Dual Language Camp Out at Silver Lake Elementary

The parents for 18 kindergarten students camped out yesterday night in front of Silver Lake Elementary, as they wanted to be the first in line to sign up for the new dual language immersion program at the school. I had the opportunity to speak with the parents at the camp out, and they were extremely excited for the opportunity to take part of this great program. If the program is successful at Silver Lake, GCISD will consider expanding it to Cannon and Timberline Elementary Schools.

Our dual language program was featured in today's news on CBS 11.

Frostig Center Parent's Guide for Succesful Children

The Frostig Center is a non-profit organization that specializes in working with children who have learning disabilities.  Ms. Bennett Ross, Executive Director of the Center, posted in our Blog that there is a free Parent's Guide available for download at their website. The guide is based on a 20-year research, where the Center traced the lives of individuals with learning disabilities to identify factors that predicted successful life outcomes. The factors discussed in the guide were self-awareness, proactivity, perseverance, goal setting, the presence and use of effective support systems, and emotional coping strategies.  Although the guide focused on children with learning disabilities, these factors apply to all kids and adults. I believe this guide could help all of us become better parents and teachers for our children.

Scottish Rite seminar on children's self-esteem

On February 3rd, I had the opportunity to attend a seminar titled "Fostering strengths and building self-esteem in children with dyslexia and related disorders". The seminar was presented by Dr. Monte Davenport, Diagnostic Services Coordinator at the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital and was attended by over 50 GCISD parents and administrators. Dr. Davenport discussed the symptoms of low self-esteem and their long term impact on our kids. He also discussed what we as parents can do to break the low-self-esteem cycle in order to help our children succeed. His presentation was based on the study by the Frostig Center titled "Predictors of success in individuals with learning disabilities".

The success attributes discussed were self-awareness, self-acceptance and proactivity. According to Dr. Devenport, the goal of self-awareness is to help our child understand that his difficulties are not who he is as a person. In terms of self-acceptance, the presentation discussed steps that parents and teachers can take to help students change their negative "self-talk". "Self-talk" is what children think of themselves when facing difficult situations. Finally, Dr. Davenport encouraged parents to be proactive by establishing a support network for their children. The support group includes teachers, counselors, tutors and other parents and children with similar experiences.

For more information, you can access the whole presentation with this link.

The Frostig Center study summary can be found in this link.

GCISD's Advanced Placement (AP) Program

Currently 54% of GCISD graduates attend a 4-year college, and 72% attend either a 2 or 4-year college. One of the keys to continue to improve on these figures is to increase the enrollment in our Advanced Placement (AP) program. This program offers students the opportunity to take college level courses at our high schools, which gives students the chance to earn a higher credit weight per class versus standard courses. Also, students in AP courses can take an end of year course exam, which allows them to earn college credits based on their test scores.

In summary, AP courses give students the experience of a college course while having the support provided in a high school environment. Performance in AP courses is a good barometer to predict future success in college. However, even students that do not pass the end of year AP exams are well served for their future college lives by having the experience of a more rigorous high school coursework.

The following table compares the AP programs of the main suburban districts in North Texas, based on student participation and passing rates. The data was provided by the TEA and College Board websites for the 2007-2008 school year. The AP exam passing criteria is a score of 3 or above.

As the table shows, GCISD has the second highest participation rate in North Texas, and the 6th highest AP exam passing rate. It is expected that a higher level of participation in the AP program will result in a lower passing rate among students. However, top AP programs continue to increase student participation while maintaining or increasing the exam passing rates.

In order to compare the AP programs among school districts, a simple calculation that gives equal weight to participation and passing rates could be used. The AP Index included in the table is based on multiplying the participation and passing rates for each district. Using this figure, GCISD places 4th among AP programs in North Texas.

I would like to encourage all parents to get more information about the pre-AP and AP programs offered at our secondary schools, in order to help us make all students aware of these options. GCISD has a very strong AP program, and all our students should take advantage of this opportunity.

GCISD Highlights 2009

January is almost over, and our new semester is in full swing. I would like to take this opportunity to review some of the many accomplishments in our district during last year.

The year started with a partnership with Allied Waste Services to establish a district-wide recycling program. This is a great initiative to teach our students the value of keeping our planet clean, reducing waste, and decreasing emissions that affect the air we breathe.

During the month of February, eleven of our schools made it to the National Center for Educational Achievement list (BES, CES, GES, GHES, HES, TES, CMS, CTMS, HMS, CHHS and GHS) for outstanding performance across multiple grades and years.

We had our high school graduations in June. Our GHS top students were Salutatorian Heejung Park and Valedictorian Christopher Newkirk. From CHHS, Salutatorian Alexander Nasr, Valedictorian Joseph Yu were the top students. We also welcomed Tona Taylor as the new principal at Cannon Elementary. During this month, Leigh Hockenbrough (BES) and Tim Bressler (HMS) were announced as the GCISD Teachers of the Year.

In July, TEA released the Accountability Ratings for districts across the state, and GCISD earned Recognized status for the second year in a row. Ten of our campuses earned Exemplary status. The district also saw significant improvements in test scores in the areas of Math and Science, while continuing to show top performances in Reading, Writing and Social Studies. For the first time since TAKS replaced TAAS as the tool to measure district performance in the state (2003), over 90% of our students passed the test in each subject area. Also during this month, we welcomed June Ritchlin as the new principal at Colleyville Elementary. Mrs. Ritchlin joined GCISD from Katy ISD.

In August, our school year started with a new bell schedule, which allowed the district to better serve the transportation needs of our students while avoiding the purchase of additional buses, saving thousands of dollars in our budget. A report to the Board on our Advanced Placement (AP) program showed that GCISD has one of the top 4 programs in North Texas, based on participation and AP exam passing rates. In September, the district started offering an enhanced dyslexia program in partnership with the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital. Also this month, Bransford, Glenhope and Timberline elementary schools were named to the Texas Business & Education Coalition Honor Roll.

During the month of December, TEA awarded Gold Performance Acknowledgements to GCISD and both high schools based on the new state college readiness indicators.

Congratulations to GCISD for a great year!

Dyslexia Program Update

It is with great pleasure that I would like to announce the new Dyslexia program in GCISD. The program will be based on the Scottish Rite Hospital's "Take Flight" program, and details will be presented to the School Board and the public during the September Board meeting. Four GCISD teachers began the "Take Flight" / Certified Academic Language Therapist (CALT) training at Scottish Rite last month, and additional teachers will receive the training next year. If you want to hear more details about the new program, please join us in our School Board meeting on September 28th, 2009 at 7PM. You can also call the GCISD administration office for more information.

If you want to learn more about the "Take Flight" program, click the following link: http://www.tsrhc.org/dyslexia-take-flight.htm.

I would like to thank the GCISD administration for working with the Scottish Rite Hospital to bring arguably the best Dyslexia program in the state to our district. I would also like to thank all the parents that brought their concerns to the GCISD administration and the School Board. This is a great example of what we can accomplish for our kids if we work together. I understand that we are just starting the program, and I am sure its implementation will bring new challenges. However, I am very excited about the opportunity to identify and serve many more of our students with this condition.

Finally, I would like to thank Dr. Jeff Black (Medical Director), Mrs. Gladys Kolenovsky (Business Director) and their staff at the Scottish Rite Luke Waites Center for Dyslexia for their guidance and assistance.

Accountability Ratings 2009 - North Texas Comparison

GCISD mission is to be "the BEST". In order to be the best, I believe it is important to compare our district performance with the top districts in the state and around the country. It is not possible to be the BEST without knowing how the best districts are performing. For that reason, I decided to compare GCISD with our peer districts here in North Texas. The goal is to identify gaps in performance (in subject areas or student subgroups) in order to know where to focus our efforts to become the BEST district in the state.

There are many factors that could be compared among school districts in order to decide which district is "the BEST". We can compare performance based on TAKS, SAT, ACT, AP, percentage of students going to College and many others. I believe it would be very interesting to compare some of these factors, so let's start with TAKS results. In late July, the TAKS scores and Accountability Ratings were published by the Texas Education Agency. The table below illustrates a summary of district-wide results, including each subject area and some of the student subgroups in GCISD and other suburban districts in North Texas.

The table indicates that GCISD scores were very strong in the areas of Reading, Writing and Social Studies, with ALL Students passing at a rate of at least 98%. In the areas of Math and Science, GCISD also had a strong performance for ALL Students (93%, 5th highest among compared districts), but we can see performance gaps in the Economically Disadvantage Students subgroup when compared with some of the other districts included in the report.

In order to be the BEST in terms of TAKS performance, GCISD needs to continue to focus in the areas of Math and Science, placing a strong emphasis on the Economically Disadvantage students. The district is already showing improvements on this student subgroup, increasing its TAKS scores by 5% in Math and 2% in Science from a year ago. As we look for ways to have a significant impact in these subject areas in the near future, GCISD is planning to perform an audit on its Math and Science curriculum, and findings will be presented to the Board this Fall.

If you are interested in getting involve as a Math or Science tutor (or in any other subject) in our district, or as a mentor for some of our kids, please contact one of our schools or send me an email to jorge@jorgerodriguez.org.