• Category 2

    Selected in 2013

  • Grades: pre k - 5
    School Setting: urban
    Town Population: 253
    Student Enrollment: 231
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 35%
    White/Caucasian: 27%
    Hispanic: 20%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 1%
    Asian: 1%
    Native American: 0%
    Other: 16%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:16.5
    % Reduced Lunch: 94%
    % ELL Learners: 17%
    Founded: 1868
  • PRINCIPAL:
    J. R. Ankenbruck
  • CONTACT:
    1015 W. Washington Blvd
    Ft Wayne, IN 46802
    260-467-8150
    john.ankenbruck@fwcs.k12.in.us
Washington Elementary School
Ft Wayne, IN
Title I funds support an interventionist who meets with small groups of students reading below grade level. The students meet on a daily basis and the they stay in that group until they are reading at grade level. Our funds have also been used to purchase relevant books for students to read.
Describe specific programs in place to ensure that families are involved in the success of your school and students.
Describe the most successful activity your school has initiated to strengthen ties to your community.
Washington School has strong community ties with the Downtown Rotary, Emmanuel St. Michael Church, and Big Brothers, Big Sisters. All the organizations provide community volunteers that work with selected students during their lunch time and after school. The Downtown Rotary and Emmanuel St. Michael provide after school tutoring once a week for students in need. Emmanuel St. Michael and the Downtown Rotary also provide for some of the day to day needs of students. The Downtown Rotary kicks off every school year by sponsoring a Back to School Night cook out for parents, students, teachers, and community members.
Describe your philosophy of school change or improvement.
We believe that schools cannot change without staff ownership. We built a community at Washington around a common goal. As more staff members embraced the common goal the more the school culture changed. We changed from a culture of accepting mediocrity to expecting excellence. Our school leadership team set high expectations for staff and students and helped people reach those expectations when necessary.
We empowered teacher leaders to model for others in and out of their classrooms. We challenged teachers to question their thinking and reflect on their practices.
While we were doing these things, the leadership team remained patient and did not expect change to happen overnight. We tried not to do too much too fast, but to allow the leadership team to be the major influence in change. It is important for all stakeholders to feel involved in the change initiatives.
What are your school’s top two goals for the next year?
We are striving to reach our goal of 100%. Our goal is for all students at Washington School to read on grade level by the end of the year, and all students in grades 3-5 to pass both parts of the state standardized test. Our other goal is to increase our resources to facilitate 21st century learning. With our award money from the Indiana Department of Education we are purchasing iPads for all students in grades 3-5. We are looking forward to the opportunity to provide our students with the appropriate learning resources to propel them into the future.
What is the single most important factor in the success of your school that others could replicate?
Shared leadership is the most important factor of our success. Washington has strong, empowered, and positive teacher leaders. It was important to our school leadership team to build a sustainable professional learning community. To do that we challenged and empowered staff members to take ownership of student results. Teachers who took ownership began to transform their practice and achieve outstanding results. These teacher became influential among their peers and took on more leadership opportunities. They mentored other team members and encouraged continued professional growth in themselves and others.
Once teachers started to believe in themselves as the most important part of student results, the student results began to improve.

Describe the program or initiative that has had the greatest positive effect on student achievement, including closing achievement or opportunity gaps, if applicable.
Professional learning for teachers has been an important part of the student success at Washington. Washington teachers are a community of learners who strive for excellent student achievement each day. Our focus has been on all students at Washington. Having high expectations for every student no matter their differences has improved student achievement among all Washington students. We started with an all staff approach, focusing on developing students critical thinking and their interpretation of text. Professional learning was differentiated by our building instructional coach for a period of time during the 12-13 school year. This change allowed grades 3-5 and K-2 to go deeper into their learning at each level. The 3-5 team started a workshop approach with students in reading and writing. They focused their vertical professional learning times on student conferencing techniques and small group instruction.
Explain how Title I funds are used to support your improvement efforts.
Title I funds are used to support student learning, parent involvement, and professional learning for staff. Title I funds support an interventionist who meets with small groups of students reading below grade level. The students meet on a daily basis and stay in that group until they are reading at grade level. Fortifying classroom libraries with books that students were interested to read increased students desire to read. The funds are also used to support parent involvement nights at Washington. We invite parents to school to learn different ways to work with their students in math, reading, and science. Funds are spent for staff professional learning. Teachers have participated in numerous book studies which have impacted student achievement. The money has also allowed Washington teachers to observe peers teach within and outside the building and grow from their observations.
Identify the critical professional development activities you use to improve teaching and student learning.
Professional learning is one of the most important parts of Washington's success. Our building instructional coach leads differentiated professional learning twice a week and also facilitates indicator based common planning with each grade level team at least once per week. Most grade level teams meet to common plan three to four times per week. The common plan includes analysis of student artifacts, class goal setting, and instructional planning for the next indicator.
Our main focus of professional learning has been on critical thinking. We have focused much of our learning on ways to develop students who can read and interpret text and then respond to the text either verbally or in writing. Our instructional coach has led some of the professional learning as well as other teacher leaders.
When new staff members join our PLC their learning is accelerated to meet the high expectations set by the leadership team.
Describe how data is used to improve student achievement and inform decision making.
Data is used to make almost every decision at Washington School. Teachers analyze data on a daily basis. They look at classroom trend data as well as individual student artifacts. The data from student work drives their instruction every week. Washington also has quarterly data meetings in which all stakeholders who have contact with a student come together to analyze data and determine next steps for student success.
The school leadership team analyzes standardized test score data to determine the overall area of improvement for our building. Data analysis from standardized test results revealed that students at Washington needed to improve critical thinking skills. Our leadership team focused on improving constructed response scores in Language Arts, and problem solving scores in Math. We found as the students' performance improved on the applied skills portion of ISTEP+, so did their performance on the multiple choice portion, therefore improving overall achievement.
Describe your school culture and explain changes you’ve taken to improve it.
Washington Elementary has a collegial school culture. We have set high expectations for adults and students. The change in culture happened gradually over two years. The most important cultural change at Washington was a staff choice to become a strong Professional Learning Community. The school leadership team made school wide changes in setting goals, student recognition, and instructional planning strategies. After the changes, the leadership team modeled best practices and supported staff members in need.
Stats
  • Category 2

    Selected in 2013

  • Grades: pre k - 5
    School Setting: urban
    Town Population: 253
    Student Enrollment: 231
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 35%
    White/Caucasian: 27%
    Hispanic: 20%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 1%
    Asian: 1%
    Native American: 0%
    Other: 16%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:16.5
    % Reduced Lunch: 94%
    % ELL Learners: 17%
    Founded: 1868
  • PRINCIPAL:
    J. R. Ankenbruck
  • CONTACT:
    1015 W. Washington Blvd
    Ft Wayne, IN 46802
    260-467-8150
    john.ankenbruck@fwcs.k12.in.us