• Category 2

    Selected in 2015

  • Grades: k - 4
    School Setting: urban
    Town Population: 15
    Student Enrollment: 225
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 3.4%
    White/Caucasian: 72.8%
    Hispanic: 17.5%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0.1%
    Asian: 0.7%
    Native American: 0.5%
    Other: 5.1%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:20
    % Reduced Lunch: 68%
    % ELL Learners: 7.5%
    Founded: 1951
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Jay Czap
  • CONTACT:
    801 Randolph Street
    Hanover, PA 17331
    717-637-9000 ext. 101
    jczap@hanoverpublic.org
Clearview Elementary School
Hanover, PA
Accountability is probably the most important factor at our school. We have set our expectations at a high level for the students and for ourselves. Everyone has a job to do and is held accountable.
Describe specific programs in place to ensure that families are involved in the success of your school and students.

We ensure that families are involved in the success of our school by including parents in on student learning. Our district curriculum is aligned and available for any family to see what it is that we are teaching in our classrooms. We also have school wide Remind messages that send out important information via text or e-mail to families. Twitter, via a school-wide and classroom accounts, is used as a window into our school that allows families to see what is happening in our school each day. We also invite parents into our schools to volunteer, participate in family PTO nights, and curriculum nights. We have also expanded the amount of time our parents can visit during Parent Visitation Week.
Describe the most successful activity your school has initiated to strengthen ties to your community.
Our school has updated our webpage and added a school Twitter account to help keep families and the community involved at Clearview Elementary. We also use Remind to send text messages to parents. Individual classrooms use Twitter as a window into our daily classroom experiences.

In the Hanover Public School District, there is a large number of Spanish speaking families. At Clearview, students begin Spanish classes in Kindergarten and receive instruction through fourth grade. The students focus on basic interpersonal skills that they can use with their Spanish speaking peers. These skills include greetings, basic questions, likes/dislikes and other relevant vocabulary. Clearview’s faculty and staff are also learning basic communication skills to form connections with Spanish speaking families.

After school activities such as After school tutoring for 3rd and 4th grade, Science Night, PTO Movie Night, Fall Fest, School Concerts, System 44/Reading Intervention Informational Meeting for Parents...I know there is more I just can’t think of them
Describe your philosophy of school change or improvement.

Clearview has high expectations for all of our students, staff, and families. We expect “Excellence in Education” and push for all to meet that expectation. We encourage our students to focus on what they do well rather than dwell on the things they struggle with. We do not concern ourselves with where the student comes from, his/her socioeconomic status, etc. because once the school day starts, we know, and expect, every student to learn something that day and put forth a 100% effort. If we can get the student to learn and get better each day over the course of a 180 day school year, then we feel the student will be prepared for the next grade level. The staff is also expected to lead by example by giving a 100% effort as well. Finally, excuses are not acceptable because there is always a solution to every problem.
What are your school’s top two goals for the next year?
Our first goal is to do a better job with interventions, accommodations and modifications based on data. Even though we’ve done pretty well the past two years, we feel there is plenty of room for improvement. After taking a closer look at what we’re doing, it is apparent that we can do a much better job of helping our students succeed by providing them with better interventions, accommodations and modifications. We know this because of all the data that is contained in Firefly and how easily accessible it is to the teachers. Our second goal is to improve our Math scores. Again, we did pretty well in Math but we also know there are gaps that can be filled in with better interventions, accommodations and modifications.
What is the single most important factor in the success of your school that others could replicate?
Accountability is probably the most important factor at our school. We have set our expectations at a high level for the students and for ourselves. Everyone has a job to do and is held accountable. Grade levels meet monthly to develop a plan of action based on data for our struggling and advanced students. Our building also meets monthly to review data and fine-tune our teaching across grade levels to address areas of need.
Describe the program or initiative that has had the greatest positive effect on student achievement, including closing achievement or opportunity gaps, if applicable.
It is hard to pinpoint just one program that has turned Clearview Elementary into a high achieving school. During the 2013-2014 school year, Hanover Public School District experienced big changes in administration. With new administration, we also started many new programs that were of great benefit to our students. We began using Study Island for ELA, Math, and Science for both enrichment and remediation. We also started using Leveled Literacy Intervention groups to help close the achievement gap for our struggling readers. These programs were combined with programs like System 44 that we already had in place. Our students in 4th grade also went 1 to 1 with Chromebooks. This allowed our students to continue to learn beyond the school day with some of the previously mentioned resources, and with resources collected by classroom teachers in an online LMS, Moodle. We also started using the Reading Rewards Program with our fourth grade students to teach them how to “attack” words they do not know and this program has also improved the students’ confidence. Last school year we were also fortunate enough to obtain several Teaching Assistants to help with our System 44 Program and our Fundations Program in addition to more traditional assistance in the classrooms.
Explain how Title I funds are used to support your improvement efforts.

Title I funds are used to purchase materials and supplies that are needed. For example, before the last school year started, we knew our students were not strong in “attacking” words and being able to figure out their definitions. With Title I funds, we were able to purchase the Reading Rewards series for our students. As a result, our students performed exceptionally well on a very difficult state exam. Another program that has been extremely beneficial to our students is System 44. This program teaches our students how to comprehend the material they are reading and also learn how to find facts to support their answers to questions. Fundations is another program that helps the students with their phonemic awareness in grades Kindergarten, 1 and 2. We have found this program to be very beneficial with the students’ reading fluency. These funds have also allowed the district to provide several Teaching Assistants in the building to help deliver instruction with programs such as Fundations and System 44.
Identify the critical professional development activities you use to improve teaching and student learning.

Our faculty meetings and district inservices are used for professional development. We have had a great deal of professional development on Technology as we are now 1 to 1 in grades 3-12 in our district. Teachers have learned to create websites as a home base for students and parents to access learning resources at home. We have also learned how to utilize programs like Study Island, Reading Eggs, System 44, Reading Rewards, and Front Row to differentiate and individualize student learning. Teachers have learned more on how to differentiate for all learners, how to engage all of our students in their learning, and how to shift our expectations to the PA Common Core state standards. Teachers have also learned how to present and implement resources for answering text-dependent analysis questions.
Describe how data is used to improve student achievement and inform decision making.

Each grade level team meets monthly to review data and make decisions for our students. Student assessment data is collected in our district-wide gradebook system, Firefly. FPI in Firefly allows teachers to focus on strengths and weaknesses on a variety of assessments, and to make informed decisions on what our students need. This data is used to group students for reading and math interventions and enrichment. We also have the ability to view our data on a weekly basis in order to make accommodations, modifications and/or adjust our interventions accordingly.
Describe your school culture and explain changes you’ve taken to improve it.

Our school is a team. Clearview staff is committed and dedicated to seeing our students succeed. We have a collaborative school environment, where everyone works together towards a common goal. Faculty supports each other and utilizes individual strengths for the success of our students. Communication is important to us. At Clearview Elementary, we use Twitter, Remind, Google Calendar, teacher websites, emails, phone calls and newsletters to communicate with families and the community. Parents and students are included and held accountable in working towards our common goal of “Excellence in Education”.
Stats
  • Category 2

    Selected in 2015

  • Grades: k - 4
    School Setting: urban
    Town Population: 15
    Student Enrollment: 225
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 3.4%
    White/Caucasian: 72.8%
    Hispanic: 17.5%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0.1%
    Asian: 0.7%
    Native American: 0.5%
    Other: 5.1%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:20
    % Reduced Lunch: 68%
    % ELL Learners: 7.5%
    Founded: 1951
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Jay Czap
  • CONTACT:
    801 Randolph Street
    Hanover, PA 17331
    717-637-9000 ext. 101
    jczap@hanoverpublic.org