Turning Around Missouri City Middle School

Spotlight Activity

Campus Turn Around Efforts

District

Missouri City Middle School, Missouri City, Texas

Description

In January of 2009, the leadership and Math teams at Missouri City Middle partnered with Stetson & Associates, Inc.’s associates; Barbara Proctor, Cathy Giardina, Cindy Nelson, Kristi Henderson, and Dieu-Anh Nguyen, to help MCMS with their turn around efforts.  The primary goals of the collaborative project were to increase the use of instructional strategies that promote active learning throughout all grades and to increase the numbers of students with disabilities passing TAKS Math, the annual state assessment.

Year 1 Activities (January – June 2009)

In six months time, the Stetson team developed several products including “turn-key” Math lessons.  These lessons provided consistency in content delivery between teachers and provided structure to the classes that were struggling.  S&A worked directly with teachers as part of reflective practice.  Other services included training like the quick skill sessions as previously mentioned to support the project goals.  As a result of this collaboration, Missouri City Middle School experienced noteworthy gains by the end of year 1.

Year 2 Activities (January – June 2010)

Although the original arrangement between Missouri City Middle and Stetson & Associates was not multi-year, both parties felt that the services provided by Stetson & Associates contributed greatly to the success of students at MCMS as indicated by the 2008-09 data.  For year 2, nine (9) tasks were outlined to support the project goals.   These tasks were based on extensive classroom observations and student data analysis and were intended to build on the services and deliverables provided in year 1 as well as be aligned with the school’s continuous improvement goals and complementary to other initiatives being implemented at Missouri City Middle School.  Three areas of emphasis for the spring of 2010 were instructional coaching (a follow up to the training sessions), development of an online math basics course, and the development of parent and family materials and resources.

Celebrations for Year 2 Included:

• Missouri City Middle School has met Adequately Yearly Progress for two years in a row;
• Teachers who “embraced” instructional coaching yielded higher overall passing rates;
• Disaggregated data illustrate overall improvement for the six Math objectives covered in the state assessment with the most significant improvement in the Probability and Statistics strand (an area of emphasis for the “turn-key lessons”);
• Classroom observations note an increase in positive behavior support strategies; and
• Missouri City Middle School has received RECOGNIZED status within the state accountability system.

Conclusion

Along with the school’s commitment to making student-centered decisions based on data, the partnership between Missouri City Middles School and Stetson & Associates of twelve (12) months spanning over two school years (2008-09 and 2009-2010) has yielded incredible results.  The associates along with their collaborative colleagues at MCMS have put in countless hours to create numerous resources and trainings to help the teachers increase the use of instructional strategies that promote active learning and to increase the numbers of students with disabilities passing TAKS Math.  If the Missouri City Middle School continues the efforts already made and commits to recommended priorities for turn around schools, it will see more significant gains in academic achievement and experience success as it works towards its long term goals of becoming an International Baccalaureate school, meeting Adequately Yearly Progress, and becoming Exemplary within the state accountability system.