Standard 1.3: Continuous Improvement

Each year Payson High School creates a school improvement plan that targets areas we want to focus on improving as a school. The plan contains the goal, the action plan, and how success will be measured in that particular area.

Improving teaching methods and practices is expected and strongly supported at Payson High School. Not only do we have school-wide professional development, but many teachers and staff also take advantage of district and state-sponsored conferences.

Our Career and Technical Education (CTE) teachers have free statewide summer trainings that they can attend. Concurrent Enrollment teachers attend a yearly conference with Utah Valley University to collaborate with other teachers in our area teaching the same classes. Advanced Placement (AP) teachers have the opportunity to attend summer AP workshops to keep current on changes to the AP curriculum.

The COVID pandemic has led administrators to implement some adaptations during faculty meetings in order to ensure that the entire faculty is aware of any new procedures or policies. These adaptations include the use of ZOOM remote meetings for teachers who prefer to remain in their classroom and also faculty-wide distribution of professional development materials that are used during the meeting. Administrators present material that helps support effective teaching and then they send the material out so that any teacher who is not in attendance or who would like to review the material has access to it.

Throughout the school year, an assigned administrator will come in on a designated day and time to evaluate a teacher's effectiveness of teaching in certain categories. Before a teacher begins their lesson they are required to sit down with the assigned administrator and discuss the outline of the lesson and the desired outcome. The school administrator uses the Utah Teacher Observation Tool (UTOT) as the instrument for observing and evaluating. After the observation is complete, a post-conference is conducted to discuss the effectiveness of teaching and any comments the administrator has for improvement.

Each Monday, Nebo district has an early release to allow for teacher collaboration. The second Monday of each month is designated for district-wide collaboration, when faculty serving in special education, CTE, fine arts, media specialists, and others meet and share best practices. During most years, the third Monday of each month is used for faculty meetings. (During the 2020-2021 school year, as a response to the COVID pandemic, we have used the third Wednesday for our school-wide faculty meetings.) The remaining Mondays are used for department collaborations. Each department meets together to work on establishing a common curriculum and, in some departments, create common assessments and standardize grading procedures.

PHS has seen a marked improvement in ACT scores over the last five years. Specifically, from 2015 to today, the schoolwide average ACT composite score has risen by 5% (from 18.3 to 19.2), including a 9% improvement in the average English subscore (from 17.2 to 18.7) and a 6% improvement in the average mathematics subscore (from 17.5 to 18.5). In those same years we saw a 22% increase in the number of students scoring at or above the benchmark for college readiness.

When disaggregated by race, we also see areas of great improvement over the last five years. Our self-identified white students improved by 7% (from 18.6 to 19.8); Native American students improved by 40% (from 14.3 to 20.0); our Hispanic students improved by 7% (from 18.6 to 19.8); our Asian students improved by 21% (from 14.0 to 17.0); Pacific Islander students improved by 36% (from 13 to 17.7, though also with a very small sample size); and our Black students by an astounding 115% (from 13.0 to 28.0)! One caveat is to note that some of the minority groups with very large improvements were subject to very small sample sizes.