Frank Elementary students continue to close the achievement gap and outperform schools with similar demographics.

Frank Elementary School has always served neighborhood families that come from diverse backgrounds. Our 96.7% Economically Disadvantaged (ED) status qualifies us to be a Title 1 school. This percent is considerably higher than our district's 53.4% ED students. It's our belief that all of our students deserve a high-quality education and should be given every opportunity to achieve their best. To transform Frank to a school our students need, we decided to use our Title I funds to support our partnership with EL Education in 2010.

Closing the Achievement Gap

Since partnering with EL Education, Frank students began to close the achievement gap in both reading and math on state assessments (WKCE, Badger, WI Forward). EL Education has guided our SLT (School Leadership Team) in creating our yearly work plan goals. The work plan includes faculty learning targets that focus on student achievement. This has provided our teachers and students with the necessary tools needed to transform our school's academic culture. View Frank's EL Journey here. Closing the achievement gap is allowing Frank students to compete with their peers from around our district when entering middle school and beyond. Students have become leaders of their learning and demonstrate their acquired skills by outperforming the growth of their peers on assessments. During the 2015-2016 school year, Frank Elementary School saw 100% growth on our state report card. This spike in growth was partially due to the state reconfiguring how students' growth was calculated and the implementation of EL. To better understand how scores are calculated in Wisconsin, view the 2016 Department of Public Instruction (DPI) Interpretive Guide here. Our students were growing at a faster rate compared to their peers in our district. The 2016-2017 reading achievement gap took a small dip but remained above the district score. Math, however, witnessed a steady increase in closing the achievement gap. Both reading and math saw consistent growth in 2017-2018.

Goals to Support Growth

Outperforming peers on assessments is only one example of how our students are showing academic growth. Frank students, through explicit instruction in character, are evaluating daily how their character directly impacts learning. Markus, a third grade student, has developed strategies to assist his ability to focus on complex learning and stay the course in his studies. This has allowed him to exceed his NWEA Measures of Academic Performance (MAP) growth goal in third grade (see video below). MAP is an assessment tool we use on a district level to track academic growth throughout the school year.

Students at Frank take ownership of their progress each day. MAP growth goals are only one example of goals students set for themselves. Students also set weekly and quarterly goals in reading and math aimed at meeting end of year growth goals. These goals are also linked to our character traits. The two videos below demonstrate how Frank students are leaders of their learning.

Frank students demonstrate proficiency in their skills as learners and strive to meet their projected growth in reading and math on the NWEA Measures of Academic Progress assessment (MAP) each year in grades two through five. Our goal is to have 60% of our students meet their projected growth on MAP in reading and math each year. This goal is based upon the EL Education Academic standard of 60% of students meeting their academic growth target for two out of the past three years. Frank students have met this standard due to the partnership with EL Education. Through rigorous and meaningful instruction, students gain knowledge and skills needed to be successful during MAP assessments. Frank students in our primary classrooms are immersed in foundational skills that are preparing them to meet their MAP growth goals when they enter second grade and beyond. Click here to see our credentialing data profile, which includes our MAP growth percentages on the MKS tab.

Structures to Support Student Growth

Since 2014, we moved to a looping structure, has proven to support our growth goals on MAP and assisted in closing the achievement gap for our students. Looping has allowed our students to build a tighter community with their teachers and their peers. This gives them a safe space to dive deep into their expeditions and academics. Students in the second year loop start the school year immediately with clear expectations, routines and procedures already in place. Students know where they are in their continuum of learning and goals for the year are already in place. Classrooms pick-up in the beginning of the year where they ended. Our SLT studied the research on the pros and cons of looping. "These studies are important because they tell us that teacher-student relationships matter,” said Tyrone Howard, a professor of education at the University of California, Los Angeles, who is writing a book on the research about students’ relationships with their teachers and how well they learn. Below are two samples of the student growth demonstrated by a fifth grade looping class and a third grade looping class.