• Category 1

    Selected in 2014

  • Grades: 6 - 8
    School Setting: urban
    Town Population: 610
    Student Enrollment: 722
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 7%
    White/Caucasian: 51%
    Hispanic: 17%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 1%
    Asian: 18%
    Native American: 1%
    Other: 5%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:19
    % Reduced Lunch: 69%
    % ELL Learners: 42%
    Founded: 1970
  • PRINCIPAL:
    James Johnston
  • CONTACT:
    12500 SE Ramona St
    Portland, OR 97236
    503-256-6510
    james_johnston@ddouglas.k12.or.us
Alice Ott Middle School
Portland, OR
Systems without quality people will not work. Quality people without systems will not lead to success. Both components must be in place for a school to have sustained growth.
Describe the most successful activity your school has initiated to strengthen ties to your community.
All teachers make 10 phone calls, send 10 post cards, or 10 e-mails each month. These are utilized to give positive feedback to parents and guardians.

We keep a Google Doc of all of these contacts to analyze which families have not been reached. It is amazing how grateful parents are to hear something positive about their child.

We highlight students on the Google Doc who are struggling with attendance so that teachers can go out of their way to develop a positive relationship with those families.

This has led to thousands of positive parent contacts in the last few years helping create a positive bond between home and school.
What is the single most important factor in the success of your school that others could replicate?
There are two key components of school success. The first one is the quality of the staff and their tenacity for student achievement. That is tough to replicate. The second component of school success is the systems and structures. Good systems free up good teachers to do outstanding work.

Some of our systems include:
*Tiered reading infrastructure/Advanced classes
*Marzano’s strategies and literacy across the curriculum
*Professional Learning Teams
*Ability to earn additional electives in 7th and 8th grade for high achievement.
*PBIS and Attendance Infrastructure
*Strong Music and Athletic program
*SUN (Schools Uniting Neighborhoods) after school program
*A "Champions Find A Way" mindset where we will succeed.
*Family involvement activities

Systems without quality people will not work. Quality people without systems will not lead to success. Both components must be in place for a school to have sustained growth.
Describe the program or initiative that has had the greatest positive effect on student achievement, including closing achievement or opportunity gaps, if applicable.
Our tiered reading intervention is a key component of Alice Ott Middle School.

Students are identified for reading placement based on state tests, SRI, and teacher recommendation. Students below or barely meeting benchmarks are placed in reading intervention classes based on their individual needs.

All 6th Grade students have a daily, 80-minute reading class. They take one of our four leveled reading options: Core Reading, SOAR, Read 180, or System 44.

All 7th/8th Graders also receive an every other day reading intervention class if they are below or barely meeting benchmarks. These interventions also include SOAR, Read 180, and System 44. If they are at grade level, they earn an additional elective in lieu of a reading intervention. All students also take a core language arts class.

We utilize Soar to Success with emphasis on Reciprocal Teaching where students can model and apply four key comprehension strategies: predicting, clarifying, questioning, and
summarizing.
Explain how Title I funds are used to support your improvement efforts.

Identify the critical professional development activities you use to improve teaching and student learning.
We have three school improvement teams; Literacy, Family Involvement, and PBIS. Every teacher serves on one of these teams.

Our literacy team works collaboratively to identify and provide intensive literacy staff development multiple times throughout the year during prep times and staff meetings. These are scheduled strategically to target specific areas of reading and writing. Teachers share ideas, answer professional questions, and try different instructional strategies tied to CCSS for English Language Arts. Some examples of topics include: Marzano's Instructional Strategies, reading process, constructed responses, extended discussion of text meaning, effectively justifying and defending claims, citing relevant evidence, and engaging with and deeply analyzing text by highlighting, annotating and note taking.

Our PBIS team focuses on encouraging positive behavior with rewards and our Family Involvement team develops events and activities to encourage parent involvement.
Describe your school culture and explain changes you’ve taken to improve it.
Alice Ott is a high poverty school in southeast Portland. We are one of the highest poverty districts in the state of Oregon. We are surrounded by crime, and many of our students come from very difficult backgrounds. We have a diverse student population with over 32 languages represented.

Assumptions are often made about high poverty, diverse schools. However, you would not know we are a poor school by walking through our halls because of the high expectations and culture of achievement.

We took on the mantra, "Champions Find A Way," to get students and staff to believe that it is possible to succeed. This is a complete shift from making excuses and blaming others that is so prevalent in our society.

One of the key components of our culture is relationship building. Staff members constantly communicate about students' needs and
relationships are built intentionally through awards assemblies, reward days, PBIS systems, contacts home, hall conversations, etc.
Stats
  • Category 1

    Selected in 2014

  • Grades: 6 - 8
    School Setting: urban
    Town Population: 610
    Student Enrollment: 722
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 7%
    White/Caucasian: 51%
    Hispanic: 17%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 1%
    Asian: 18%
    Native American: 1%
    Other: 5%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:19
    % Reduced Lunch: 69%
    % ELL Learners: 42%
    Founded: 1970
  • PRINCIPAL:
    James Johnston
  • CONTACT:
    12500 SE Ramona St
    Portland, OR 97236
    503-256-6510
    james_johnston@ddouglas.k12.or.us