Development of the School Improvement Plan is guided by three sets of principles developed in 1999 by the school system and the Board of Education. The most recent set of principles were the Trend Benders which were introduced in "Our Call to Action: Raising the Bar and Closing the Gap, Because All Children Matter." The second set, Academic Priorities, was adopted by the Board of Education. The third set comes from the Success for Every Student Strategic Plan in the form of vision and goals statements.

Academic Priorities

Priority 1 - Improve the education design and delivery of instruction and curriculum by utilization of proven best practices

Priority 2 - Organize and optimize resources for improved academic results

Priority 3 - Analyze and measure teacher and principal effectiveness in improving student performance and results

Priority 4 - Develop, expand, and coordinate a literacy-based birth to kindergarten initiative

Priority 5 - Create unique, innovative family- and community-friendly partnerships to improve academic results

 Workforce Excellence - providing a quality teacher in every classroom, an outstanding principal in every school, and an excellent supporting-services team

 Literacy - providing students with a strong foundation in reading, writing, mathematics, and technology so that they can excel in all areas of the curriculum

 Early Success - giving students an equal chance to achieve when they start school

 Family and Community Partnerships - recognizing families as first teachers and the community as a valuable resource for education

 Organizational Excellence - structuring MCPS so that schools get the support and services they need quickly

 Shared Accountability - using data to improve instruction and monitor results

 MCPS Vision and Goals from the Success for Every Student Strategic Plan

Vision

We, the people of Montgomery County, believe that a quality education is a fundamental right of every child. All children will receive the respect, encouragement and opportunities they need to build the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to be successful, contributing members of a changing global society.

Goal 1 - Ensure Success for Every Student

Provide the services and environment each student needs for intellectual challenge and social and emotional development. Each student will be able to communicate effectively, obtain and use information, solve problems, and engage in active, lifelong learning.

Goal 2 - Provide an Effective Instructional Program

Teach all students a curriculum that describes what they should know and should be able to do, includes the many perspectives of a pluralistic society and establishes learning standards. Instruction must include a variety of teaching strategies and technologies, actively involve students and result in their mastery of learning objectives.

Goal 3 - Strengthen Productive Partnerships for Education

Secure commitment of the entire community to maintain quality education in Montgomery County by building partnerships among families, the community, businesses and staff that promote and support initiatives to help all children succeed.

Goal 4- Create a Positive Work Environment in a Self-Renewing Organization

Develop a climate in which staff effectiveness and creativity are encouraged, respected, valued, and supported to promote productivity and ownership for student success. Provide efficient and effective support and staff development for the instructional program.

Our mission is to provide a language-rich learning environment for students, which promotes individual growth, creative thinking and independence through active participation, risk-taking opportunities and real-life problem solving experiences.

The Oak View community affirms the right of every child to learn in a safe, clean, emotionally secure, and academically challenging school setting. This environment provides for many differentiated learning opportunities so that individual students can broaden their background experiences, increase their language skills, explore ideas through a variety of tasks, and acquire knowledge that will prepare them to compete in a global society.

We accept the MCPS vision and the Success for Every Student goals as our goals as well.

Oak View's School Improvement Plan this year has one main, stated objective - WRITING. It is the second year of this academic focus. This means, our teachers will get training in teaching in the three writing categories: writing to inform, writing to persuade, and writing to express personal ideas, as well as assistance with scoring with rubrics and using a purchased language arts reference book for students that helps them revise and edit their writing (The Write Source). We'll measure our progress by giving three formal writing prompt assessments during the year, with a goal of 40% of all students achieving a rubric score of 2 or 3 (3 being the highest). Prompts will be scored for content and language mechanics. 40% is a realistic benchmark since less than 25% scored a 2 or 3 last school year.

The above is our stated academic goal, but please be assured it doesn't mean we will fail to pay attention to reading or math - on the contrary. Just as much effort goes into these two subjects. We are just putting our staff development efforts and money into the major focused goal of writing.

Our School Improvement Plan also includes Pupil Services. We decided to continue what's working, that is: teaching children problem-solving strategies, character traits, and employing our behavior management/discipline referral system. We are also happy to continue our collaboration with Linkages so our students/families have mental health and social services available to them.

It is mandated that a Gifted and Talented Initiative is stated in our plan. This year, we decided to offer the William and Mary Reading Program to our highly-able readers. It has been structured, at Oak View, as a pull-out program with a designated, full-time teacher.

The Plan will go through a mid-year and end-of-year assessment at the end of January and May respectively by our School-Based Management Team. It is then we will decide how we're doing by analyzing data and tracking our progress, and of course planning for school year 2002/03.

 We continue to be committed to meeting the needs of each INDIVIDUAL Oak View student, but our School Improvement Plan gives us a school-wide focus for ALL.