• Category 2

    Selected in 2018

  • Grades: pre k - 5
    School Setting: rural
    Town Population: 44
    Student Enrollment: 655
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 3%
    White/Caucasian: 82%
    Hispanic: 7%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0%
    Asian: 0%
    Native American: 0.1%
    Other: 6%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:15
    % Reduced Lunch: 68%
    % ELL Learners: 1%
    Founded: 1989
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Sean Furniss
  • CONTACT:
    814 S. Rock Crusher Road
    Homosassa, FL 34448
    352-795-2010
    furnisss@citrus.k12.fl.us
Rock Crusher Elementary School
Homosassa, FL
Relationships are a key to our success.
Describe specific programs in place to ensure that families are involved in the success of your school and students.
Rock Crusher has traditionally been a school that has strong ties with families and values their input and participation. Our beginning of the year open house is always heavily attended and kicks off the year in a strong fashion. We have a holiday chorus concert as well as a Winter in Wonderland night that allows parents to work with their children in arts and crafts. We have a storybook night where teachers volunteer to bring books to life in their classrooms during the evening. Our annual bookfair night event allows parents and their children to immerse themselves in meaningful literature. We recognize our Honor Society inductees in an after school function. We openly welcome parents to our SAEC meetings to give them a voice in our operations. We have a multitude of volunteers that put in over 1,000 hours annually. We hold Safety Patrol indoctrinations and celebrate our 5th graders at an annual graduation ceremony.
Describe the most successful activity your school has initiated to strengthen ties to your community.
Rock Crusher Elementary School has long prided itself on it's ties to the community. If we were to pick one activity that really showcases our community involvement, it is our annual Thanksgiving luncheon. We have held this luncheon for 30 years, far before other schools in our district. This year we had 706 parents attend, which eclipses our student body by 51 people. Our district Food Service department refers to it as their annual "Super Bowl of Food Service". While the joy of breaking bread with one another is very important, so are the connections and relationships that we form during these times. Academics and progress are certainly discussed, but so are each individual's lives, dreams, and hopes for the holiday season and beyond. We learn that we have so much in common with one another; most importantly the desire to see our students succeed. We host many school events, but far and away our Thanksgiving luncheon is where we best connect with our community.
Describe your philosophy of school change or improvement.
Education has become a results-driven business over the past twenty years. The time-honored instructional practices and planning methods that once held true are no longer viable. Tolstoy once said, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” As administrators, it is paramount that we promote improvements that are reachable and attainable. We have had to change our teaching philosophy to provide our students the opportunity to be college and career ready. This has included the realization that instruction has had to change to involve real world problem solving. In order to make this effective we must invite everyone to be an agent of change. If we expect our staff, students, parents, and community to adopt our new innovations we must hear their voices and make them a critical part of the process. Only through buy-in and togetherness can we welcome the changes and improvements that are necessary in these modern times.
What are your school’s top two goals for the next year?
Our top goal is to ensure that every student is on track to be college and career ready. To do that, we will need to repeatedly dig into achievement data to diagnose our student's strengths and areas of needs. Our administration must continue to meet with our teachers and students to address areas of concern, and communicate through our plans and practices how meaningful data and standards-driven success relates to student achievement. We must also ensure that we are meeting the needs of our bottom quartile students. If we can be successful in these areas we can ensure that our students are ready to succeed in college and their careers.
Our second goal is to maintain our culture. Many of our cornerstone founding members are retiring, and we must see that their time-honored beliefs and vision continue. While educational expectations and instructional practices may change, our bedrock is our culture, and we must continue that as we transition to a new staff at all costs.
What is the single most important factor in the success of your school that others could replicate?
The most important factor in our school's success is the cohesiveness of our staff. You can pinpoint data, have lofty expectations, and have a well though out, prescribed roadmap for student success, but without the buy-in and togetherness of the faculty you cannot capitalize on your success. When we return from vacations the rooms and halls are filled with laughter. Our staff meetings are renowned for not only being useful and productive, but fun and enjoyable as well. If you attend a staff meeting at Rock Crusher you'd better bring your dancing shoes and check your shyness at the door. We work hard together, pray together, laugh together, cry together and celebrate our successes together. Our veterans have established those principles for 30 years at our school, and we aim to keep them. I have often said that if there were a state champion for school culture longevity, hands down we would be the undisputed champions. Without a doubt, our staff cohesiveness is our key to success.
Describe the program or initiative that has had the greatest positive effect on student achievement, including closing achievement or opportunity gaps, if applicable.
Three years ago Rock Crusher began the process of adopting the 5D framework by the Center for Educational leadership. This was a major step in moving our school forward. We focused primarily on student engagement and purposeful strategies that would emphasize student ownership and accountability.
Our professional development has centered around efforts to integrate the purposeful use of measurable learning targets, meaningful student talk, and standards- based, rigorous instruction. We employed meaningful student talk as a means of increasing student ownership and work accountability. Aside from professional development, our teachers routinely meet to self-evaluate and prescribe methods for meeting these expectations. We have found that the 5D framework has set the academic bar high, and our students and teachers have responded by making great strides to close our achievement gaps.
Explain how ESEA federal funds are used to support your improvement efforts.
Our ESEA funds are used exclusively to put teachers, practices, and materials in place to meet the targeted needs of our students. The funding has helped to provide for highly- qualified Title 1 interventionists to work with our most at-risk students on a daily basis with rigorous, targeted instruction for their tier interventions.
It has funded areas of our professional development. For example, we recently attended the Model School conference, which was a groundbreaking agent of change in the philosophy of Rock Crusher. We have funded our book studies through ESEA, which also has enhanced our philosophies and strategic decision-making. We purchased technology to supplement instruction with a focus on engagement in the form of IPads for 3rd grade, and mimios and smartboards in every class. Without a doubt, ESEA funding has increased our ability to meet the needs of diverse learners in the school setting.
Identify the critical professional development activities you use to improve teaching and student learning.
Data interpretation and strong instructional practices drive our academic success. Our teachers have time set aside for data cognition, and through local and district personnel we have reinforced during professional development the need to have rigorous, standards based teaching methods in our instructional practices.
We have used "Innovators Mindset" and "Growth Mindset" book studies to motivate our staff and students to reach beyond any preconceived limits they may feel they have in education or themselves. For the past five years we have instituted professional development on the 5D framework to acquaint our staff to higher quality instruction. Our staff has also undergone rigor/ relevance framework training through the Model School Conference. We have had team building activities to further strengthen our school culture and create bonds in our cross grade level relationships.
Describe how data is used to improve student achievement and inform decision making.
From the time our state scores are released over the summer we begin planning our next steps to ensure student success. We communicate the results with all shareholders, and our administrative team creates our School Improvement Plan based on this information. We involve our staff and our parents in this process, and welcome their input on data-based decisions.
Throughout the year we use Fastbridge and Citrus Assessment (our county's standards based assessment) data to track how our students are progressing with each standard. We hold individual and team data meetings throughout the year with each grade level to dissect the results, and key in on concepts that need to be retaught. We use data to monitor our subgroups to ensure they are receiving appropriate interventions. We meet monthly with each teacher to monitor bottom quartile students to make sure they achieve standards with success. We look at data to determine which standards we are weak in and plan professional development.
Describe your school culture and explain changes you’ve taken to improve it.
For 30 years since it's inception, Rock Crusher Elementary has prided itself on it's school culture and it's ties to the community. We still have a handful of teachers who founded our school, and they continue to carry on the practices they instituted years ago. Simply put, our faculty sees themselves as family, not competitors. They openly share best practices with each other, and celebrate personal and professional successes.We welcome and embrace all students, and work to provide all students with an equitable education.
Relationships are a key to our success. Our teachers take the time to get to know our students and their parents, and we welcome them to be a part of the learning and planning process.
Our school celebrates success, and balances fun and hard work better than anybody. Our staff meetings are known for being boisterous and happy, and we work very hard to meet the high expectations that we set for ourselves. Our culture is the centerpiece of our success!
Stats
  • Category 2

    Selected in 2018

  • Grades: pre k - 5
    School Setting: rural
    Town Population: 44
    Student Enrollment: 655
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 3%
    White/Caucasian: 82%
    Hispanic: 7%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0%
    Asian: 0%
    Native American: 0.1%
    Other: 6%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:15
    % Reduced Lunch: 68%
    % ELL Learners: 1%
    Founded: 1989
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Sean Furniss
  • CONTACT:
    814 S. Rock Crusher Road
    Homosassa, FL 34448
    352-795-2010
    furnisss@citrus.k12.fl.us