• Category 1

    Selected in 2013

  • Grades: k - 4
    School Setting: suburban
    Town Population: 0
    Student Enrollment: 320
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 1%
    White/Caucasian: 98%
    Hispanic: 1%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0%
    Asian: 0%
    Native American: 0%
    Other: 0%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:20
    % Reduced Lunch: 62%
    % ELL Learners: 0%
    Founded: 0
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Donna Barrier
  • CONTACT:
    7201 Lake Street
    Lexington, MI 48450
    810-679-1200
    dbarrier@croslex.org
Meyer Elementary School
Lexington, MI
We partner with an area food bank to send home weekly backpacks of food to students over weekends and holidays. We seek out and utilize our community resources to provide additional supports as needed to make sure that our students and their families' needs are met.
Describe specific programs in place to ensure that families are involved in the success of your school and students.
Our families are surveyed each year to give us specific feedback about how they feel their school is meeting their childrens' needs. We communicate weekly through newsletters at the classroom and also from the building level. We share information about content, tips for parents, and materials, so that parents can support their child's learning at home. Teachers are in ongoing contacts with parents to share positives or updates with parents through emails, notes, or phone calls. We send information to parents to explain the level of support being given, and followup progress information. We have developed a school website to share information and helpful tools for parents. We have 100% participation in parent-teacher conferences. We hold annual Title I informational meetings. Our parents are involved in our school improvement plan process.
Describe the most successful activity your school has initiated to strengthen ties to your community.
We work to maintain solid communication and form ties with our students' families. Teachers and administration send weekly communications about the school and classroom, and share information and materials that will assist parents in supporting their student at home. Meyer sponsors several family fun events and learning events every year for families to attend at no cost. We encourage parents and family members to come in to have lunch with their child or volunteer in the building. We partner with an area food bank to send home weekly backpacks of food to students over weekends and holidays. We seek out and utilize our community resources to provide additional supports as needed to make sure that our students' and their families' needs are met.
Describe your philosophy of school change or improvement.
We strive to be aware of our current students' learning needs. Meeting those needs drives everything else. We establish our goals, adjust staffing, select teaching strategies, and form instructional groups--all to provide our students with whatever they need in order to be successful. Everyone is highly aware and involved in in our ongoing school improvement--from identification of strengths and weaknesses, goal development, strategy selection, implementation, and evaluation of progress.
What are your school’s top two goals for the next year?
Our goals are to strengthen our student's writing skills across the content areas and to further develop their reading comprehension through deeper questioning and increased experiences with informational text.
What is the single most important factor in the success of your school that others could replicate?
Ensuring that grade level teachers have regular time to plan together, review data, and discuss individual student needs on a regular basis is essential. Commonality throughout the building is the cornerstone to our programming. Very little is done on an individual basis---teachers and principal work together to make all instructional programming decisions. Everyone has input into decision-making, and shares responsibility for our program.
Describe the program or initiative that has had the greatest positive effect on student achievement, including closing achievement or opportunity gaps, if applicable.
Our individual student documentation and our Student Support Process have had a tremendous impact on all our students' progress. Each student's progress is well-documented each year, Benchmark testing (and progress monitoring, if needed) information follows the student across grade levels. Students' progress is monitored and decisions for additional tiers of instruction are made after student assessment data is reviewed. Decision-making is shared between grade level classroom teachers, support teachers, and principal for our support program.
Explain how Title I funds are used to support your improvement efforts.
We use Title I funds to pay part of the salaries for teachers who provide additional support for identified struggling students. Title funds are also used for leveled books, research-based instructional materials, equipment, and technology. All Title I money spent is documented in our school improvement plan, and all expenditures support the strategies used for our identified school improvement goals.
Identify the critical professional development activities you use to improve teaching and student learning.
Over the past years, our professional development has focused on strengthening our balanced literacy program through guided reading small group instruction. We have participated in PLC time together to learn about and implement benchmark assessments throughout the year in reading, writing, and math. We have also focused on the regular collecting and analyzing of our data, to use in planning for instruction and formative assessments. In more recent years, we have devoted time becoming familiar with the core content standards, and updating our common assessments according to those standards. We have worked in department teams to adjust our content area curriculum pacing guides. We have also worked together to develop our student support process for our RTI program, creating common, consistent documentation of student progress, which follows a student from grade to grade.
Describe how data is used to improve student achievement and inform decision making.
Student performance data is reviewed by our staff on an ongoing basis. Students are benchmarked three times during the year in reading and math. The results are used to form instructional groups. Students who are not achieving benchmarks are provided with an additional 2nd or 3rd tier of instruction, specific to their individual needs, and are progress monitored every two weeks. Students are in instructional groups that best fit their needs for reading, math, and writing. Adjustments to these groups are made as students show growth throughout the year. We have developed common summative assessments in the core areas and use the collected data, along with formative assessments, to guide instruction. Our annual state testing results are reviewed in detail, and linked to each grade levels' standards, identifying specific strengths and areas for improvement. Specific areas to be addressed are then included in our school improvement plan.
Describe your school culture and explain changes you’ve taken to improve it.
Meyer Elementary has a strong collaborative culture. Teachers have been meeting weekly in grade levels to plan for instruction for the past 11 years. All decision-making for instruction is done at the building or grade level to ensure commonality of core instruction. Teachers analyze data and identify students who need additional support to help them achieve to a higher level in each subject area. Everyone has input and the shared responsibility of designing solid instruction and experiences for students. The ongoing planning and discussions, sharing of teaching strategies and resources, and the strong belief that every students' learning needs must be met, have proven to be highly successful for our school.
Stats
  • Category 1

    Selected in 2013

  • Grades: k - 4
    School Setting: suburban
    Town Population: 0
    Student Enrollment: 320
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 1%
    White/Caucasian: 98%
    Hispanic: 1%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0%
    Asian: 0%
    Native American: 0%
    Other: 0%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:20
    % Reduced Lunch: 62%
    % ELL Learners: 0%
    Founded: 0
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Donna Barrier
  • CONTACT:
    7201 Lake Street
    Lexington, MI 48450
    810-679-1200
    dbarrier@croslex.org