The NCA Accreditation Report and what Carroll Jr.-Sr. High School is doing to get off probationary status continues to be a topic at Carroll School Board meetings.

Three teachers and principal Charles Huckstep spoke at a board meeting Monday night. A room-full of teachers attended the meeting to show their support.

Teachers speaking and the teams they represented were Don Pettit, Professional Development; Scot Collins, Assessment Systems; and Susan Abbott, Communication. Reports from the other two teams, Data Analysis and Goals/Interventions, were given at the Nov. 16 meeting.

Pettit said every teacher is on one of the teams. He spoke Monday evening in place of assistant principal Fred Schnarr, who leads the Professional Development team. Schnarr had reported at the last board meeting that spring ISTEPs show that Carroll’s lowest scores were in writing process and language conventions for eighth graders, and in writing applications for seventh grade. (Only seventh and eighth graders were tested at the junior-senior high school level.)

“The main complaint of NCA is that we did not use the data that we collected in order to improve instruction in the classroom,” Pettit said. “We need to train teachers on how to incorporate quality and meaningful writing activities into their classroom instruction. The implementation of a Data team this year has helped Carroll to collect, analyze, and share data about our students’ writing like never before.”

Pettit said teachers don’t have as much time for inschool staff development as they used to. He mentioned that one possible innovation for training is through Power- Point with audio, delivered electronically. He said teachers also have been putting in their own time before and after school to work on the teams. He added that reports from the Goals/Interventions team will help decide what kind of training is necessary.

The school goal for the last four years has been to improve writing across the curriculum. Pettit said the school is narrowing its focus to two writing areas, content and grammar. Since all teachers are involved, Pettit said they will be given more direction in how to evaluate student writing and how to enter scores into an online database.

“This will allow us to follow students on an individual basis and identify those who are struggling so that we can offer them extra help,” Pettit said.

Twice a year students are given “writing prompts.” Collins, who leads the assessment team, handed out the prompts that were given in October, along with an evaluation guide given to the teachers. Students are given written scenarios, statements, and issues, and are asked to write an essay in response to each one. Whatever class they are in, that teacher grades the essays. Students’ performance on the fall writing prompts will be compared to their performance on the spring prompts.

Collins mentioned other assessments as ISTEP and NWEA testing. He said the assessments tell teachers which kids are struggling.

“Teachers have (always) been doing their own interventions; we just weren’t documenting it,” Collins said.

Abbott, leader of the communication team, said the NCA report indicated that the school could do better in communicating with all stakeholders, including parents and the community.

She said some of the things that have been done so far are start “Cougar Tracks,” a school news column, and place it on the corporation website, place the school’s vision and mission statements on the website, put banners with the statements around school, and post signs about school accomplishments. The signs were up for parentteacher conferences. One sign tells about Carroll’s high scores on the SAT tests.

Next semester, Abbott said teachers will visit various organizations and inform members about new courses being offered, the school goal, the NCA process, and ISTEP testing information.

She added that the NCA report said the school already is utilizing the local newspaper as a means of communication with the public.

Huckstep said the NCA review team came to the school on Feb. 25-26, and as a result, a school leadership team was formed and started working in March, and the other teacher teams were activated on the first day of school this year, Aug. 11. They have also been meeting with a liaison, Phil Metcalf. Huckstep said Metcalf will also be meeting with the school board.

“We were doing a lot of the right things, just not documenting them,” Huckstep said.

He commented that surveys were given to teachers, parents, and students, and that data will be analyzed. He also stated that English teachers are investigating a writing software called Criterion.

Teacher Ginny Rusch- Mills told the board that Huckstep has worked hard and put in many extra hours related to the NCA process.

“I’ve heard more about this Accreditation Report and what’s being done about it than ever before,” said Superintendent John Sayers. “I think we’re headed in the right direction.”

Report posted on website

Editor’s note: The entire North Central Association Accreditation Report can be found on the corporation’s website/junior-senior high school: www.carroll.k12.in.us.