Children First Initiative
Team Members
- Laura van Keulen, Asst. Principal of Data and Technology
- Elizabeth Healy, English Teacher
- Allison Fradenburg, Social Studies Teacher
- Alex Moore, English Teacher and Asst. Program Chairperson
- Erik Sudduth, Social Studies Teacher
- Annie Pace, Science Teacher
Topics
Mission
"[T]he purpose of Inquiry Teams [is] for teams of educators to look closely at the practices that are not working for particular children, to make a strategic change, to evaluate the impact of that change, and then to use what was learned to experiment with system-level changes to bring more students into the sphere of success on an ongoing basis" (Inquiry Team Handbook 6-7).
CFI is a professional development program that supports schools to thrive in the new environment of data-driven accountability.
The CFI mission includes the following:
- To disseminate to faculty information about the following:
- Progress Report
- Quality Review
- Periodic Assessments
- ARIS
- To develop school-based Inquiry Teams. This year the team consists of the following members: Ms. Healy (English), Ms. Fradenburg (Social Studies), Mr. Moore (English); Mr. Sudduth (Social Studies), Ms. Pace (Science), and Ms. van Keulen (AP Data and Technology).
- To help teachers in the school form Collaborative Teacher Teams that use the Inquiry Process to advance student learning. By now we have formed two teams: one in the English Department and one in the Math Department.
The chart below illustrates how the Inquiry Process works:
Decide on a CFI goal, aligned with the school�s goals, and on a student target population for which curriculum changes are implemented as a result of student performance on assessments.
This year�s school-wide goals follow:
Goal 1: To Promote Higher Student Achievement.
- To increase Regents exam passing rates
- To accelerate student learning
Some of the targets for this goal follow:
- 96% of all students will pass a Mathematics Regents exam by the end of the 10th grade
- 35% of all students will pass the ELA Regents by the end of the 10th grade
- Increase by 15% the number of students taking AP exams in Mathematics (Statistics & Calculus)
- Increase by 20% the number of students taking AP exams in one of the three sciences: Biology, Chemistry or Environmental Science
- A complete list of targets were discussed
at the department meetings on November
3.
Goal 2: To implement Phase 3 of the school�s Technology Plan with some of the targets being the following:
- To increase technology usage in the class
room
- Increase the number of school-related Web sites.
- Decrease OTPS spending on paper and toner cartridges
Goal 3: Celebrate LaGuardia�s 25th anniversary by developing projects that integrate arts and academics with the main target being the following:
- To increase collaboration between studio and academic teachers; i.e., inter-disciplinary projects
The CFI school wide Inquiry Project involves the improvement of students' reading comprehension skills by enhancing students knowledge of subject specific vocabulary, which is aligned to the first school goal, "To Promote Higher Student Achievement." The chart below helps to illustrate how the Inquiry Process is formulated:
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