Executive Summary

Vilseck Elementary School

Europe: Bavaria

Mr. Scott Finlay, Principal

Unit 28040
APO, AE 09112

Document Generated On March 31, 2015

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Description of the School

School's Purpose

Notable Achievements and Areas of Improvement

Additional Information

Executive Summary
Vilseck Elementary School

Introduction
Every school has its own story to tell. The context in which teaching and learning takes place influences the processes and procedures by
which the school makes decisions around curriculum, instruction, and assessment. The context also impacts the way a school stays faithful
to its vision. Many factors contribute to the overall narrative such as an identification of stakeholders, a description of stakeholder
engagement, the trends and issues affecting the school, and the kinds of programs and services that a school implements to support student
learning.

The purpose of the Executive Summary (ES) is to provide a school with an opportunity to describe in narrative form the strengths and
challenges it encounters. By doing so, the public and members of the school community will have a more complete picture of how the school
perceives itself and the process of self-reflection for continuous improvement. This summary is structured for the school to reflect on how it
provides teaching and learning on a day to day basis.

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Executive Summary
Vilseck Elementary School

Description of the School

Describe the school's size, community/communities, location, and changes it has experienced in the last three years. Include
demographic information about the students, staff, and community at large. What unique features and challenges are associated
with the community/communities the school serves?

The Vilseck community is truly a community of excellence. Vilseck Elementary School works to establish alliances to create friendly, warm,
and open relationships among students, teachers, and parents. We collaborate to build and maintain support for the military community,
providing each student the opportunity to be successful in a safe, positive, and challenging learning environment.
Geographically, Vilseck Elementary School is located within the U.S. Army Garrison Bavaria in the Upper Palatinate (Oberpfalz) and to the
State of Bavaria (Bayern). The local German community of Vilseck is rich in history and offers many activities and opportunities for the whole
family to enjoy.
Vilseck ES is part of the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) and supported by the Bavaria School District. Vilseck ES
collaborates with the other schools in the Grafenwoehr complex, which includes Grafenwoehr Elementary, Netzaberg ES, Netzaberg Middle
School, and Vilseck High School.
Vilseck ES serves 546 students in grades PreK-5 who live in the Vilseck military housing area, the local community, as well as in leased
housing areas nearby. Our student population consists mainly of military dependents; however, we also serve children of government
civilians and contractors. Our student population is 53% male and 47% female, with 64 % Caucasian, 15% African American, and

21% of

other races.
VES currently has 85 staff members. Of the 85 staff members 28 teachers, 31 specialists, 15 paraprofessionals, 7 clerical/support staff,
and two administrators. The faculty is 15% male and 85% female. Among the educators, 16% have a bachelor's degree, 79% have a
master's degree, and 5% hold a doctoral degree. Additionally, we have two counselors, two rotating school-based Military Family Life
Consultant (MFLC) counselors, and behavioral health counselors.
Considering the average tour of duty for families in Vilseck is three years, VES strives to ease the transition for students by providing student
meeter-greeters that help welcome and orient incoming students. The majority of students have at least one parent who serves in the
military, with the remainder of students having at least one parent who works in a related civilian position.
With "can do" attitudes, the school sets high expectations and provides support to prepare students to be independent, productive members
of society and life-long learners.

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Executive Summary
Vilseck Elementary School

School's Purpose

Provide the school's purpose statement and ancillary content such as mission, vision, values, and/or beliefs. Describe how the
school embodies its purpose through its program offerings and expectations for students.

Vilseck Elementary School shares DoDEA's mission statement to "Educate, Engage, and Empower each student to succeed in a dynamic
world." Our vision at Vilseck Elementary School is "Vilseck Expects Success." The vision was created with the shared belief that all students
can be successful. This vision encompasses the core values of DoDEA's Community Strategic Plan (CSP), and reflects the distinct Strategic
Goals of Student, School, Talent, Organizational, and Outreach Excellence.
Data from the TerraNova standardized assessments; the Benchmark Assessment System (BAS), Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI), and
STAR inventory were analyzed and used to determine our first goal in the area of Language Arts. Our reading comprehension goal is: By
2016 all students will demonstrate improved reading comprehension as measured by increased performance on assessments. Our strategy
is to implement the reading comprehension strategies of summarizing and inferring.
Vilseck Elementary School analyzed data from the TerraNova standardized assessment and curriculum-based assessments to determine
our second goal in the area of mathematics. Our math goal is: By 2016 all students will improve competency with numbers and operations
as measured by increased performance on assessments. We selected to implement daily routines that involve math reasoning and student
discussion, such as Number Talks, math journals, and calendar routines.
In order to meet these two goals, staff development was implemented to introduce and initially train teachers and support staff on how to use
the adopted strategies. Classroom teachers were also provided with support from our Instructional Systems Specialist Practitioners (ISSP)
and Bavaria District Instructional Systems Specialists (ISSs). Our academic program is supported by core specialists (Physical Education,
Host Nation, Art, and Music), instructional specialists (Talented and Gifted, English Second Language, Read180, ISSPs and Special
Education), and other educational support specialists including Information Specialist, Educational Technologist and Guidance Counselors.
To promote "Vilseck Expects Success" our school offers many opportunities for student involvement and leadership in after school activities.
These activities include homework club, student council, running club, board games club, talent show, art club, drama club, cooking club, and
crochet club.
At VES we provide opportunities for parent and community involvement. We have an active Parent Teacher Student Association (PTSA)
which sponsors many events for our families and community. Past events have included a fall fest, Math-a-Palooza math night, school wide
fun run, and our annual Red Hot Readers month. We have a long-standing relationship with our sponsoring military unit 4-2 SCR. The
military unit helps with school activities and supports our school with many volunteer hours. The administration communicates with parents
through parent e-mails, a monthly newsletter, and a monthly Lion's Den (morning coffee and muffins setting) featuring informational sessions
on various timely topics for our parents.

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Executive Summary
Vilseck Elementary School

Notable Achievements and Areas of Improvement

Describe the school's notable achievements and areas of improvement in the last three years. Additionally, describe areas for
improvement that the school is striving to achieve in the next three years.

Over the past three years, the faculty of Vilseck Elementary school has thoughtfully collected, analyzed, and utilized data. As a school, we
have focused on various types of data, how we look at data, how we share data, and most importantly, how we utilize data to guide our
instruction.
We have developed a school-wide data wall to track assessment results (data points) and student growth. Collaboratively we have aligned
assessments by grade levels. There continues to be some use of data notebooks for self -assessment by students. In addition, TerraNova
scores were used to develop our school's learning goals by looking for trends, strengths, and weaknesses.
Most currently, we are using our data points to help identify struggling students and map possible interventions to ensure success. We are
looking to improve in the utilization of our data to drive instruction for increased student achievement. Data meetings were implemented this
year and have included all staff members. Data meetings address data wall information, formative assessments, and trend data, focusing on
many other aspects of student performance. Data meetings also help identify needs for selecting our professional development offerings.
Another notable achievement for our school is increased collaboration among staff members and teachers. For example, our small group
specialists are engaged in teacher mentoring providing instructional support using researched based best practices. Each classroom teacher
is partnered with another staff member to collaborate weekly on strategies and co-teach lessons that focus on our school's goals. We are
ensuring that all staff members are engaged in our CSI goals with a vested interest in our students, as well as providing an additional
advocate for each student. We also have shared planning time to collaborate with our grade level teams.
Our professional development opportunities included a mini-educator's day, which emphasized differentiated staff development with support
from our teachers, district ISS's, as well as teacher's from other schools sharing their expertise. We also had several parents participate in
our mini-educator's day giving positive feedback.
We have also created several professional learning teams (Differentiation, autism, STEAM), Mini-technology sessions offered by our school's
educational technologist, as well as conducting book studies addressing comprehension strategies (CAF) and number sense skills (Number
Talks).
In the spring of 2014 we launched the Vilseck Literacy Project as part of our school's professional development plan. This project focuses on
professional development in implementing a balanced literacy approach to teaching reading and writing. This project was adopted in
response to an identified need for further professional development that improves instruction.
Perhaps our most notable achievement is in the area of community and parent involvement. We benefit from strong support from our
sponsoring military unit 4-2 SCR. The unit supports us with many volunteers for our special school wide events as well as helping set up our
classrooms at the beginning of the year. We involve community members by promoting school activities and events via print and radio.
Community members are actively engaged in our events such as Mathapalooza (math game night), Red Hot Readers (Reading incentive
program), community fall fest, and our annual fun run. We have had over a 1,000 community members participate in our annual fun runs
celebrating the return of our deployed soldiers.
Our parents are visible and in our school on a daily basis, volunteering in classrooms, setting up our STEAM room, and helping with our
PTSA activities, such as our book swap program, family library night, and Lego challenge. Parents also participate in our monthly Lion's Den
(parent information/education sessions), parent/teacher conferences, and serve on our Student Advisory Committee (SAC). Our PTSA is
instrumental in supporting teachers and students with financial and educational resources. These resources allow our school to provide
enriching activities for our students and their families.

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Executive Summary
Vilseck Elementary School

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Executive Summary
Vilseck Elementary School

Additional Information

Provide any additional information you would like to share with the public and community that were not prompted in the previous
sections.

The faculty, staff, and administration of Vilseck Elementary School consider it an honor to serve the children of those who serve our country.
We not only expect success at Vilseck Elementary School, but we provide the support to make sure it happens for each student.

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