Disaggregated Data Analysis

PLC 1B: Anna Boldt, Abby Johnson, Kaylee Neubacher, Kristen Fuller
Schools: Trace Crossings Elementary School and Avondale Elementary School
Grade: 4th

Trace Crossings Elementary School Data

Avondale Elementary School Data

Chart of Achievement -- Trace Crossings and Avondale

Trace Crossings Data
2010-2011

2011-2012

Reading Scores
(Non-Poverty)

80.6%

69.4%

Reading Scores
(Poverty)

29.5%

16.7%

Math Scores
(Non-Poverty)

68.7%

43.6%

Math Scores
(Poverty)

42.9%

4.7%

Reading Scores
(White)

81.8%

70.8%

Reading Scores
(Black)

63.6%

23.7%

Math Scores
(White)

74.6%

45.8%

Math Scores
(Black)

42.4%

7.9%

Avondale Data
2010-2011

2011-2012

Reading Scores (NonPoverty)

No scores available
Birmingham city scores:
52.9%

No scores available
Birmingham city scores:
65.9%

Reading Scores
(Poverty)

24.6%

36.4%

Math Scores
(Non-Poverty)

No scores available
Birmingham city scores:
62.4%

No scores available
Birmingham city scores:
68.2%

Math Scores
(Poverty)

89.3%

49.1%

Reading Scores
(White)

No scores available
Birmingham city scores:
50.0%

No scores available
Birmingham city scores:
45.5%

Reading Scores
(Black)

25.9%

42.9%

Math Scores
(White)

No scores available
Birmingham city scores:
62.5%

No scores available
Birmingham city scores:
31.8%

Math Scores
(Black)

41.4%

46.4%

Trace Crossings Elementary

Observations about
Strategies

Teachers implemented several

online strategies to improve
student test scores, such as
IStation, Multiplication.com,
and IXL.

Observations about
Trace Crossings hosted Ed
Professional Development Camp for teachers across
Alabama. This camp was free.

Avondale Elementary
We did not observe any
strategies used here.

Some teachers took part in a

professional community called
Woodlawn Innovation
Network (WIN).

Observations about
Reading and Math
Programs

The staff stresses reading and

math skills, but other are
subjects still present in
instruction. For example,
STEAM, Art, P.E., and Music
are present. The math program
used is called Investigations.

Reading Street is the reading

program used at Avondale. The
math program used at Avondale
is GoMath.

Observations about
Resources used in
Reading and Math

Trace Crossings has a reading

coach, a math coach, a title
one team, and a steam
facilitator.

Some teachers used the spelling

and vocabulary tests from the
Reading Street curriculum. The
words on these tests were words
from the short stories in the
students textbook. To practice
for these tests, the students
would complete activities that
the teacher pulled from the
Reading Street curriculum.
For math, the teachers used
other resources besides the
GoMath curriculum. For
example, the students were
assigned to work word
problems on worksheets that
the teacher got from Teachers
Pay Teachers, sudoku puzzles,
and money word problems.

Schools Strengths

Some strengths of Trace

Crossings include parent
involvement, their RTI
programs, and their STEAM

One strength of Avondale is

their technology use. Most
classrooms had a promethean
board and a document camera.

Schools Weaknesses

School Initiatives

program. In addition, the have

many resources that the
teachers can use. Also, Trace
Crossings. They do not
administer DIBELS.

The students were able to use

laptops once a week. A strength
of Avondales test scores shown
above is that out of the four
areas that only Avondale scores
were used (poverty reading,
poverty math, black reading,
and black math), three of them
improved between the 20102011 and 2011-2012 school
year.

One weakness of Trace

Crossings is that students are
pulled out often, which causes
them to miss whole-group
instruction. Another weakness
is their lack of ELL teachers.
They only have one ELL
teacher even though they have
many ELL students.

One weakness of Avondale is

that there is no accountability
for teacher curriculum. For
example, teachers are not
required to turn in their lesson
plans until the end of the year.
Another weakness is that
students who succeed are not
recognized, and there are no
incentives for student success.
Additionally, most teachers did
not create uplifting classroom
environments. Lastly, the
teachers classroom
management and discipline
policies could be improved.
Many of the teachers punished
the students by sending them to
sit in the hallway.
A weakness in Avondale's
scores is that the poverty math
scores had a drastic decrease
(about 40%) between the 20102011 and 2011-2012 school
years.

Some initiatives at Trace

Crossings include RTI,
IStation, and STEAM.

The students were rewarded

with different awards, like tshirts, when they reached a
certain number of reading
points.
The school is a part of the
Woodlawn Innovation Network,
which focuses on teaching

students what they need to

know, how to think critically,
and how to apply their thinking.
School Improvement
Plans

Parental Involvement in
Student Achievement

Trace Crossings scorecard

provides a variety of school
data resources. RTI model was
implemented in 2010-2011.
PBIS was also implemented.
RTI data will be recorded on
the computer this year. All
Hoover City Schools math
facilitators meet once a month
at the district office to discuss
math curriculum.

The administration put into

place a reading plan of action
that focused on reading
strategies, providing students
with daily reading instruction,
and daily intervention for
students not meeting reading
goals. They also put into place a
math plan of action that
encouraged higher order
thinking skills and provided
struggling students with 30
minutes of math intervention
each day.

Parents are encouraged to

come to school-wide events
such as Reading Nights, the
Cultural Fair, Veterans day,
Dr. Suess Day, etc.

Teachers attempted to stay in

contact with their students
parents, but some of the parents
were not involved. Other
parents, however, were very
interested in the things that
occurred in the school and
classroom. Some classrooms
used the ClassDojo app to track
behavior. Parents were also
connected to this app so that
they could track their students
behavior throughout the day,
week, and year.

Accountability Resources Some accountability resources

used to Track Student
that are used to track student
Progress
progress include ACT Aspire,
Multiplication.com, IStation,
IXL Math, GlobalScholar, and
easyCBM.
Role of Support
Personnel in Increasing
Student Achievement

The personnel is constantly

implementing strategies and
technology to improve
students academic test scores.
The newest initiative is

ACT Aspire practice tests were

used throughout the year.
Teachers posted the percentages
on anchor charts that were hung
on the wall.
Avondale has a special
education teacher that pulled
students from the general
education classroom throughout
the week. The special education

Teachers Collaboration
in Sharing Data

IStation which is an engaging

technology component that
also tests the student's
academic progress.

teacher helped students by

providing them with
accommodations and more
scaffolding to help their achieve
success.

The staff and grade level

teachers all meet the first week
of every month to collaborate
and decide which students
need intervention.

The teachers did not appear to

have grade level meetings very
often. Therefore, it does not
seem as if the teachers discuss
data together. However, the
teachers would trade lesson
plans with the other teachers in
their grade level.

Trace Crossings Elementary School Analysis and Action Plan

The data collected for Trace Crossings Elementary shows a discrepancy in math and
reading scores between students who are impoverished and those who are not, as well as between
white and black students. Teachers at Trace Crossings use several websites to improve test
scores, including IXL and Istation. Additionally, they track progress with programs such as
GlobalScholar and ACTAspire. Math and reading are stressed at Trace, which is supported by
their specialized staff. This specialized staff includes: a math and reading coach, a STEAM
facilitator, and a Title I team. The staff and grade level teachers meet every first week of the
month to discuss the progress of their students in the areas of math and reading. Consequently,
the strengths of Trace Crossings are the RTI and STEAM program and the availability of
valuable resources. Parental involvement is also a huge part of the Trace Crossings learning
community. However, Trace Crossings needs to improve in a couple of areas. First, wholegroup instruction within classrooms is suffering because of the large amount of students being
pulled each day. Second, there are not enough English Language Learner Teachers to meet the
increasing population of English Language Learners at Trace Crossings.
Since the math and reading scores for Trace show a large discrepancy in two different
areas, we decided to investigate and conduct research to help us understand the differences. The
first discrepancy shows in the testing scores between students who are impoverished and those
who are not. Lacour, indicates that the low academic achievement levels of impoverished
students correlates to a lack of resources, their mothers education level, and the student's
familys beliefs toward education. Students from low-income homes do not have access to many
educational reading materials or resources. Often, mothers in a low-income household do not
have a high level of education, which is reflected in their interactions with their children,

especially in the areas of reading and talking. Additionally, if a students family or community
places little value on education, then this student is going to adopt this belief (2011). Thus, the
math and reading test score discrepancies between impoverished and non-impoverished students
likely has to do with the students difference in home-life. Students who are not impoverished,
have access to different reading materials and educational materials, their parents are probably
educated, and their family and community places importance on education. Students who have
all three of these qualities, in which Lacour describes, are at an advantage for academic success.
The second discrepancy is between the test scores of white and black students. This
discrepancy correlates to a couple of factors, including poverty and home-life conditions
(National Center of Statistics, 2009). Black students are more likely to live in poverty and tend
to have less experiences of reading at home. This is further supported by Lacours findings on
the relationship between poverty and low academic performance. It seems that poverty and
limited experiences are at the heart of the discrepancy between both areas.
To help bridge the gap on test scores between impoverished and non-impoverished
students, as well as white and black students, Trace Crossings should: continue strengthening the
partnership with its parents and community, use a variety of assessments within the classrooms,
and promote a positive school environment (Lacour, 2011). The schools and teachers
relationship with the parents and the community is crucial in closing the test score gap. Trace
Crossings already has great parental involvement. However, they must reach out to the parents
of students who are living in poverty. Trace Crossings must involve these parents in their childs
education through providing them with educational resources to use at home, as well as guidance
on helping their children to increase their academic achievement. Trace Crossings should also
establish a positive relationship with the community. They should place emphasis on the

importance of education. This will hopefully eliminate the probability of a child, who lives in a
low-income neighborhood, adopting a negative mentality towards education.
Next, Trace should use several different forms of assessment in their classroom, not just
standardized testing. Lacour suggests using assessment tools such as reading interest surveys,
parent satisfaction surveys, and an assessment of progress towards individual academic goals
(2011). Having a wide range of assessment tools, allows teachers to gain a full understanding of
a students abilities and areas of improvement. It might seem difficult to incorporate these
assessment tools because a lot of emphasis is placed on assessing students abilities to meet the
standardized objectives. Even more emphasis is placed on standardized testing. However, we
believe that using a wide variety of assessment tools is necessary in closing the gap on
standardized tests.
Last, Trace teachers and staff should continue to promote a positive school environment.
It should be the staff and teachers goals to lift all students up with word of encouragement. This
will create a drive within the student to work hard towards academic goals. Moreover, teachers
should involve the parents in giving students words of encouragement. For example, during
conferences, teachers should tell parents some positive things about their child. The aim is to get
parents in the habit of encouraging their child and pushing them to do their best in school. With
a positive school environment students who come from impoverished homes will gain a drive to
work hard academically. We believe this will ultimately bridge the academic gap between
impoverished and non-impoverished students, as well as white and black students.
References
Lacour, M., & Tissington, L. D. (2011). The effects of poverty on academic achievement.
Educational Research and Reviews, 6(7), 522-527. Retrieved May 10, 2016.

National Center for Educational Statistics. (2009). Achievement Gaps: How Black and White
Students in Public Schools Perform in Mathematics and Reading on the National Assessment of
Educational Progress (pp. 1-80, Rep. No. 455).

Trace Crossings Elementary School Parent Letter

Dear Trace Crossings Elementary Parents,
Welcome back from summer vacation! We hope that this break was beneficial and
relaxing! Our hope is that everyone is ready to start the year off strong academically. We recently
received the student's Alabama Reading and Math test scores. From these test scores, we found
that the reading and math scores have decreased. We would like for you to know that we are

already working to develop the best plan to improve these scores and keep your students as a top
priority. We believe with your support and encouragement towards your children, we can
accomplish this together.
Because of the past test score results, it is crucial that we are joined in partnership with
you, the parents, to provide your students with the best academic experience possible in order to
improve test scores. One way we would like to do this is by keeping you informed about our new
school improvement plan. The strengths of this plan involve testing the students through multiple
modalities and not simply using standardized tests. Another strength of this plan is to create a
positive academic environment for all the students. This will create a drive within the students to
strive towards academic success.
We believe that learning extends outside of your childs day in the classroom. This is why
your role is such a vital one in accomplishing these goals for our school and our students. Thank
you again for the support you have provided to us. We will continue to keep you updated as we
move forward in this process to increase student achievement. Please let us know if you have any
questions or concerns!

Sincerely,
Trace Crossings Elementary Administration

Avondale Elementary School Analysis and Action Plan

Looking at Avondale students test scores during the 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 school
years was interesting because the charts did not have any information on white students or
students living in non-poverty at this school. This is because there are not many white students or
students living in non-poverty at this school. Therefore, we had to use data from Birmingham
citys test scores for the white and non-poverty categories. The data of white and African
American students test scores and poverty and non-poverty students test scores showed a trend.

The data shows that students not living in poverty tend to test higher than students not living in
poverty and white students tend to test higher than African American students. By looking at the
test scores, we saw that most scores improved between the 2010-2011 school year and 20112012 school year, which is a major strength. The white students math scores, impoverished
students math scores, and white students reading scores, however, did not improve. One
weakness is that the math scores of students in poverty dropped significantly -- about 40%. In
this analysis, we first looks at research that explains why poverty affects students academics,
then we look at research that explains why race affects students academics. Finally, we include a
plan of improvement for Avondale that will help increase their students test scores.
Research has found that living in poverty will increase students chances of having low
scores on achievement tests. Roy and Rover (2014) explain that there is a clear, detrimental
relationship between growing up in a poor family and childrens cognitive functioning and
academic performance (p. 392). Brooks-Gunn and and Duncan (1997) explain that students
from an impoverished home are 1.3 times more likely to have delays in development and
learning disabilities than children who are not from impoverished homes. Children who are not
only living in poverty but who also live in a single-parent home or in a crowded area will be
affected academically even more (Roy and Rover, 2014). One reason why poverty affects
academics is because living in poverty can lead to life stressors, such as being unable to pay bills
or worrying about a parent losing their job, which can affect students academics negatively (Roy
and Rover, 2014).
The reason why African-American students test scores are lower than white students test
scores is because more African-American students live in poverty than white students. Roy and
Rover (2014) explain that greater proportions of African American (35%) and Latino (31%)

children live in poverty than White (11%) and Asian (15%) children (p. 392). Roy and Rover
(2014) also explain that 44% of African American families were characterized as being in deep
poverty and single, while only 16% of the Latino/White families fell into this profile (p. 397).
Although there is little that a school or school system can do to increase the economic
level of their students, there are several actions that schools like Avondale can take to help
improve students test scores. In this next session, we outline a plan of action for Avondale that
encompases three areas for imporement: increasing parent involvement, implementing a better
discipline system, and increasing teacher accountability.
Jesse (1996) explains that many teachers believe that increasing parental involvement
should be schools top priority. Therefore, we are making it our top priority for Avondale. We
desire to increase parental involvement by increasing volunteer opportunities and by allowing
parents to make more school-wide decisions. Some volunteer opportunities that we plan to
increase include allowing parents to help tutor students, help in the classroom, help with field
trips, help with fundraising, and help plan and arrange school-wide events (Jesse, 1996). We will
allow the parents to be involved in more school-wide decisions by joining committees and
attending meetings that were originally limited to faculty and staff members. We believe that
parents take part in more volunteer opportunities and are more involved in decision making
processes, they will be more involved in the school, and test scores will increase.
Secondly, we want to implement a better school-wide discipline system.
According to research done by Lassen, Steele, & Sailor (2006), implementing a positive behavior
system will decrease the number of office discipline referrals. By decreasing the number of
office discipline referrals, students spend more time in the classroom and less time in the office,
allowing them to be present for more instructional time. We plan to implement a school-wide

positive behavior system by clearly defining and teaching the schools behavior expectations to
the students, providing positive reinforcements to students who follow these expectations,
enforcing consequences for problem behavior, keeping records of problem behavior, and keeping
the administration involved in the school-wide behavior system (Lassen, Steele, & Sailor, 2006).
By implementing a positive behavior system, we believe that the students at Avondale will
improve their behavior, and they will miss less instruction time, which will in turn improve their
test scores.
Thirdly, we want to increase teacher accountability. We want to do this by requiring
teachers to submit their lessons plans for the upcoming week by Sunday night. This way,
teachers will become more active in writing and creating actual lesson plans. This will eliminate
wasted time throughout the school day because the teachers will have be following the specific
plans that they created. When teachers have planned out their week and wasted time is
eliminated, more time will be spent on instruction which will increase student learning and test
scores.

References
Brooks-Gunn, J., & Duncan, G. J.. (1997). The Effects of Poverty on Children. The Future of
Children, 7(2), 5571. Retrieved from http://doi.org/10.2307/1602387.
Jesse, D. (1996). Increasing parental involvement: A key to student achievement. What's
Noteworthy on Learners, Learning, Schooling. Mid-Continent Regional Educational
Lab., Aurora, 22.
Lassen, S. R., Steele, M. M. and Sailor, W. (2006), The relationship of school-wide Positive
Behavior Support to academic achievement in an urban middle school. Psychol. Schs.,
43: 701712.
Roy, A. L., & Raver, C. C. (2014). Are all risks equal? Early experiences of poverty-related risk
and childrens functioning. Journal Of Family Psychology, 28(3), 391-400. Retrieved
from doi:10.1037/a0036683

Avondale Elementary School Parent Letter

Dear Avondale Elementary Parents,
Welcome back from summer vacation! We hope that this break was beneficial and
relaxing! Our hope is that everyone is ready to start the year off strong academically. We recently
received the students Alabama Reading and Math test scores. From these test scores, we found
that even though we are close, the majority of our students are not reaching the benchmark in
both reading and math. One strength, however, is that we saw improvement in most students test
scores between this school year and last school year. However, a weakness is that we saw a
drastic change in some students math scores.
We would like for you to know that we are already working to develop the best plan to
improve these scores and keep your students as a top priority. We believe with your support and
encouragement towards your children, we can accomplish this together. Because of the past test
score results, it is crucial that we are joined in partnership with you, the parents, to provide your
students with the best academic experience possible in order to improve test scores. One way we
would like to do this is by keeping you informed about our new school improvement plan.
Our plan involves improvement in three areas: parental involvement, discipline, and
teacher accountability. We hope to improve parental involvement throughout the school by
increasing the number of volunteer opportunities for parents and by allowing parents to be more
involved in the school-wide decision making process. We want to improve discipline by
implementing a school-wide positive behavior system, which will provide positive
reinforcements for students who are following the schools expectations. We hope to increase
teacher accountability by having each teacher submit their lesson plans for the following week
every Sunday. By increasing parental involvement, implementing a positive behavior system,

and holding teachers accountable, we believe that student learning and academic scores will
improve.
We believe that learning extends outside of your childs day in the classroom. This is why
your role is such a vital one in accomplishing these goals for our school and our students. Thank
you again for the support you have provided to us. We will continue to keep you updated as we
move forward in this process to increase student achievement. Please let us know if you have any
questions or concerns!

Sincerely,
Avondale Elementary Administration