Keller School District Officials Expect Rating Change

[5stones]

well I don't think that it was something lacking sincethe school has been exemplary for many years. (99% passage) I think that since writting was on the 4th grade TAKS they would include writting throughout the cirric. It now is starting K-garten etc... to get kids to write.
I am amazed at older kids who have never diagramed a sentence, can't tell you what the adverb in the sentence is or does.
So no, I don't know why writting is emphasized, but I for one am glad. Oncethey reach HS there is soo much writting and kids who are not comfortable or profiecient will struggle in most classes.

Keller does rotate kids in 4th grade they have 1 teacher for ELA and SS and 2nd teacher for science and Math.
5-6th grades they rotate for 3 or all 4 core subjects depending on staff levels. My daughter 5th rotated for all 4 core classes this year.

I did find out that Keller did have 3 acceptable campuses last year and all had writting scores in the 90's% for 2009, then dropped to 80's% for 2010, 1 school dropped 11 points in one year that a pretty big drop! BUT still...to drop to under 70% that is HUGE!

[loves2read]

sentence diagraming is not on the TAKS--and has long been out of favor in English classrooms
(and because of it teachers younger than 40 or 45 don't know how to diagram anyway and don't know much about grammar except what they learn as they teach)
although I agree--anyone who can diagram a sentence knows how to write a correct, complete one

ALL the TAKS writing tests for 4th grade are scored by the same team of graders--
a good many of them are not English teachers--they might be college grads who were hired and given training and a rubric--a form for grading with appropriate scoring range for certain writing constructions/problems/mistakes
As an English teacher who TAUGHT TAKS skills I can tell you that there can be disagreement among English teachers in the same grade level at the same school about how some writing samples should be graded--it is a subjective scoring situation and the same paper can be scored by 3 different teachers 3 different ways--that is why each TAKS essay is read twice--although for less than a minute each time--

if graders disagree the leader of that grading group will grade it--that person is supposed to be like a master teacher and the final authority

the topic changes each year for this writing test and if they--the people who write the question for the response--have chosed a topic that is a little bit skewed from what students have been practicing then it can cause students with ESL problems and weak writing skills and/or lack of imagination/lack of ability to connect the topic to their own frame of reference then students can write a response that is just totally off the wall and earns them a no credit score--

This is the prompt from the 2009 test--
Write a composition about a time when something surprising happened.
seems simple doesn't it
but a student has to write a developed theme--beginning/middle/end--and show fluency with use of language--that means graders are looking for strong narrative flow with organized thoughts/good vocabulary, maybe use of conversation with appropriate punctuation, figurative language like similies, metaphors, and the kicker would be to have the conclusion contain a meaningful moral or personal reflection about value of the experience

there are kids who can write a narrative like that and earn an Exceeds rating
and there are lot more who can't

for 2010-the prompt was write about a time you got something you wanted--
well if you are a student from lower-socio-economic background in 4th grade--that child conceiveably could NEVER have gotten something s/he wanted--so they are left staring at the page...

I bet that most of the students who earned a failing mark on the writing prompt likely failed the essay portion vs weak essay and failing on the usage part--
teachers can usually drill enough usage into their brains to pass that
the essay portion is the killer

[5stones]

Write a composition about a time when something surprising happened.

HA yes! this is the one my daughter had last year... She choose to write a suspense story. She wrote about her surprise, comming home from school and finding her father dead! (OMG!! I am still waiting for CPS to come knocking on my door!! lol)

I know that one elem. school in Colleyville spends the entire time up to the writting TASKs perfecting 1 story...the rewrite it many times using many different prompts so by the time TAKS come around the kids really don't have to think too much, just work your story around the prompt. I was shocked when my friend told me that! My daughter must have written a dozen 2-3 page "essays" over the year.

I agree with you L2R on the point of kids from not so happy homes, and low income comming up with a good essay with some of these prompts... BUT those schools avg score 2009 was 90+% passing and 2010 80% passing, now 1 of them has dropped to under 70%! That is a red flag that soemthing is wrong in the school. (scores across the board for the 3 low preforming schools have been dropping in all areas...)

[loves2read]

no--it is a red flag that a subgroup number swelled and they came from area where there was no teaching the TAKS--like California--
that is the real danger for Keller being such an advertised Mecca for people relocating--you get the bad and the good in one lump sum

if they entered school this year with NO TAKS background and not much of anything strong in writing skills then they are going to fail--
some kids literally ARE too far back to be brought up to pass TAKS--and part of that is attitude--
usually they have poor skill sets because they don't care about school for any of 100 reasons I won't explain...
Believe me--the people AT that school--know exactly who those kids are--
the problem is that they can be promoted w/o passing that test and they won't have to take another writing test for couple of years so the threat is minimal in their (the kids') eyes for future necessity of gaining skills

and yes--we know people wit kids in elementary school and that is part of the Colleyville package for beating the TAKS
our take at Bell was to do several different prompts but use the same types of strategies--
how to create an opening--types of supporting details--using dialogue

[5stones]

our take at Bell was to do several different prompts but use the same types of strategies--
how to create an opening--types of supporting details--using dialogue

very similar to what my daughter was taught in 4th and now 5th grade. Many prompts..(happy ones, sad ones, spooky ones etc...) Open with a bang..(attention grabber etc..) then set tone etc... and they really hammer home begining middle and end...esp having a conclusion to "wrap it all up"!

Anyway... There are 1-2 schools in the district that I know of that will benefit from layoffs, and a complete overall in Admin etc... time will tell.

[infogather22]

Originally Posted by 5stones

Well a school can fall short esp in writting since it can be subjective.
I was amazed last year (my youngest was 4th grade) and her school (WLE) REALLY focused on writting. Not only in ELA but for science, writting papers, using good descriptors for labs etc... Every subject they had a journal for and had to journal everyday in all subjects (math..had to use complete sentences when anwsers etc)
In all thier English writting papers they had "tired words" that they were not allowed to use (pretty, good, big etc...) ELA focused alot on proper sentence structure etc... Her writting improved vastly!

On the other hand as I go to different schools in the district I see that this is NOT a district wide teaching policy for 4th grade. A few schools were really doing the minimal for writting. They did not have listed in the classroom words that were no longer used, they didn't have the writting labs that listed new adj, adv etc... to help give the kids prompts etc... It seemed the kids in a few schools were just not being pushed enough etc... I was really amazed, since I thought it a district wide writting emphasis in 4th grade.

That's why I am VERY interested to see what school it is... for a whole school to fail, that is a failing of the Admin and policies as well as yes the teachers. ( I want to know if my "gut" is right on the school..there are 2 or 3 that will no longer work at due to the envirnoment of the staff) The Admin sets the tone and if they don't care etc...that mood trickels down. It can be said that every school in every district has that "bad" teacher (who doesn't really care, who is burned out etc... what ever the reason) But no way is an entire school filled with 'bad" teachers!

Since I live and work in KISD this really hits home (and makes me very angry and sad). But I will stand by the district and say it is a very good district and has many more very good schools than poor schools. (and quite a few EXCELLENT schools)

5stones, I'm assuming WLE is Willis Lane? I'm planning to move to the Keller area this summer. My daughter will be going to kindergarten. We were looking at Willis Lane until two people sort of steered us away from it. We toured the school and although I didn't get as good of a feel as Perot and Lonestar, it seemed nice. I know it rates a 10 on greatschools.org and is exemplary. All parent comments on greatschools.org were positive. May I ask how you feel about the school? What's your take on it? Any idea why two people would tell me to steer clear?

We're also looking at Perot, Lonestar, and Park Glen...in that order. I have concerns about Park Glen. I know they have been re-zoned for 2011-12 and will be getting 130 kids from a poorly rated school. Also, today I checked out a crime map on trulia.com and wasn't exactly thrilled with what I saw in the Park Glen area. I'm thinking maybe I need to take another look at Willis Lane so that we can actually get into the Keller city limits. Keller looks virtually crime-free on the maps I studied. Your thoughts?

[loves2read]

if you have choice between FTW and Keller IMO you are better to take the Keller house--
appreciation is likely to be stronger there--think city services are stronger--and as a voter/citizen I would think your vote/concerns are easier to present than in FTW where there are so many more citizens

there are some fairly expensive houses that feed into Willis Lane--at least there were--
check out some of the neighborhoods around the school--normally higher income parents = students with higher test scores

[loves2read]

@5stones--
the differences you see from classroom to classroom are mainly about teacher differences

some teachers don't appreciate being "encouraged", "required", "directed" to TEACH TO THE TAKS--
some teachers are not good at teaching writing--they will tell you that
some teachers don't like to do the grading that comes with teaching writing
some principals don't enforce district policies
and some schools do have students/parents who don't want to do what it takes to improve
and in those situations the teacher could be trying to do the best job possible and get little positive improvement from certain students

[5stones]

I really having nothing but positives to say about Willis Lane Elem, I do not know why people would steer you away from it? It may just be personal differences or a bad expirence. Any 1 person can have a bad expirence at a good school.
Great teaching staff and wonderful front office staff, very welcomming etc...

I also have expirence working in the other 3 schools...
Lone Star and Bette Perot are both very good and I would say equally compare with Willis Lane.
I personally have had much better interactions (as sub teacher) with staff at Bette Perot than at Lone Star (but that is me...)

I really do not think you could go wrong with any 3 of those schools.

Park Glen...as a parent and as someone who has worked in the school, is a good school, however I would not want my kids to attend. They have some wonderful caring staff members etc... but with so many others to choose from, it would not be tops on my list.

[loves2read]

I subbed for several years at one point many years ago and agree--
some schools are much more friendly and inclusive when subs come--
some schools had teachers who would never talk to me at all--even though I might go there 4-5 times in a semester and certainly recognized/knew some of the teachers I saw from time to time
but as a sub you can see aspects of the school that parents never would--
I was a parent in the district I subbed for
very eye-opening to me--