Running head: CURRENT REALITY AND GSAPS 1

Current Reality and GSAPS

Christopher Cooper

Kennesaw State University

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Vision

The vision of Dacula High School (DHS) is for teachers to use constant formative

assessment to check for student mastery, provide differentiated instruction to meet student needs

and provide student engagement, while supporting all instructional activities with the appropriate

instructional technology. DHS was the recipient of a technology grant from Gwinnett County

Schools which allowed 18 Google Chromebooks to be placed in each classroom. The

administration at DHS has set an expectation for teachers to transform learning through the use

of technology in the classroom. The administration has made an effort to maximize teachers

planning time to insure that they are able to provide students with engaging transformational

lessons that implement technology into the students daily learning strategies. It is Dr. Long’s

belief that teachers should facilitate student learning and allow students to work through the

content until mastery is achieved.

DHS does not have a clearly defined vision for the use of technology. It is the belief of

Dr. Long and the administration at DHS that the use of technology to transform learning is

different for each classroom. Some of the teachers at DHS use technology to provide students

with a flipped classroom. Other classrooms use technology to provide students with tiered

lessons to meet the needs of individual students. You will also see many of the teachers at DHS

using technology to provide enrichment and remediation to students after formal and summative

assessments.

Needs Assessment

There are several ways that the needs for professional learning is identified at DHS.

First, administration looks and the goals established for the school each year and determines

what professional development is needed to insure that the faculty can successfully meet these
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goals. Second, the administration at DHS sends out a survey at the end of the year and ask

teachers how they can better support the staff at DHS and what tools they need to be successful.

The administration then complies data from the surveys and uses it to determine what types of

professional development are needed. Typically, the professional development that is identified

form the school’s goals is provided during our pre-planning days at the beginning of the school

year or during the planning days at the start of second semester. The professional development

that is identified from the staff surveys are addressed during teacher’s lunch period. Teachers are

provided lunch on these days while administrators carryout the professional development. This

has been a very positive means for providing professional development because it does not take

away from teachers planning time or does it require them to stay after hours for professional

development.

Professional Learning

The forms of professional learning available at DHS are learning teams, mentoring, peer

observations, and course collaboration for lesson planning. The learning teams at DHS are

created by the courses that each teacher teaches. For example, all of the US History teachers

form a course team which serves as a learning team. Each learning team has a leader and the

leader meets with administration twice a month during their lunch period. The course team

leader is then responsible for taking information provided by the administration back to the

course team. Often times administrators provide examples of classroom technology use for

course team leaders to take back to their learning team. Course teams at DHS meet twice each

week during their planning period. All course teams at DHS have common planning.

Collaboration and lesson planning also takes place during the course team meetings that are held

twice a week during planning.

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DHS has several mentor programs established to provide a form of professional learning.

Each new teacher to DHS is assigned a mentor. The new teachers meet monthly with DHS’s

new teacher support staff and have weekly checkups with their mentor teacher. Our special

education department also has mentor meetings that all new special education teachers that they

have to attend. DHS also promotes peer observations and encourages their teachers to complete

a peer observation each semester.

Alignment

During an interview with Dr. Long, he stated, “We are working to have the greatest

school effect in Gwinnett County (C. Cooper, personal correspondence).” It is his belief that by

carrying out our school’s vision, DHS will meet our school improvement goals. The annual goal

for DHS is to increase academic performance for all students, including all subgroups, to meet

and/or exceed state and district averages and the performance of comparison schools as indicated

by the Georgia College and Career Ready Performance Index and the Gwinnett County Weighted

School Assessment (LSPI, 2017). The long term goal for DHS is to increase the four-year cohort

graduation rate to 90% and five-year cohort rate to 92% by 2019.

Funding & Incentives

The Dacula cluster was the recipient of the first ever technology grant provided by

Gwinnett County School in 2015, which allowed rDHS to place 18 Google Chromebooks or

laptops in each classroom. This grant has allowed much of the money allocated to Dr. Long for

technology to focus on using those funds in the areas of professional development. Dr. Long

chooses to have “Transformed Teachers,” as he calls them carry out in-house professional

development during our lunch and learn. This allows the administration to purchase lunch for

the teachers when they have those professional development sessions. Gwinnett County school
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system also provides stipends for teachers to attend professional development sessions. The

often times pay for registration fees, or provide teachers with a stipend to cover the cost of

sessions that are attended outside of the county.

Diversity

DHS has a very diverse student population with various needs from learning disabilities

to students who are English Language Learners. For teachers in our special education

department, they are provided department specific professional development. Often times their

professional development sessions are geared toward the use of assistive technology. Many of

the professional development sessions that they are offered occur at DHS, however they also

have to attend professional development sessions at other locations, that Gwinnett County

School Systems provide. Another example of professional development that is geared toward

our diverse population at DHS is for our English Language Learners. Gwinnett County School

Systems has provided teachers with online professional development to help teachers meet the

needs of our ESOL students. The DHS ESOL instructor also works with individual teachers to

provide tools to assist these students, such as online resources to help them be successful in their

classes.

Collaboration

Each department at DHS has common planning, which allows for an abundance of

collaboration among course teams. Course teams are DHS’s model of learning teams. Each

course team is derived from all the teachers that teach a particular subject. Each Course teams is

expected to meet twice a week at a minimum for collaboration. The majority of the course teams

meet on a daily basis at DHS to follow up on lessons are going, determine how students did on

assessments and to check to see if anyone within the course team has particular concerns.
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During course team meetings, teachers focus on lesson planning, creative effective formative and

summative assessments, and reviewing data to be sure they are meeting the needs of their

students. Course team meetings are also a time were teachers share effective uses of technology

with the members of their course teams. Often times the department administrator will attend the

various course team meetings to make sure they hear support the collaboration that is taking

place at DHS.

Evaluation

Evaluation of professional development is carried out in several different ways at DHS.

The first means for evaluating the effectiveness of professional development at DHS is through

observation. DHS administrators conduct teacher observations using the Gwinnett Teacher

Effectiveness System (GTES), which is an observation tool for observing Gwinnett County

Teachers. These observations allow the administration to observe the effectiveness of

professional development and determine if it is being implemented in the classroom. The

administration also provides teachers with anonymous surveys for teachers to complete to

evaluate professional development at DHS. Next, administrators compile data from DHS’s

results on county and state assessments and compare those results to other schools within the

county to determine the effectiveness of professional development at DHS. Since implementing

course teams and course team leader meetings at DHS, one can find many examples of how the

strategies implemented by administration has changed the teaching strategies of teachers at DHS.

Teachers who once had predominately teacher-led, lecture based classrooms, now have student-

led transformed classrooms. DHS conducts several site visits each year that are opened to

schools from all over to model student-led instruction that is supported by technology use in the

classroom. Student results have also shown improvement based on the strategies that have been
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implemented at DHS. In the last few years the overall average of on the Georgia Milestone End

of Course test have continued to increase. DHS has consistently outperformed other high

schools in the county that have similar demographics and poverty and AP scores have continued

to climb each year.

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References

Dacula High School: Local School Improvement Plan 2017-2018. (2017). Suwanee, GA:

Gwinnett County Public Schools.

B. Long, personnel communication, August, 2017