see the connections, and were at risk for FOT. We spoke to parents and we spoke to 8th Grade Teachers. They didn’t know how eligibility worked, nor the gradients of schools, nor realized there was variety “for kids like me.”
BY THE NUMBERS
- Hours input by team: 100
- Students impacted: 200
- Additional educators impacted: 10
- Community members: 300
MEASURED IMPACT
- 7-100% Growth in True School Choice Metric Class of 2014 to Class of 2015
- Class of 2014 Attendance: 93.79% ; Class of 2015 Attendance 95.79%
- 7th Grade YTD on Track increase by 37% ; 8th Grade YTD on Track increase by 25%
- Class of 2014 applied to 10 total high schools; Class of 2015 applied to 31 total high schools
- YTD 2014 to YTD 2015 Schoolwide on track increase by 14%
- Class of 2014 Attended 10 high schools, Class of 2015 is attending 31 total high schools
PLANS TO SCALE
Continue the workbook and articulation tracker as part of the 8th grade process; build a data platform to take school-wide as we see individualization can be done on large scale.