1. Improve student literacy at every level
   
   
   • Each student will demonstrate improved ability to:
     
     1. Read increasingly more challenging texts, graphs, charts, tables or visual materials
        
     2. Extract information from those sources
        
     3. Organize that information into relevant patterns or relationships
        
     4. Present what he/she now understands (in many forms - written, oral, technology, artistic, mathematically, etc.)
     5. Communicating that understanding(s) so that others may understand it themselves
        
   • Every student will engage in at least five forms of writing and speaking annually: To Describe, To Persuade, To Inform, In a Report or In a Narrative. These forms will be related to the four purposes for communication described in the English Language Arts Learning Standards. (See #3 below)
     
   • Teachers will plan lessons designed to achieve this goal and will assess student improvement in literacy throughout the semester/year.
     
     
2. Enable students to achieve district technology benchmarks
   
   
   • Students will be informed of the district technology benchmarks which they will be expected to have achieved by grades 3, 5, 8 and 12.
   • Each teacher will inform his/her students of how the district technology standards will be introduced, reinforced and assessed within that program/course.
   • Each teacher will plan lessons designed to achieve this goal and will assess student improvement throughout the semester/year.
     
     
3. Enable students to achieve the NYS Learning Standards
   
   
   • Each teacher will incorporate student learning experiences designed to achieve the following cross-curricular learning standards, as they are enabling performance standards in any discipline:
     1. When we communicate with others through Reading, Listening, Speaking and Writing, we do so for one of the following four purposes:
        1. Informing and/or understanding (English Language Arts #1)
        2. Providing your response to an author's literary work (ELA #2)
        3. Performing a critical analysis, particularly of another person's reasoning (ELA #3)
        4. Engaging in effective social interaction (ELA #4)
     2. We design, compose, create and represent within the arts and technology by using and manipulating the conventions and the elements of the medium. (The Arts)
     3. We think and act mathematically and scientifically using the processes of inquiry, problem-solving, and hypothesis testing. (Math-Science-Technology)
   • Teachers will plan lessons designed to enable achievement of other NYS Learning Standards related to their discipline(s) and will assess student improvement throughout the semester/year.
     
     
4. "Raise the Bar" of Classroom Discourse to Higher Levels of Reasoning
   
   
   • Each teacher will plan lessons and use teaching strategies designed to achieve this goal by:
     1. Using open-ended, problem-posing, inquiry-oriented questioning techniques in discussions
     2. Promoting student ownership of discussions by stepping back when appropriate during dialogue
     3. Engaging students in paired problem solving and cooperative learning at the application, analysis and synthesis levels of reasoning
     4. Providing students with models of how to think, reason and inquire. Think aloud with them. Act as a master craftsman would with an apprentice, showing students how you expect them to be able to have higher levels of discourse; i.e., "it would sound something like this.........."
   • Each teacher will assess student improvement and provide feedback to students with respect to:
     1. The quality of their participation in classroom discussions, problem-solving and cooperative learning work.
     2. How improvements can be made in their performance in these areas.
        
        
5. Insist on Quality Student Work
   
   
   • Each teacher will plan lessons and use strategies designed to achieve this goal by:
     1. Posting learner expectations with indicators of quality
     2. Providing students with copies of expectations and indicators of quality
     3. Identifying at least one assessment for each expectation
     4. Varying assessments, but having them be observable end products from which evidence of the student's performance/ability can be ascertained
     5. Giving regular assignments which students must revise to higher quality (uses a draft-analyze-revise process)
   • Teachers will grade quality student work. Work which is not of quality is revised outside of class time, and the student will be expected to improve their work on or before a deadline (or receive an "F"). Teachers will provide students with additional guidance when needed.
   • Students will be working on activities which require them to use their thinking and communication skills to complete the task. Quality teacher questioning at various levels asks students about their knowledge, understanding and metacognition.
   • Teachers have an organized plan for focusing on and providing students with feedback about productivity; e.g., working well with others, how to follow directions and meet deadlines, knowing where/how to go for help, how to develop a plan to complete major projects.
   • Teachers communicate regularly with parents about expectations for quality student work, providing examples of rubrics and assignments, and communicating the grading system will include returning work to the student if it is not up to quality standard. The student will then be expected to analyze that work, with teacher help if needed, and revise it to higher quality.
   • Teachers communicate regularly with parents regarding individual student improvement, and when appropriate, provide examples of each students' work as a resource for their understanding.