Principal Transition Planning

Principal Leon wants to ensure that children make a strong start as they begin kindergarten so he sets out to refine the school's approach to kindergarten transition planning. He uses three guiding principles to improve the transition process. 1. Parents and families of incoming kindergarten students are fully engaged in the kindergarten transition process. 2. Transition activities are implemented over time and continue through the first few months of kindergarten. 3. Key external stakeholders are involved in the kindergarten transition process. Which of the following practices most effectively addresses the three guiding principles?

• Meeting with families to give them an opportunity to share concerns and insights about kindergarten transition and to build their capacity to advocate for their children during the kindergarten year

• Scheduling high-intensity, high-frequency activities that allow incoming students to practice skills, connect with peers, and explore the new environment before they start kindergarten

• Partnering with private day cares and preschools to launch a yearlong school readiness campaign that helps families to register, meet staff, and support children's participation in early learning activities

• Collaborating with early childhood and elementary educators to codevelop transition plans for individual students and to ensure that families have ongoing access to the transition plans

Ms. Vasquez, a speech language pathologist, expresses concerns to the principal that a first-grade teacher is not implementing accommodations required for two students receiving special education services. On several occasions, the speech language pathologist addresses the situation by e-mailing a list of the students' required accommodations to the teacher, but never receives a response. During continued observations of the first-grade students, the speech language pathologist sees no change in the instruction provided to the two students. Which TWO of the following actions by the principal best address the situation?

• Providing the first-grade teacher with a copy of the minutes from the most recent Admission Review Dismissal (ARD) committee meeting for the two students in the class

• Giving the first-grade teacher a common conference period with the school language pathologist to allow the two educators to share their expertise to better address students' needs

• Having the first-grade teacher observe another teacher providing modifications that meet the needs of other students receiving special education services

• Meeting with both teachers to develop a shared understanding of the needs of the two students and how the accommodations meet students' learning needs

• Coaching the speech language pathologist regarding how to provide effective support to classroom teachers to strengthen collaboration

Facilitating guided discussions with pilot teachers to identify what changes need to be made to the blended program to increase students' technology self-efficacy

• Facilitating guided discussions with pilot teachers to identify what changes need to be made to the blended program to increase students' technology self-efficacy

• Surveying parents to assess their perceptions regarding the effectiveness of blended learning on academic and nonacademic student outcomes to determine whether the program should be continued, adjusted, or discontinued

• Conducting classroom observations to see how teachers are using blended learning to improve student outcomes and assessing whether technology infrastructure in classrooms is sufficient for continuing the program

• Collecting student achievement data to compare the performance of participating students to nonparticipating students and determining whether there are quantifiable improvements as a result of the program's implementation

Which of the following is the most appropriate feedback from Mr. Kim regarding the teacher's use of content-specific vocabulary such as 'faces' when introducing the objects?

• Define content-specific vocabulary more explicitly to help students use it to understand new concepts and make connections to background knowledge

• Consider creating an anchor chart with sentence starters to prompt students to use academic vocabulary during mathematics discussions to encourage accountability

• Revisit how you use your mathematics journal by having students place new mathematics vocabulary in the list with colored coding to increase engagement

• Think about planning opportunities for students to stand up and skywrite the target vocabulary words while also spelling them out loud to support multisensory learning

Tier One of the pyramid depicts guidance curriculum where all students receive access to information and learn skills at their developmental levels to address intrapersonal effectiveness, interpersonal effectiveness, personal health and safety, and post-secondary education and career readiness.

• Schools can systematically use a variety of resources – staff, information, and activities – and focus these resources on students to assist them in developing and implementing personalized plans.

• the school counselor develops a needs assessment (see Section III); uses the needs assessment with students, staff, and parents; gathers the assessment data; disaggregates the data; identifies the priorities; creates a weekly, monthly, and annual calendar based on priority areas

• The guidance curriculum is taught based on curricular content areas, student competency indicators, and developmental stages though differentiated learning activities with planned lessons for various sized groups of students.

• The school counselor uses student outcome data to evaluate, discuss, and promote the impact the school counseling program or intervention had on student development.

Which counselor's forms is assessed by surveying faculty, parents, administrators, and most especially, students themselves.

• Academic Excellence Indicator System, (AEIS) reports

• Needs Assessment

• Public Education Information Management System (PEIMS)

• Texas Academic Performance Reports (TAPR),

Which of the following questions most effectively guides the conversation about assessment?

• How does the assessment measure students' levels of misinterpretation and lack of background knowledge?

• How are students required to use higher-order and critical-thinking skills to demonstrate their understanding of standards-based content?

• How do questions address complex terminology that challenges students who are more advanced?

• How do the scoring rubric and calibration strategy evaluate student knowledge and maintain consistency in grading practices?

Based on the teacher and student surveys, which of the following is the team's best action for increasing students' preparation for advanced-level science courses?

• Revising the twelfth-grade curriculum to devote the opening weeks of each course to reviewing the mathematical and scientific processes necessary to succeed in the course

• Forming teams of teachers to review the depth of content in each advanced-level course to determine whether it exceeds the expectations of the standardized assessments

• Expanding portions of the eleventh-grade curriculum in which students conduct lab and field investigations, analyze data, and communicate results

• Increasing opportunities for students in all grade levels to participate in prestigious STEM-related student consortia, challenges, competitions, and symposia

Which of the following best improves the action step Mr. Kim has included in the coaching plan for Ms. Nunez?

• During the modeling portion of the lesson, have students turn and talk to a partner to promote student engagement and ownership of the learning

• In each lesson, model your thinking for students to demonstrate key concepts and the process to be used when completing the targeted skill

• Modeling should allow you to follow up on the activating-prior-knowledge portion of the lesson and should be performed before students are asked to demonstrate the skill on their own

• During the modeling portion of the lesson, students will benefit from multiple 'at-bat' opportunities and strengthen their understanding of the targeted skill

Based on a review of the professional development plan for science teachers, which of the following revisions to the plan would best help sustain school improvement in order to ensure the success of the guided inquiry initiative?

• Providing teachers with online support that includes opportunities to view inquiry-based exemplar lessons

• Offering trainings that address 'what to teach' to supplement trainings that address 'how to teach'

• Leveraging the ability of the fifth-grade teacher to provide ongoing coaching for teachers at other grade levels

• Ensuring that teachers are encouraged to self-assess their level of expertise with guided inquiry