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Running head: MADISON CAMELVIEW ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ASSESSMENT

Megan McGary
Madison Camelview Elementary School Assessment
PPE 310: Health Literacy for Schools
September 9, 2015

MADISON CAMELVIEW ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ASSESSMENT

School Assessment
Online School Assessment

Assessment Results
Overall Grade: F
During School: 40%
Room for improvement. Some simple changes can have a tremendous impact on your Active & Healthy score, from
point-of-decision signage to additional physical activity after lunch.

Curriculum: 20%
Let's get to work. The Active & Healthy Schools Program is committed to creating programs that schools can
successfully implement and maintain. Let's look at some possibilities for your PE program.

Recess / Lunch: 75%

Great potential! How about some more nutritional education? A little more activity? Together, these key Active &
Healthy areas can deliver outstanding results.

After School: 20%

Let's get to work. Take a look at a few simple changes your school can make to help create an Active & Healthy
environment, both at school and at home.

MADISON CAMELVIEW ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ASSESSMENT

Strengths and Weaknesses
The Active and Healthy Schools Assessment gave my school, Madison Camelview, an
overall grade of F. In some of the areas of the assessment, Camelview scored relatively high but
in most of the other categories, Camelview scored quite lowly. There are some definite strengths
and weaknesses when it comes to Camelviews active and healthy policies and methods.
Two areas of strength for Camelview are their recess and lunch. In the Assessment,
Camelview scored a 75% for recess/lunch. Camelview students are given 20 minutes for lunch
and 20 minutes for recess every day. At lunch time, students that buy lunches must take one
carton of milk, one entre, and one side, which is always a fruit or vegetable. Students are given
20 minutes to eat, which is enough of time for them to eat and let their food digest some before
going outside to play. Recess is a full 20 minutes, which gives the students plenty of time to run
around and play. Most of the students spend the full 20 minutes playing on the playgroup or
running around the large field they are allowed to play in. It is a great way for kids to get in some
physical exercise and get some of their energy out. In my opinion, Madison Camelview is doing
pretty well in the lunch and recess areas.
However, on the school assessment, Camelview ranked very low on all of the other
indicators. Two areas of improvement would be during school and curriculum. Camelview got a
40% on the assessment for during school. During school, students are given maybe one 3-5
minute activity break during the school day, aside from PE and recess. That is nowhere near
enough time for students to get some exercise in the classroom. Students are not offered healthy
snacks at Camelview; the options for snacks from the vending machines are bagged chips or
cookies or crackers, none of those options being remotely healthy. There are no activity-

MADISON CAMELVIEW ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ASSESSMENT

promoting signs posted around the school whatsoever. Another area where Madison Camelview
is lacking is curriculum. Camelview got a 20% on the assessment in the curriculum area. While
there is a PE program that students attend twice a week, there is not physical activity program
offered to teachers and staff. There is no school curriculum that educates the students on healthy
food choices or on the benefits of being active. And the Presidents Challenge Active Lifestyle
Award is not offered at all at Camelview.
There are multiple ways to improve the healthiness and activeness of Camelview
students, both my improving the policies already in place and by implementing new policies.
One way to improve Camelviews students awareness of healthiness and activeness is in lunch.
Although students already are required to take milk and a fruit or vegetable, the entres are
normally unhealthy. Pizza, fried chicken nuggets, corndogs, and so on. By offering more healthy
entres, students nutritional needs would be met even better. For kids that bring their lunches,
parents should be made aware of the benefits and necessities of nutritious eating so they can pack
their children healthy lunches. Camelview could send home a newsletter or discuss if at
curriculum night. Another way to improve Camelviews policies would be in recess. Kids are
getting a 20 minute recess but a way to enrich their recess would be to offer kids a loop
(Camelviews reward system) if students complete a certain number of laps around the field or
do a certain amount of jumping jacks, etcetera. This would give kids an incentive to exercise and
they would be active at the same time.
Camelview has a lot of room for growth when it comes to having active and healthy
students. Camelview ranked 40% and 20% on the school assessment in the areas of during
school and curriculum, respectively. As previously mentioned, during school, students are given
maybe one 3-5 minute activity break during the school day. At one of our staff TCTs, where all

MADISON CAMELVIEW ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ASSESSMENT

the teachers and staff meet every Wednesday, the need for physical exercise in the classroom
needs to be addressed. If teachers were to offer their students activity breaks more often, it would
increase their health and activeness as well as their ability to learn because getting the kids up
and moving periodically increases their attention span and ability to concentrate. Another way to
help Camelviews students would be to integrate some physical activity or healthy and activeness
awareness into curriculum. All of the instruction time at Camelview is spent on teaching the
students content and there isnt much time to spend addressing the necessity of health and
activeness. But teachers could imbed it into their content classes. Having kids up and moving
during science or addressing the benefits of exercise and healthy living in reading or social
studies are just a few ways teachers could integrate these important ideas into their day.
All of this information about Camelviews strengths and weaknesses is crucial to
students lives, their activeness, how healthy they are, how much exercise they are getting, what
food they are putting into their bodies. I can use the information I discussed in this essay for my
signature assignment topic, which is high sugar diet and physical activity rates of students. I have
discussed both of those at length in this project and having this information will be beneficial to
supporting my Signature assignment topic.
Camelview Statistics
Madison Camelview is a public school in the Madison School District, with currently 707
students enrolled in the school (G. Hernandez, personal communication, September 9, 2014).
Madison Camelview is a Title 1 school with 52.2% of its students on free/reduced lunch
(SchoolDigger). Camelview is located in an urban area where the average household income
ranks from between $30,000 to $40,000 (City-Data.com). Compared to other areas of Phoenix,

MADISON CAMELVIEW ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ASSESSMENT

like Scottsdale, where according to City-Data.com, the average household income is over
$100,000, the area surrounding Camelview is not an extremely wealthy one. These statistics
about the economic status of the people surrounding Camelview explains how the school
qualifies as a Title 1 school.
Of the 707 students enrolled at Madison Camelview, 429 students are Hispanic, 120 are
white, 70 are American Indian, and the rest of the students fall into other categories
(SchoolDigger). There are a total of 90 ELLs at Camelview, which means that 7.9% of the
students at Camelview are in an ELD class (G. Hernandez, personal communication, September
9, 2014). There are 5 grade levels at Madison Camelview, K-4, and there is an ELD class for
every grade level, except first grade. The first grade ELLs are combined with the second grade
ELD class. Of the 5 grade levels at Madison Camelview, there are about 140 students on average
for each grade. Kindergarten has 6 teachers, with the average class size being around 20-25
students. First grade has 5 teachers with the average class size being around 25 students. Second
through Fourth grade has 5 teachers per grade level with the average class size around 30
students.
Madison Camelview is an A school with a number of programs in place to help
students succeed to the best of their abilities. Grades K-2 all participate in a reading program
called Guided Study, where the students from the whole grade level are grouped based on their
testing scores and they spend 30 minutes a day working on reading differentiated for their
specific reading level. Grades 2-4 participate in a reading intervention program that targets the
bottom 25% of each grade level. Those bottom 25% students parents are contacted and work
with their child using specific reading homework at home while the teacher works with the
student in class. These are just two of the programs that Madison Camelview implements.

MADISON CAMELVIEW ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ASSESSMENT

According to SchoolDigger, the average standard score for Madison Camelview was a 49.11,
with the school ranking better than 48% of elementary schools in Arizona but worse than 52% of
elementary schools in AZ.

MADISON CAMELVIEW ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ASSESSMENT

References
Assess Your School. (Assess Your School.) Retrieved from
http://www.activeandhealthyschools.com/home/assess_survey.cfm
City-Data.com. (Phoenix, Arizona (AZ) income map, earnings map, and wages data). Retrieved
from http://www.city-data.com/income/income-Phoenix-Arizona.html
Madison Camelview Elementary. (SchoolDigger). Retrieved from
http://www.schooldigger.com/go/AZ/schools/0450000678/school.aspx.

MADISON CAMELVIEW ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ASSESSMENT

Criteria
Assessment

Exemplary: Points (5)

SCORE:

School
Context

SCORE:

Proficient: Points (3)

A minimum of 2 strengths and 2

weaknesses were described
Assessment was completed online
and provided
Suggestions to improve school
policies were clearly stated
At least 2 suggestions to engage
stakeholders were provided

School context contained detailed

information on
grade levels
% free/reduced lunch
enrollment,
proportion ELLs
average class size
urban/rural/suburban,
ethnic makeup
state test scores
AYP status
All of the following are listed in the
file document name submitted
Lastname.firstname.assignment#.cou
rse#
This rubric was added to the last
page of the document submitted

A minimum of 1 strength and 1

weakness was described
Suggestions to improve school policies
were stated but lacked sufficient detail
At least 1 suggestion to engage
stakeholders was provided
Assessment was completed online and
provided

School context contained some

detailed information on
grade levels
% free/reduced lunch
enrollment,
proportion ELLs
average class size
urban/rural/suburban,
ethnic makeup
state test scores
AYP status
Most of the following are listed in the
file document name submitted
Lastname.firstname.assignment#.cours
e#
This rubric was added but not at the
end of the document submitted

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