Health Services Team Impacts Learning Environment

An environment that is safe, secure and conducive to learning is necessary to our goal of "high achievement for all students."  That is why, one of our strategic objectives relates to the learning environment for our students and educational team.

A department that plays a vital role in "continuously improving the learning environment for students and staff" is Health Services.  We believe that there is a strong connection between academic achievement and the overall health and well being of students.

In C-FB ISD, we are fortunate to have registered nurses (RNs) on our educational team.  These individuals play integral roles in helping C-FB ISD meet the core value: "learning occurs best in a safe, orderly and nurturing environment."

Not only is it important academically for students to attend school each day, but district finances are tied directly to their attendance. Of course, we never want students to attend school if they are sick, but we do want students in school every day if they are well.  District nurses help all students feel safe and supported especially those students who have acute, chronic, episodic and emergency medical needs.

The registered nurses' expertise in clinical assessment and critical thinking skills enable them to:

• Provide care and support to students to maximize time in the classroom.
• Reduce the number of students sent home unnecessarily.
• Provide appropriate nursing interventions and community referrals to maximize instructional time.
• Provide follow-up care within the school setting to reduce absences.
• Reduce spread of contagious illnesses, resulting in fewer sick days for students and staff.

Our health services team is the front line for our local medical community for communicable diseases such as the chickenpox, pertussis (whooping cough), meningitis, influenza, and staph infections. Your school health team is well respected by local medical community. For example, they notify the local county health departments on signs of illness and absences.

Your school nurses play an integral role in monitoring influenza.    In fact, their data has been presented at national epidemiology conferences. Dallas County is currently the only county in the nation to have such detailed school flu and absence data. C-FB ISD schools are the only ones reporting on a daily basis communicable disease information in Denton County to its health department.

Immunizations/Health Screenings
Our school nurses work with families to ensure their students have all state-required immunizations.  Every year, the nurses notify families of the needed immunizations.  In 2010, the district had a 99.9% compliance rate for all immunizations required by Texas.   We hope that this good news will mean less instructional time lost to illness.

Hearing, vision, spinal and diabetes screenings are required by the Texas Department of Health Services.  Our Health Services team screens all students in pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, first, third, fifth and seventh grades as well as any new students for vision, hearing and diabetes risk. Scoliosis screenings occur in grades 5 and 8.  Our nurses then refer students to physicians if needed.

Health Education/Partnerships
Our nurses provide classroom instruction on various topics.  The nurses may speak in our elementary schools on dental health and hand washing and in other schools about nutrition.  They may address other topics as requested by the teachers and principals.

Our Health Services Department has formed numerous community partnerships. For example, they work with the Carrollton Evening Lions Club in their vision clinics held twice a year at Vivian Field Middle School. The nurses also volunteer with the Care Van Immunization clinic at McDonald's every other month to provide free vaccines to students.

Our Health Services Department assists the district in improving the learning environment for our students and staff.  To learn more about the district's Health Services, visit the department's website: Health Services.

In C-FB ISD, we have one goal, “high student achievement for all students.” Students need to be  in school every day ready to learn because we know that effort produces achievement. With the knowledge and collaboration of our Health Services Department team, C-FB ISD is joining forces with community resources to support families and keep students in the classrooms. We are working to provide a positive learning environment for students and staff.

Supporting Gifted Learners

The student achievement presentation at the October School Board meeting focused on the Advanced Academics Services Department.  Executive Director Gerry Charlebois highlighted how the department works collaboratively with our principals and teachers.  Together, they design a quality education for all students while supporting the needs of the gifted learners.  In C-FB ISD, we are very fortunate to have the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Association for Gifted and Talented who works along side the educational team

in supporting our gifted education program, students and families.

As the Advanced Academic Services team members implement the district's advanced-level instructional programs, they follow three critical goals: identification, quality services and high academic performance.

Identification

Early assessment is important, and we begin identification as early as kindergarten.  Our identification process is comprehensive throughout our elementary and secondary schools.  Along with assessments, a key instrument that we are using to identify students are portfolios.  Our Advanced Academic Specialists are working with our teachers and counselors in helping them identify what to look for in student portfolios.  Almost 9% of our students are identified for the ACE (Academic Creative Education) program.

Quality Services

C-FB ISD is well known for its gifted services.  The LEAP program for the highly gifted attracts families to the district. Although the elementary and middle school programs are housed at McCoy Elementary and DeWitt Perry Middle Schools, respectively, eligible students transfer into the two schools from across the district.

Our International Baccalaureate (IB) offerings at Good Elementary, Las Colinas Elementary, Barbara Bush Middle and Ranchview High Schools also bring families to our community.  C-FB ISD is one of 146 elite districts and schools in the world that offer an IB continuum from kindergarten through grade 12 through Las Colinas, Barbara Bush and Ranchview. Only 17 schools in North America claim this distinction. C-FB ISD was the second public school district in North Texas to offer the IB continuum.

Good Elementary was the district’s first IB school, and the first elementary school in North Texas to receive IB primary years programme authorization in March 2008. The school received its reauthorization in June. We have had 33 IB candidates graduate from Ranchview High School in the last two graduating classes (2010 and 2011).

Parents are highly involved in the C-FB ISD Association for the Gifted and Talented (AGT).  Organized in 1979, AGT offers much support and learning opportunities for parents and students.  On October 19, the group will host Dr. Sylvia Rimm, a leading expert on gifted education.  Special Seminar 

The Advanced Academic Services team also works with our campuses to offer other services such as the annual UIL Middle School Academic Competition.  This competition builds awareness and expertise for high school academic contests.  Last year, more than 600 middle school students participated thanks to the efforts of our middle school faculty and staff and Advanced Academic Services department.  We also encourage students to participate in the Duke University Talent Identification Program (TIP).  Qualifying seventh graders take the SAT or ACT, and last year, 686 C-FB ISD students were eligible.

High Performance
In keeping with the district's goal of "high achievement for all students," the Advanced Academic Services Department also monitors the success of students enrolled in advanced course work.  The district has initiatives and partnerships in place to increase their academic performance. 

The district offers prep sessions on the PSAT and SAT; these classes provide firsthand practice for the SAT and a chance for students to enter the National Merit Scholarship program. The district has just entered into a partnership with Advanced Placement Strategies and R. L. Turner High School.  The $502,250 grant from LBJ Infrastructure Express will focus on increasing the number of students taking and receiving qualifying scores on Advanced Placement math, science, and English exams.

We have seen an increase in the number of students taking the SAT, and the district scores remain above the state scores.  This is good news because, hopefully, the more students who take college-entrance exams will mean more C-FB ISD graduates will enter college.

Finally, the Advanced Academic Services team monitors Advanced Placement enrollment and performance.  We are pleased to see growth over a five-year period.  Although we did see a slight dip in the number of test takers from 2008-09 and 2009-2010, overall, the number of students enrolled in Advanced Placement courses is exceptional.  However, we would like more students to earn 3, 4, or 5's on the exams, but we are pleased with the results.  The C-FB ISD team will  continue to work on improving our performance in this area.

The Department of Advanced Academic Services works closely with our campuses to increase achievement for all students while supporting the needs of the gifted learners.  If you wish to learn more about the programs supported by Advanced Academic Services, visit the website: Advanced Academic Services.  Remember in the Carrollton-Farmers Branch School District, we are all working toward one goal: "high achievement for all students."

Performing In The Top 5% Of Texas School Districts

Public education is complex whether you are talking about schools in Oklahoma, California, New York, or here in Texas.  Consequently, it is critical for public school leaders to find a performance management system that will help move their school district forward academically as well as identify models of high performance and efficiency.

For the last year, the Carrollton-Farmers Branch School District has been working with an organization that focuses on public education performance management.  The Education Resource Group (ERG) performance matrix was developed to identify school districts that provide high academic performance in the most financially efficient manner.

In C-FB ISD, we use multiple measures to evaluate how the district is doing in terms of student performance.  For example, the staff reviews the state's Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS), the federal Annual Yearly Progress (AYP)  reports, SAT and ACT data, and other student assessment measures.  We always want to provide an instructional program that will keep all students achieving at high levels.

We believe that the ERG performance management system provides key data for C-FB ISD.  By analyzing the student performance and financial data from the 200 largest school districts in Texas, ERG can determine the annual educational productivity of individual school districts in three areas: overall educational value, academic performance and financial performance.

You may wonder why it is important to look at the 200 largest Texas school districts when there are more than 1,000 school districts in our state.  Since about 81% of students in Texas attend these 200 school districts, we believe analyzing their academic and financial performance will tell us where the "bright spots" in education are.

The other "good news" about the ERG performance system is that unlike the state's accountability rating system it ranks performance. For example, the ERG performance matrix integrates academic and financial measures into a relatively clear framework of performance management.  This performance matrix can identify school districts that provide strong academic performance while spending the lowest amount per student.

In the chart above, the districts in the "green" box (1-1) are achieving at high academic levels while spending tax dollars wisely compared to the districts in the "red" box.  The good news for the Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD community is your district is one of eight in the "1-1" box.  The districts in the "1-1" box are among the top 5% of the Texas school districts providing a high return on investment to their stakeholders. 

For 2010: C-FB ISD ranked 11 out of the 200 Texas largest school districts in overall educational value. For 2010, the district ranked 17 out of 200 in academic performance and 49 out of 200 in financial performance.

The ERG performance management system is instrumental to our work.  In the district's Strategic Improvement Plan, we have outlined strategies under each of our four objectives to move our rankings forward until C-FB ISD is at the top.  In Carrollton-Farmers Branch, we have one goal: "high achievement for all students."  By working toward this one goal, we will continue to improve our performance.