1.+A-Analysis

Conewago Township Elementary

Background: Conewago Township Elementary is an elementary school located in Hanover, Pennsylvania. It is a small school that provides an education for students in grades K-3. Also in this building are classrooms for hearing impaired students, neurologically impaired children, as well as learning support classrooms. This building is comprised of 3 half-day Kindergarten classrooms and 1 all day Kindergarten classroom, 6 first grade classrooms, 6 second grade classrooms, and 6 third grade classrooms. It also houses 3 learning support teachers, 4 ‘specials’ teachers, 2 Reading Recovery specialists and 1 Literacy Coach, 1 ELL teacher that is split between more than 1 building, 1 Guidance Counselor, 1 Nurse, 1 Gifted teacher, 5 employees employed by the LIU, 9 Instructional aides, 4 support staff members, 4 Cafeteria workers, and 1 Principal. All of these faculty and staff members play a major role in helping this school operate on a daily basis. The school is made up of approximately 560 students that range from age 5 to 9.

Mission Statement: The mission statement of the school district that this school is a part of is "The Conewago Valley School District, in partnership with family and community is to develop productive and responsible citizens by education students to their fullest potential" (from district website __www.conewago.k12.pa.us__). This school has a responsibility to the students to provide them with a quality education which means they need to have faculty and staff members that are well trained and can perform the necessary tasks to accomplish this goal. The teachers in this school need to be well trained in ‘how’ to teach students and the most effective way to go about teaching. The support staff members need to be trained in the routines of the school as well as the goals that the school has for their students. All of these employees need to be guided by the school district in order to meet the district’s goal which happens to be the mission statement.

Statement of Needs: The school has recently implemented a new reading series. This series is just a tool being used in order to teach our district's curriculum. Each grade level needs to be consistent with the materials being chosen from the series used to teach the curriculum.

The Problem: There is a lot of material included in the series and it is too much to cover. This creates inconsistency among the classrooms because teachers are choosing different activities based on what they feel is the most important.

Tasks and Conditions of the Job: Teachers need to have knowledge of all of the different components of the series and how to implement them into their classroom for everyday use.

Current Performance Levels: Teachers are choosing materials and activities at random based on what they feel is important.

Causes of the Problem: Teachers do not have adequate training on each of the components of the series. Teachers do not collaborate on what they are using in their classroom.

Desired Outcome: At each grade level, teachers should have knowledge of each component and should collaborate. They should be using the same materials to teach core concepts and supplementing with others in order to meet their specific classroom needs.

Expectations of Training: Recommendations would be that each teacher would leave the training with knowledge of the components of the series and how to implement them in the classroom.The stude nts need to be exposed to the same 'base' curriculum in order to go on to the next grade with the same skills. The teachers should be well trained in how to use the pieces of the series to their fullest potential and make them fit the school district's curriculum.