Strategic Planning to Support our School Goals

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.  ~ William Butler Yeats 
Without 21st century skills, students are being prepared to succeed in yesterday’s world – not tomorrow’s.   
At Newport-Mesa Adult School, our mission is to help our learners and leaders acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to be productive workers, [...]

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Tending to Attendance ~ Adult vs. Concurrent

Here is a different angle on our attendance.  As you can see, the number of adult learner hours has increased each year, while the number of concurrent learner hours (high school students) has declined.

2006-07

 
Adults
Concurrent
Totals

Summer
30354.0
12658.0
43012.0

Sep
34239.5
3474.5
37714.0

Oct
48101.5
4904.0
53005.5

Totals
112695.0
21036.5
133731.5

 

2007-08

 
Adults
Concurrent
Totals

Summer
33526.5
10295.5
43822.0

Sep
40875.5
3042.5
43918.0

Oct
53140.0
3822.0
56962.0

Totals
127542.0
17160.0
144702.0

 

2008-09

 
Adults
Concurrent
Totals

Summer
38198.5
4900.5
43099.0

Sep
40552
2469.5
43021.5

Oct
55439.5
2777
58216.5

Totals
134190.0
10147.0
144337.0

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Tending to Attendance

Attendance comparison for Week 16:
Week 16 of Fiscal Year 2007-08:  Oct 8 – Oct 12, 2007
Week 16 of Fiscal Year 2008-09:  Oct 13 – Oct 17, 2008

Site
2007
2008
Difference
% change

BESST AM
255
296.2
41.2
16%

HSD
70.2
69.8
-0.4
-1%

Satellite (DL, OCC)
15.8
20.4
4.6
29%

BESST PM
406
380.5
-25.5
-6%

Whittier
108
109
1
1%

CMHS
67.5
53
-14.5
-21%

Older Adults
47.8
68.6
20.8
44%

Total
970.3
997.5
27.2
3%

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Technolution Plan 2008-10

Our Tech / Professional Growth Team met this afternoon from 2:30 – 4:00pm to draft our Newport-Mesa Adult School’s Technology Plan, 2008-2010.  Here it is.  Your suggestions, additions, deletions, and commendations are welcome here in the comment field and/or by email.  Thanks, everyone, for your input. (Click continue to view…)

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Jugs, Drops, and Words that Matter

Image by http://www.free-stockphotos.com

A jug fills drop by drop. ~ Buddha

Every week.  Let’s look inside our jug.  At our drops.  Students that no longer come to class. 
Where do they go?  Why do they go?  How can we help them persist?

In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans. ~ Kahlil Gibran

Let’s [...]

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School Goals 2008-09

On Wednesday, October 15, 2008 our School Site Council will be revising our school goals for 2008-09. 
Please take a look at our 2007-08 School Vision, Mission, and Goals and email your revision ideas to your Site Council Members and/or post your ideas here in the comment box.  Thanks.  Learn on!  Lead on!

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Talkin’ ’bout a Technolution – Verse II

Yesterday our Tech/PG Team met from 2:30pm-4:00pm to discuss our vision and goals for our 2008-10 Technology Plan. 
Here is a draft of our work.  Feel free to email Martha your comments and/or submit them in the comment box of this post.  Thank you!
Technology Plan – Vision, Rationale, and Goals
The Technology/Professional Growth Team:
Carlos, Carole, Corinne, Jeff, [...]

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Tending to Attendance and Insisting on Persistence

Today we begin our fifth week of instruction.  Now is the time to do some persistence-building activities!

Reflect on the goals you set at the beginning of the school year.
Give recognition/certificates for achievement on end-of-unit tests.
Give recognition/certificates for student attendance.
Discuss the importance of daily attendance. 
Use an attendance graph for tracking student attendance.
Use the funny-money awards system.  [...]

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Tending to Attendance

Here are our attendance averages for weeks 1, 2, and 3. Attendance grew at our Whittier site in all four classes.  Nice work, Whittier!  I think it paid off to attend Whittier’s Back-to-School night to trumpet our program!! 

Program Averages
1st week
2nd week
3rd week

BESST Night
Beg Low
24
30.6
33.75

 
Beg High
34
37.25
35.75

 
Int Low
33
37.875
35.875

 
Int High
28
42.75
37

 
Advanced
25
35
34.25

 
Citizenship
17
13.5
16

 
Computers
24
29.5
26.5

 
 
 
 
 

BESST Day
Beg Low
21
22.6
23

 
Beg High
28
27.6
28.3

 
Int Low
33
31.6
29.2

 
Int High
34
37
32

 
Advanced
32
33.8
38.4

 
Computers 
27
27.7
26.4

 
GED
14.5
15.75
13.75

 
 
 
 
 

Whittier
Beg Low
36
35.2
37.6

 
Beg High
19
21
22.4

 
Multi Inter
21
23.6
28.8

 
Computers
18
14.8
18.6

 
 
 
 
 

CMHS
Beginning
31
40.5
38.5

 
Intermediate
17
16.5
15.5

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Individual Development Plan (IDP)

We are a vibrant community of learners and leaders! 
 Our ongoing professional development is a priority because it has a positive impact on student learning.  We use our individual development plans (IDPs) as tools to reflect on our practices, develop our skills, achieve our goals, and further our school mission.
At our planning meeting in September, our Site Council [...]

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Our ESL Student Transfer Policy and Procedure

We want to remind all ESL teachers, administrators, and office assistants at Newport-Mesa Adult School that our student transfer policy and procedure are as follows…

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New Office Assistant Certificate Program!

  New Certificate Program at Newport-Mesa USD Adult School!
Our new Office Assistant Certificate Program is designed to assist students to prepare for successful employment in an office setting.  The program consists of:

textbook exercises
computer applications
apprenticeship projects

To learn more about this new project-based apprenticeship program, please check out these resources:
Brochure
Program Overview
Informational Postcard
 

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Writing Lesson Plans

Have you checked out The Lesson Plan Builder?  Here’s what OTAN says about its web-based lesson builder:

The Lesson Plan Builder makes it easier for you to develop quality lesson plans that address adult education content standards in the context of CASAS and SCANS competencies.
The Lesson Plan Builder….

provides a customer friendly template to develop lessons for [...]

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Preparing for Paired Scores

One fellow adult ed administrator/blogger emailed me this question today:
How does your site obtain paired scores for your students?
I emailed him with the steps we take at NMUSD Adult School to get as many CASAS paired scores as possible…plus 5 resources to help with the process.  We hope these ideas are helpful.  Good luck, all!

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Get Your House in Order – CASAS is Coming!

The CASAS pre-test is coming to NMUSD Adult School next week ~ September 16 & 18.  Check the Testing Calendar for your site’s testing date.  Also, please review your CASAS’ Sweet Home to prepare for next week’s pre-test.  In particular, look at the following resources before administering the CASAS pre-test to your class next Tuesday or Thursday.  Good luck [...]

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CASAS’ Sweet eHome

 Newport-Mesa Adult School just created CASAS’ Sweet eHome: a happy home for all your CASAS materials.  The purpose of the CASAS’ Sweet eHome is to organize and easily share documents we have created to make CASAS testing process more efficient and effective at our adult school.
Click on Continue Reading » to view, download, and/or edit our [...]

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Substitute Lesson Plans ~ Ready to Go!

We want our substitute teachers to have a productive and pleasant experience with our wonderful students at Newport-Mesa Adult School.  To help with this goal, we created the first STEP:  Substitute Teacher Essentials Packet (click back to return to this site).
The  STEP is an editable document that includes the following:

Table of Contents
Substitute Teacher Instructions
Our Mission and Beliefs
Today’s Lesson [...]

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Student Council Meeting Materials ~ June 6

Meeting_Agenda_June_06_08
Here’s What You Do to Learn English song (doc)
Here’s What You Do to Learn English song (ppt)
 

 

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Our Site-based PD Proposal for 2008-09

Our NMUSD Adult School professional growth team meets today to 1) evaluate our progress towards our 2007-2008 professional development goals, 2) discuss our first draft of our 2008-2009 professional development plan, and 3) review a proposed budget to support our 2008-2009 PD plan.
High-priority action item: discuss new TIMAC component of 2008-09 PD plan – TIMAC application due date is [...]

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Students as Leaders at NMUSD Adult School

Twenty-one Newport-Mesa USD Adult School students met today at the BESST Center from 10-11am for our second student council meeting. 
Handouts: 

May 9 Meeting Agenda
May 9 Meeting PowerPoint (save to desktop and then open)
Infant/Toddler Program FAQs (It takes a few seconds to open because of the graphics)
 Office Assistants Certificate Proposal (It takes a few seconds to open; be patient.)

We will meet [...]

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Essential End-of-Semester Materials

There are only 6 weeks until the end of the semester!  Click on the Continue Reading link for our essential end-of-semester materials to help you plan and organize the last month of instruction and assessment.

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Student Council Mtg. ~ May 9

Our next student council meeting is Friday, May 9, 10-11am.
Yesterday, 5 student reps from Taylor’s Intermediate ESL classes presented the April Student Council Mtg. ppt to their classmates to spur discussion from all students in preparation for Friday’s meeting.  Taylor bounded into my office:
My students just had an animated discussion about improving student persistence at our school…thanks to my [...]

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Student Survey Results Are In!

Hot off the press…the aggregate results are in!!   
Student Survey 2008 – Aggregate Results
Student Survey 2008 – Aggregate Comments

Here’s just a glimpse:
How did you learn about this class?  
Highest rated: Friends/family – 75.2%
Lowest rated:  Internet – 0.1%

 In which areas would you like more practice?
Highest rated:  Conversation – 60%
Second highest rated:  Reading – 40%
Second lowest rated:  [...]

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Our Blog as an e-Portfolio for WASC

WASC is coming!  The Executive Director of WASC will be at Newport-Mesa USD Adult School for our accreditation visit tomorrow, April 22.  We’re excited to have this opportunity to showcase our fabulous, program, staff and students!  
Our Adult Education Matters blog is one essential tool for collecting, organizing and communicating information and evaluating our program throughout the WASC review process.  Here’s [...]

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Student Connectedness

In our April WASC leadership meeting, we brainstormed innovative ways to support our students’ personal and academic growth.  Continue reading for ideas on how our blog empowers the NMUSD Adult School staff to provide adequate services, including referral services, to support students in such areas as health, career, academic, and guidance counseling (WASC Category C, Student Connectedness Criterion).  [...]

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WASC Community Council Meeting

Our first Community Council meeting was April 1, 2008.  Fourteen adult school and community members attended.   For more information about our community council, feel free to view the following documents:

To view the list of attending c.c. members, click here.
To view our meeting PowerPoint, click here. 
To review the feedback from c.c. members, click here.

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Site Council Meeting

Our Site Council met on April 3, 2008 to discuss the following agenda items: graduation, summer school, attendance trends and comparisons, one-time site monies, WASC visit preparation, and site updates.
To view our meeting minutes and see our action items, please click here: site-council-minutes-4-3-08.

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Student Council Meeting Minutes & PPT

34 NMUSD Adult School students participated in our first Student Council Meeting on April 4, 2008.  Click on the green hyperlink below to view/download our meeting minutes.  
Student Council 04-04-08.ppt
The meeting minutes are posted on this blog in presentation format so that student council representatives can access and utilize the slideshow to present the student council progress to [...]

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Building School Leaders with our Adult Learners

In order to expand our school leadership and ensure that our schoolwide action plan is in alignment with student needs, we are forming a NMUSD Adult School Student Council.  Read on to learn more about it and to view/download our informational documents and PowerPoint.

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March 26th Tech Training – post your share-out here!

Our next all-staff tech training is Wednesday, March 26, 2008. 
To view/download our informational flyer (including training’s topics, presenters, and expected learner outcomes) click on the green hyperlink here:
Informational Flyer – March 26 Tech Training
To view/download our March 26 Tech Training Evaluation, click on the green hyperlink here:
Tech Training Evaluation 03-26-08
Our application requirement for this training is to use your newly [...]

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BESST-Evening Staff Holds First Team Huddle

Our BESST-evening staff met last night for their first Team Huddle.  The purpose of this 10-minute Team Huddle is to 1) improve communication, 2) share and celebrate successes, and 3) identify and address any areas of improvement.
In last night’s 10-minute Team Huddle, we 1) briefly reviewed upcoming events in March/April,  2) spotlighted 5 best-practices from previous week and 3) [...]

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Pressing On with WordPress

Are you looking for information on creating a blog?  Adult Education Matters is a blog.  And we created it with WordPress.  Here’s why and how we use WordPress.   Read on!  Press on!!

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More e-Surveys for Program Improvement

We have added 7 electronic surveys to our blog.  You can access these surveys on the Downloads page.  Read on to learn how NMUSD Adult School is using these surveys to monitor, evaluate and improve our various adult programs. 

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Free Online Surveys for Ongoing Program Improvement

Are you looking for ways to get teacher and student feedback for ongoing program improvement?  Here’s one great idea…and it won’t cost you a dime!  Read on to discover how NMUSD Adult School uses the free basic account of SurveyMonkey to create online surveys that evaluate our programs and correlate school improvement, professional development and student progress of the [...]

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Reflecting on our IDP Progress on the Blog

As adult educators, we know the importance of lifelong learning and continuous improvement.  Read on to learn how we use technology to help reflect on and revise our daily teaching practices, our 2007-2008 Individual Development Plan goals and our 2007-2008 Professional Growth Plan.  Read on. Soar on!

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Technology + ESLRs = Results!

How can you get several dozen teachers and a few thousand students — all separated by space, time,  content — to participate together in creating, evaluating, revising and approving your Expected Schoolwide Learning Results?  At NMUSD Adult School, we use technology (email, the blog, a PowerPoint, and SmartBoards) to do just that.  Here’s how…  Read [...]

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