Title I - School Wide Plan

Title I School-Wide Plan 

Lancaster City Schools believes every child should have the opportunity to attain his/her full potential. We are committed to providing a quality educational program for all children.  We believe that teamwork and collaboration between school and parents increases the quality and effectiveness of educating every student.  We value our parents' input and believe that a partnership between home and school is critical to provide the support children need to be successful.

What Is Title I

Title I is a national program funded through the federal government.  Lancaster City Schools receives Title I funds each year.

All Lancaster elementary schools are identified as a schoolwide Title I school.  As a schoolwide Title 1 school, we are able to receive additional resources to benefit all students regardless of the families income.   Title I funds helps us to supplement intervention services in reading and math for any student who needs more support.  Our funding helps us to provide support for homeless students and their families by connecting them to our community  and school resources.  We also use Title I funds to support family engagement activities to further strengthen the home-school connection.

How Is Our Title I Program Funded
Title I provides financial assistance to our elementary schools whose percentages of low-income students is higher than 40%.   Our percentage of low income students is based on the percentage of free and reduced lunches.  Free and reduced lunch numbers can be directly certified for families that participate in SNAP (Special Nutrition Assistance Program) or OWF (Ohio Works First) program.  

Resources provided at each building is determined by the percentage of free and reduced lunch counts at each building.  For example a building with a higher percentage of free and reduced lunch numbers will receive more resources to address academic needs.

Students receiving Title I services is based on their instructional needs, not on their low income status.  

Title One School Wide Program

A school wide program is a comprehensive reform strategy designed to ensure that all students, particularly those who are low-achieving, demonstrate proficient and advanced levels of achievement on State academic achievement standards. 

A school wide program uses its Title I funds to supplement the entire educational program of the school in order to raise academic achievement for ALL students.  No longer are students or teachers labeled “Title I,” but instead all students and all the teachers at the school use Title I dollars to improve the school’s entire academic program. 

Lancaster City Schools school wide program is built upon evidence based strategies:

• Conducts a comprehensive needs assessment 

• Identify goals and strategies for each school

• Create a comprehensive plan

• Conduct an annual review of Title I and revise as necessary.

Comprehensive Needs Assessment

Our school conducts a comprehensive needs assessment each year.  The data and information we analyze each year includes, but is not limited to the following:

• One Needs (Comprehensive Needs Assessment Tool)

• District Data (State Testing, District Improvement Plan)

• Building Academic Data (Early Warning System)

• Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports Data (Attendance, Office Referrals, Tiered Fidelity Inventory, Culture Survey)

• Survey Data (Culture Surveys, Title I Parent and Staff Surveys)

Goals and Strategies Identified

Our school has analyzed the data and has identified specific and targeted goals and strategies that will address the identified needs in our comprehensive needs assessment.

• Our Goal(s):

  • By the end of 2027-2028 school year the district will reading and math achievement by 3% each year as measured by Ohio's State Assessment

  • By the end of 2027-2028 school year the district will chronic attendance by 3% each year as measure by our district attendance data.

• Our evidence-based strategies used to address these goals: 

• Provide Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) Framework.  This includes academic and social emotional areas that impact student success in school.  (Response To Interventions (RTI)  / PBIS and attendance)

• Continued implementation of Ohio Improvement Process (OIP). Communication and decision-making between and across levels of the system (district, central office, school, grade levels, content areas, classrooms) helps us make strategy decisions that will save us time and resources and make an impact on our students.

• Continue to provide coaching to teachers and paraprofessionals in reading and math 

• Continue to provide high quality professional development to teachers and paraprofessionals 

• Continue to empower teachers to implement the appropriate evidence-based strategies during instruction

  • Tier I (Core Curriculum) for ELA and Math is a focus

  • Tier II evidence based intervention program

  • Implementing evidence based  instructional practices

  • Provide evidence based professional development in ELA and Math

  • Provide embedded coaching to support  teachers

  • Implement Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports

• Our school monitors progress by:

• District Leadership Teams (Ohio Improvement Process) 

• Building Leadership Teams (Ohio Improvement Process) 

• Teacher Based Teams (Ohio Improvement Process) - Tier 2 students

• Building Problem Solving Team - Tier 3 students 

• Core Instruction and Title I - student data collection (Formative assessment) - Tier I

• Office referral data

• Attendance data

• Academic data

• Ohio State Assessment testing data 

• Culture and perception surveys

Designing a Comprehensive Plan

Our Building Leadership Team meets monthly to analyze our comprehensive data and develop our school plan.  This team provides progress monitoring and makes adjustments to our building school wide plan.  Our team consists of building administration, grade level teachers, classified staff representative(s), parent representative(s), Title I representative(s), and special education representatives. It is very important that we coordinate our plan with Title I services, special education, and district initiatives so we have one comprehensive integrated plan.

Annual Fall Review Meeting

In the fall of each year we conduct our annual review of our plan.  Parents will be invited to attend and are a critical part of the review process.  The feedback from parents is critical to our success.  For more information about parent and family engagement please visit our plan:

Title 1 - Parent Involvement Plan

Public comments and suggestions for next year’s funds can be sent to j_houston@lcsschools.net 

Additional Information regarding Federal Programs can be found at: HERE

For more information, please contact our building principal.