Ocala, Florida

Lake Weir HigH scHooL

PROFILE
District: Marion County Public Schools District Enrollment: 41,769 students School Enrollment: 1,700 students Grades: 9-12 Free/Reduced Price Lunch: 71% Ethnicity: 65% Caucasian 18% Hispanic 12% African American 5% Asian

SuccessMaker and WriteToLearn enable the student, teacher as well as the principal to monitor progress throughout the school year. From the reports adjustments can be made to ensure student success. Cynthia Saunders principal Students who used WriteToLearn found the quick feedback and built in help features to be motivating factors and this seemed to help students stay focused on their essay until it was complete. In addition, being able to quickly pull up (using our smartboard technology) the top score essays (or any essay for that matter) that a student had written and use it as a teaching tool in the classroom between lab times made peer editing/analysis a very accessible teaching tool. Laura Priest 10th grade English teacher

CHALLENGE
Lake Weir High School (LWHS) was given a D rating in 2004 and 2005 by the Florida State Board of Education. Many students at LWHS were not scoring at a proficient level in math or reading on the state-wide Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT). With nearly three quarters of the school population receiving a free or reduced price lunch and with a mobility rate more than 30 percent, many students were struggling to learn even the basics of math and reading for their grade level. LWHS needed a solution to help remediate its non-proficient math and reading students. The school officials wanted a product that was flexible and could reach a multitude of students at different skill levels.

SOLUTION
I arrived at LWHS as principal during the summer of 2006 and saw that we did not have an effective intensive program in place to help our bottom quartile of students in math and reading. I had used SuccessMaker at a middle school where I was principal during the 2004-05 and 2005-06 school years and it was extremely productive, said Cynthia Saunders, principal at LWHS. In 2007, using funds from the districts board of education and grants, Principal Saunders purchased Pearson Digital Learnings SuccessMaker courseware program and brought the implementation to LWHS. In 2009 they purchased another Pearson product, WriteToLearn. Continues

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SOLUTION AND RESULTS

From 2007 to 2009 LWHS focused its implementation on math remediation. Every level one and two math student was placed in an intensive course. With 20 students per class and 10 computers in each classroom, half the class worked on SuccessMaker while the teacher worked on grade-level skills with the other half. After 20 minutes students rotated. Comparing four years of math test data, the last two years we have exceeded state and district math scores, explained Principal Saunders. During the 2009-10 school year, LWHS implemented the reading portion of SuccessMaker with its 10th grade students using the same format as the math program. Within the first year the number of students in level one reading decreased by seven percent based on FCAT results and overall reading proficiency increased by four percent. More than 50 percent of the bottom quartile readers accomplished one years worth of growth. In 2010 LWHS was the only high school in Marion County awarded an A rating by the Florida Department of Education. This was due to its great gains in math and reading. WriteToLearn was implemented during the 2009-10 school year. Each 9th and 10th grade English class attended the computer lab every two weeks to work on writing projects. Each social studies class was also scheduled every other week to work on summary writing. After just one year the overall proficiency level of 10th grade students increased 13 percent as measured on the FCAT and level four and above writers improved their scores by 20 percent.

I would like to tell you that after five years using SuccessMaker I am pleased with the results it has developed in my students. Last years program had an increase of at least one years growth in 82 percent of my students. Most of these results can be credited to the flexible administrative options within the program that allow the sort of adjustments to help the students adapt to the program and the program to adapt to the students. The graphics and cartoon style are attractive to the students and promotes student ownership of the math problems and the results they acquire. The evaluation opportunities from Last Session to Cumulative Review reports allow the administrator to know precisely where the student is in the program and how much improvement has been made. Also SuccessMaker is very easy to learn and administer, which results in one less challenge for the classroom teacher. Adrian Sanders teacher SuccessMaker allowed my students to fill many of the gaps they had in mathematics by using the technology they are so accustomed to today. Many students made over one years growth as measured by the FCAT state test. Janice Bowser 9th grade intensive math teacher

FCAT Math Results for Grade 9 2005 - 2010 Percent of Students Scoring Level 3 and Above*
Percentage of Students
85 75 65 55 45 2005 2006 State 2007* 2008 District 2009 2010 Lake Weir
61 59 53 63 60 56 72 70 68 71 70 67

60 59 55

68 66 65

FCAT Math Results for Grade 10 2005 - 2010 Percent of Students Scoring Level 3 and Above*
Percentage of Students
85 75 65 55
54 64 63 66 65 58 67 65 61 69 65 81 71 73

69

45 2005 2006 State 2007* 2008 District 2009 2010 Lake Weir

* SuccessMaker was implemented in 2007.

Copyright 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. or its affiliate(s). All rights reserved. 100195

www.PearsonSchool.com/Digital