Union Star R-II

Union Star School District is located in northwest Missouri in DeKalb County in Union Star, Missouri.  Our school is unique in the fact that both the high school and elementary staff being located in one facility work in sync on building wide initiatives.  It is not even fair to call it an initiative because we live the process of being an effective professional learning community. The process is ingrained into how we contact business on daily basis. As a school we have focused time, money, and leadership to keep PLC at the forefront of what we do. 
Working collaboratively has allowed us to achieve many goals set by the staff and leadership team.    For example, we have 3 high school teams that get 200 minutes of teaming a week and the two elementary teams have 90 minutes per week besides their plan time.  Everything we do is focused on our mission, vision, and values of the school.   Systematic change and processes have evolved by looking at results and focusing on the corollary questions.  For example, writing continues to be a focus in our school.  All of our students K-12 participate in three benchmark writing assessments each year.   Collaborative teams grade them looking at strengths and weaknesses.  Students reflect using a scoring rubric on their own writing and we set up dates to hold reflections with the kids about their pieces of work.  All along teachers are reflecting on the scores using the data team process and creating Smart Goals to improve areas of growth.   
Teacher’s growth plans for evaluations are based on results in writing and reading. Teachers monitor reading fluency of students K-8 utilizing AIMSweb.  As a staff we have created a process called DOSE (Data of Student Engagement) which allows our building leadership team members to collect student engagement data each quarter by collaborative teams.   In turn, teams are given their engagement score collectively and they work on how to increase the engagement and depth of knowledge within their classrooms.  Over the years, teams have used this data to incorporate more Kagan structures, multiple intelligences, and more group interaction.  Teams bring in their lesson plans to look at ways to increase student engagement.   Systematically we look at the data and needs of our students and thus we have incorporated SWPBIS as how we conduct our discipline within our school framework.  Together, we have made Union Star a safe, responsible, and respectful place to learn.  As a school, PLC, data teaming, written expression, DOSE, and SWPBIS are integral components in how we make learning happen for tomorrow.