• Category 3

    Selected in 2020

  • Grades: pre k - 4
    School Setting: urban
    Town Population: 54,068
    Student Enrollment: 673
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 1%
    White/Caucasian: 88%
    Hispanic: 8%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0%
    Asian: 1%
    Native American: 1%
    Other: 1%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:19
    % Reduced Lunch: 40%
    % ELL Learners: 0%
    Founded: 1984
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Ashley Baessler
  • CONTACT:
    423 Hickory Creek Road
    Lenoir City, TN 37771
    865-816-4635
    baesslera@loudoncounty.org
Eaton Elementary School
Lenoir City, TN
Our school believes that you must support the whole child."

Describe specific programs in place to ensure that families are involved in the success of your school and students.
One of our schools strengths is our family engagement. We have a strong PTO organization and parent involvement at our school. We draft a calendar in the summer of events and publish it in our handbook so parents can know what to anticipate throughout the year. Our teachers have open and constant communication with parents via their preferred method and all certified teachers log at least three positive phone calls a month. We host P/T conferences four times a year. Twice a year the Principal host a "Principals Night In" to gather stakeholder feedback outside of the quarterly opportunities. We send parent/community surveys out to gather feedback too. Teaches send home daily planners and weekly newsletters. Administration sends weekly "Monday Minute" emails and phone calls and a monthly newsletter with calendar, PTO updates, and a message. The marquee, website, and social media outlets are also used to showcase upcoming events and celebrate the hard work of our students and staff.
Describe the most successful activity your school has initiated to strengthen ties to your community.
One of the most successful activities our school has initiated to strengthen ties with our community would be monthly family engagement events. We host at least one event each month that involve our families and community resources. These are a few of the events:
August: Parent Nights

September: P/T conferences with spotlights on support services, Grandparents Dinner (Focus: literacy), School-wide Book Study event (Focus: literacy, math, social/emotional)

October: Principal Night In (Focus: stakeholder feedback), Read-a-thon (Focus: literacy)

November: Popcorn with your peeps (Focus: math/science), P/T conferences

December: Family Tech Talk Night (Focus: all subjects, technology, social/emotional)

January: CSI Night (Focus: Multiple Areas)

February: P/T conferences, Goodies with Guardians (Focus: Math)

March: March Madness STEM Night (Focus: STEM)

April: P/T conferences & "Diving into Next Year" session

May: this month is filled with the typical end of year events
Describe your philosophy of school change or improvement.
School improvement involves everyone and it takes time. Everyone has to see the vision and know the why behind the changes that are being put in place. When you involve your stakeholders, listen to their feedback, and keep an open line of communication this keeps everyone on target. We've found that even if someone doesn't agree with a change, but you ensure they know the why they are at least willing to try it with you. When these changes are taking place everyone must be communicating and doing it together, this includes the admin. The staff body can't feel like they are alone in the work and need to being recognized for the effort and change that takes place. We talk about meeting the needs of the whole child and it starts with the principal. We make plans to be in present in collaborative planning's, data meetings, committee conversations, lunch duties, extra duty spots, food backpack deliveries, and anywhere else we can be active in the work to meet the needs of the whole child.
What are your school’s top two goals for the next year?
The pandemic has thrown us off our normal goal setting and targets. We have a School Improvement Plan which does list our targets for this year, but I also want to be very practical with this question. Our teachers are nervous about this year and the expectations so we have reminded them constantly to stick with the core values at Eaton Elementary.
1. Assess the learning loss from last year and overall loss occurring this year during quarantine periods to create individual goals to help our students grow based on monthly data collected.
2. Maintain our Core Values - We know this one seems like a weak goal, but given this is the year of COVID we want to be practical. Our staff and students mental, emotional, and physical health is important so our goal two is monitoring our core values.
What is the single most important factor in the success of your school that others could replicate?
A single factor that other schools could replicate would either be the digging into data, scheduling, or communication with parents/stakeholders. For this question though, communication with stakeholders/parents would probably be the most important factor. If you can get the parents invested and your stakeholders engaged then you are stepping in the right direction. We use our social media to highlight our kids dressing up, working in class, meeting goals, and etc. Every parent wants to see their child succeeding and this is a easy way to share your message and start getting them involved.
Describe the program or initiative that has had the greatest positive effect on student achievement, including closing achievement or opportunity gaps, if applicable.
The greatest positive effect on our student is: the bell to bell mentality, using data to gauge instruction and create student ownership, and master schedule. Our team is constantly looking at ways to maximize teaching and latching on to every teachable moment. We have strong data talks during monthly meetings, teachers set goals with students, and meet individually to discuss ways to improve their craft after a observations. A few things to note is our monthly data team meetings include all admin, intervention team, SPED, ELL, paraprofessionals, and teachers. Additionally, observations are done by admin, teacher leaders, aspiring admin, and colleagues. Our master schedule allows for a 45 intervention time daily where we redistribute the grade level to target students needs (ie: enrichment, on-level support, at-risk, intervention, or students who receive in special pullout services). This ensures no student feels they are being singled out and we are able to keep them motivated.
Explain how ESEA federal funds are used to support your improvement efforts.
We have several positions that are funding using ESEA federal funds as well as our use of the IXL program. Additionally, we have used money to grow our teachers through professional development and support needs in the classroom to support student needs.
Identify the critical professional development activities you use to improve teaching and student learning.
Professional development is key in improving teaching and student learning and it must involve ALL staff. We send staff to local, state, and national conferences who redeliver the material. We evaluate our PD using a rubric and use a post-evaluation tool to evaluate the impact. Each year we have a key focus areas but also ensure we incorporate staff requested and sessions related to our teacher evaluation data. The focus this year is technology integration, distant learning, and closing gaps due to learning loss. We have collaborative planning on Tues., PLC's on Wed., In-Service days, T2T, and at least one Tuesday a month we stay after school for a PD session. Some of the activities that have been critical are: response to intervention, effective instructional strategies, job shadowing other schools, standards training, and K-2 literacy practices. Our teachers participate in T2T (Teacher to Teacher) observations with feedback in an effort to share and implement best practices.
Describe how data is used to improve student achievement and inform decision making.
Data has been a pillar in our school and district for several years. We believe in using multiple pieces of data to create a story and not a snapshot. We have a data team composed of 8-10 staff members who meet each grading term to dig intensely into the data collected (progress monitoring, Renaissance, common assessment). During that time the team looks at sub-groups, identifies trends, determines if we met previously established goals, recognizes areas of growth, and establishes new goals. After the meeting results are disseminated amongst the staff. Additionally, we have monthly school RTI Team meetings where we discuss student progress in each RTI tier. Each teacher has a data card where they log student monthly scores and make notes. During the meeting we discuss if a students need to move between tier interventions. Additionally, we discuss attendance, behavior, and any other concerns that have previously been mentioned or are new developments.
Describe your school culture and explain changes you’ve taken to improve it.
Our school believes that you must support the whole child. When we look at the whole child we must look beyond the academics and ensure we are meeting the needs of our students socially, emotionally, and academically. We partner with several churches and outreach groups to help meet these needs by providing our students have necessities at home such as clothing and toiletries, weekend food backpacks, extended break food boxes, jackets, shoes, holiday blessings, mentors, tutoring, and desktop computers. Additionally, our staff establishes a open line of communication with each family via their preferred method. We use our social media outlet, website, and parent link system to keep families involved and up-to-date on the happenings within the building. Our school also uses a school-wide positive behavior support system which also establishes a sense of community and builds a cohesive school culture. These are just a few of the structures we have put in place to strengthen our school.
Stats
  • Category 3

    Selected in 2020

  • Grades: pre k - 4
    School Setting: urban
    Town Population: 54,068
    Student Enrollment: 673
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 1%
    White/Caucasian: 88%
    Hispanic: 8%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0%
    Asian: 1%
    Native American: 1%
    Other: 1%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:19
    % Reduced Lunch: 40%
    % ELL Learners: 0%
    Founded: 1984
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Ashley Baessler
  • CONTACT:
    423 Hickory Creek Road
    Lenoir City, TN 37771
    865-816-4635
    baesslera@loudoncounty.org