Executive Summary

Franklin-Simpson High School Simpson County

Timothy Schlosser, Principal 400 South College Street Franklin, KY 42134

Document Generated On September 13, 2016

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

1

Description of the School

2

School's Purpose

3

Notable Achievements and Areas of Improvement

5

Additional Information

7

Executive Summary Franklin-Simpson High 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 Franklin-Simpson High 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?

Franklin-Simpson High School (FSHS) is located in Franklin, Ky. It is the only high school in Simpson County. Currently there are 926 students attending FSHS. The number of students has remained relatively stable for the last 35 years varying only slightly from 850-900 students over this time. However this school year FSHS has seen tremendous growth in the number of students. Franklin-Simpson High School came into being in 1944 when Franklin High School and Simpson County High School merged. In 1965 Simpson County schools integrated and the students of the Lincoln School began attending FSHS. As the only high school in the county, Franklin-Simpson High School closely mirrors the community of Simpson County. The student population is 82% White. The largest minority population is African American, who makes up 10.8 % of the student population. The next largest minority group at FSHS is the Hispanic/Latino population that totals 3.7% of the student body. According to the latest census information, Simpson County is 87.3% white, 9.4% African-American, and 1.9% Hispanic/Latino. Franklin is the county seat of Simpson and the only incorporated city within the county. The population of the city is 7996, while the population of the county is 17,327. Simpson County is located in the Pennyrile region of South Central Kentucky along the Tennessee border. Traditionally Franklin and Simpson County were a rural agricultural-based community, but in the last forty years that has changed. With the completion of I-65 through Simpson County, the community began to see industrial development. Industries in Simpson County now employ about 8000 workers and the community has seen a shift from a purely agricultural based economy to a more diversified model. There are a number of unique and challenges that Franklin-Simpson High School must address. As the only school within a relatively small community, FSHS is a center of the community. Our population, many of whom are former students, care deeply about the success of the school. As in many small communities the schools are used for a number of community events and the high school is the most frequently used. Because of our location between Bowling Green 20 miles to the north and Nashville 40 miles to the south, we see a lot of our successful graduates leave the community. Additionally many of the leaders of industry in our community choose to live in the more heavily populated areas outside our community. We see the challenges of recruiting quality minority staff at our school as a reflection of this. It is difficult to recruit, hire, and maintain quality minority teachers. Currently, we have very few minority staff members at FSHS. This creates challenges within our minority population and within our community. Our geographic proximity to Bowling Green and Nashville has made it hard to retain quality teachers in the past as well, regardless of ethnicity. In 2011, Franklin-Simpson High School was designated a Persistently Low Achieving School by the state of Kentucky. Since then, we have instituted a systems-wide change at FSHS that has produced dramatic results. In the last Assessment Cycle, FSHS was the top ranked school in our region and 22nd overall in the state, placing in the 96th percentile and achieving a Distinguished rating. Additionally, FSHS has been recognized as a HUB school. As a HUB school, other schools from around the state come to FSHS to study and observe the systems in place and gather ideas and help them improve their teaching and learning.

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Executive Summary Franklin-Simpson High 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.

Simply put, the mission of Franklin-Simpson High School is to emposer students to be college and/or career ready. In fact, this has become a graduation requirement for our students beginning with the class of 2014. Our main goal is to educate our students well enough so that they have viable options that will lead to success at the next level¦whether that is college, a technical school, or perhaps even the work force. It is every teacher's duty to ensure that each student is afforded opportunities to help reach this goal by providing three basic elements: a common, rigorous curriculum, multiple formative assessments with effective feedback, and incorporation of authentic literacy. As such, Franklin-Simpson High School has begun the process of redesigning our curriculum framework around KCAS standards and the ACT's QualityCore. Teachers have used the QualityCore resources to begin designing units of instruction and common assessments in all core area classes, ensuring that all students will have access to the same material at the same depth of knowledge regardless of which teacher they have been assigned to. Included in these units of instruction are multiple checks for understanding and intentionally planned higher level thinking questions.

Our shift to a college and career preparation organization has demanded a cultural shift of higher expectations, both in and out of the classroom. We are currently redesigning our leadership structure and our discipline system to reflect this need and better prepare our students for life after high school. We recognize that employers and college professors alike hold their students to the highest of standards not just academically, but for punctuality, teamwork, and creativity as well. Therefore, Franklin-Simpson High School has been marketing FOCUS, SPIRIT, HONOR, and SUCCESS¦four important areas identified by our very own students. We have placed banners in the hallways to reinforce these key ideas and place them on everything Franklin-Simpson. These four words have become embedded within our school culture and are the driving force behind our changes. We try to recognize and reward students who exhibit these traits and continually try to model these concepts in the classroom. We recognize that success at the next level cannot exist without these traits and we will continually look for more ways to incorporate these ideas in our schools and throughout our community.

At Franklin-Simpson, we offer a wide variety of classes to help prepare our students for the next phase of their life. We are fortunate enough to have a locally operated Career and Technical Center that includes the following areas: Agriculture, Human Services, Information Technology, Business Education, Marketing, Welding, Masonry, and Health Sciences. These programs help provide students with essential skills through hands-on projects, community integrations, and cooperative learning experiences. Students have built sheds and poured concrete for our local Habitat for Humanity. Additionally, many of our programs are offering services to the general public, such as scrap metal removal, lawn mower repair, and embroidery. Franklin-Simpson is currently able to offer industry recognized certificates in Welding (AWS), Information Technology (Adobe, Flash, Photo Shop and Dream Weaver),Health Sciences (MNA), Masonry(NCCER), Family and Consumer Science(CCCC and Serve-safe), Marketing(ASK), Business(IC-# adn ASK accounting), and Agriculture(Small Power) and are currently offering certificates in these areas. Further, our school is exploring options for teachers to be able to offer Dual Credit opportunities within their programs through partnerships with Southern Kentucky Community and Technical College and the KCTCS system.

We are also into our second year of incorporating a thirty minute "Academic Time" in our daily schedule used to provide specific interventions. Our main focus of this time is to help seniors that are not college or career ready. Those seniors who want to go to college but have not yet met Kentucky's benchmarks for college readiness in math, reading, or English are provided lessons to help better prepare them for COMPASS and/or WORKKEYS assessments. This intentional focus has tremendously helped improve our school's college/career readiness percentages. Similarly, we utilize Academic Time in other grade levels to provide additional support for ACT (Juniors) and Page 3 © 2016 Advance Education, Inc. All rights reserved unless otherwise granted by written agreement.

Executive Summary Franklin-Simpson High School

EXPLORE (Freshmen and Sophomores).

Franklin-Simpson also provides opportunities for college credit with our On-Track partnership with Bowling Green Technical School. Through the On-Track program, students are bused to Bowling Green Technical School and are able to receive college credit in general education courses such as College Algebra, English, and Psychology. Additionally, students can receive college credit through our wide variety of Advanced Placement classes. Currently, FSHS offers 13 different AP classes. We continue to be an active participant in the Advance Kentucky grant and are continually looking for ways to expand our offerings to include more students. We firmly believe that exposing our students to the rigor of these classes as early as possible will increase the likelihood of our students continuing with some type of postsecondary education.

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Executive Summary Franklin-Simpson High 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.

The rapid transition from Priority Status to HUB status exemplifies the success Franklin-Simpson High School had on the 5 Areas of Measurement, ie. Student Growth as well as College and Career Readiness through systems and initiatives established with focus and intent. To begin, the mission, Empowering Students to be College and or Career Ready, welcomes students in the building and is readily seen above each door knob, has caused the change in the culture, making it quite clear of the focus of the school. There is no question that every student knows and understands the mission and the way(s) that this goal can be achieved. Students and Faculty make everyday decisions with this mission statement in mind. Our vision, Focus, Spirit, Honor, and Success exemplifies the characteristics of those that achieve the goals of the mission. Through the artifacts such as the celebration posters for student accomplishments, the State-wide accountability rankings; the real-time accountability standings on the walls of the building to the behaviors exhibited by both students and teachers, our school's atmosphere is one for success focusing on our mission and vision. In addition to school culture, we have made significant improvements in how we prepare students to be college and /or ready. We continue to focus on providing opportunities for students to receive college credit while still in high school. Advanced Placement classes provide college enrichment through Math, Social Studies, Science and English and dual-credit classes through Western Kentucky University and Murray State University. Every senior that meets the criteria and would like to take a college course at South Central Kentucky Community and Technical College can because of the community support from 5 local businesses. Each student can attend the college free of charge because of the scholarships that they provide. Response to InterventionPrograms have been set-up to provide intervention and intensive intervention to students who fall below benchmarks in reading and math. Academic Time provides students the time for not only intervention but enrichment by providing not only Workkeys and Compass development but practice in A CT test taking strategies and question analysis. Even with the success we have garnered, Franklin-Simpson will continue to focus on building a common, rigorous curriculum centered on ACT's QualityCore and CommonCore curriculum in core areas as well at Career and Technical Education. Our overall plan is to guarantee that any student will have access to the same high quality instruction regardless of the teacher they are assigned to. As such, we will continue to collaborate to build units of instruction with common assessments and use professional learning communities to analyze student work and make informed decisions bases on assessment data. Teachers will continue to share resources and expand their instructional toolbox with new resources in technology (CIITS, TurningPoint, etc.) and research-based strategies. Additionally, Franklin-Simpson High School will look to improve how it uses data from standardized testing, such as ACT's End of Course Assessments, EXPLORE, PLAN, and ACT. Our current system of analyzing data is heightening awareness on how to help those students that struggle the most in various criteria. This data is absolutely necessary for any meaningful improvements to be made, especially in our GAP areas. We are also developing ideas on how to make this information more meaningful to students and parents. Awareness and understanding are two important factors that will allow multiple stakeholders to buy-in to our system and to be active participants in the improvement process.

To help students become more career ready, Franklin-Simpson has begun to focus on its industry certificate offerings at its locally operated Career and Technical Education (CTE) Center. Currently, we are able to offer students industry certificates to those who choose career paths in Welding (AWS certificate), Information Technology (Adobe certification), Business (MOS certification), Family and Consumer Sciences (Safe Serve), Masonry(NCCER certification), Agriculture Power (EETC certification) or Health Sciences (SRNA certification). Students who obtain these certificates put themselves in an ideal position as they look for opportunities after high school, whether that is the work force, a technical school or a four-year college. Additionally, Career and Technical Education teachers have focused on improvement on the state's KOSSA exams. Each of the Career and Technical Education teachers have strived to make assessments more KOSSA-like and developed a rewarding incentive program for those who do their very best on each test. To help get parents and the community involved, FranklinPage 5 © 2016 Advance Education, Inc. All rights reserved unless otherwise granted by written agreement.

Executive Summary Franklin-Simpson High School

Simpson has sent out letters to parent and the Chamber of Commerce describing the purpose of the testing and its potential benefits to students and employers alike. Furthermore, we are currently working with juniors and seniors in academic time, implementing ACT's National Career Readiness Certificate through administration of the WorkKeys exams to achieve the academic portion of Career-Readiness in KPREP. This is in addition to all of the regional, state and national-winning achievements that have taken place within the Career and Technical Student Organizations. Another achievement from the Career and Technical Education Center was that our Agriculture Programs tested in the Top 10% of all agriculture programs statewide in the ACT, PLAN, and/or End-Of-Course Assessments for the 2014 assessment. Further, in 2016, our CTE Center scored number 1 in the state for Career Readiness and in the top 10 for College Readiness statewide.

Finally, Franklin-Simpson High School will continue to rebuild positive school-community relations and look for ways to integrate the public in the decision making process. We recognize the need to use our surrounding community as a tool for helping students achieve at a high level and will research ways to integrate all stakeholders. We will continually strive to improve the communication channels, utilizing the internet, television, radio and our OneCall telephone messaging system to make sure the public is aware of the good things going on in our school. We will continue to hold community forums as necessary to allow all voices to be heard. Further, we will increase the number of opportunities that parents, community members and other schools have to come into the building to see what their students are learning and doing.

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Executive Summary Franklin-Simpson High 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 truth is that we have so many good things going on at Franklin-Simpson High School, regardless of our designation as Priority school. Franklin-Simpson has been designated as a HUB school by KDE. KDE named FSHS as HUB school becasue of the gains in College adn Career Readiness and academic achievment. FSHS was in the 45th percentile in 2012. In the 2013-2014 school year FSHS scored in the top 4% of all high schools in Kentucky and was named a distinguished high school. FSHS ranked #3 in the region and #22 in the state for academic test scores. FSHS was #1 in the state of Kentukcy for college and career readiness. FSHS has maintained a Distinguished rating four years in a row. Due to the Priority label, FSHS cannot be labeled a School of Distinction. However, our accountability scores for the last two years would place us at the School of Distinction level. These are just a few examples of the many successes Franklin-Simpson High School experienced over the past year.

The simple fact is that we have GREAT students in our schools. We are fortunate enough to not have some of the major issues that similar schools of our size and demographics have. Therefore, school improvement lies primarily on the shoulders of the adults these students see every day, and it is up to us to ensure a viable system is in place for learning. Therefore, the administrative team and the faculty at FSHS make this promise¦ Franklin-Simpson High School will be a top-performing school in the region and state. Designation as a Persistently Low Achieving School is unacceptable. Simpson County deserves better. The city of Franklin deserves better. Our community deserves better. More importantly, our students deserve better. Through our whirlwind of administrative leadership, we lost track of what really mattered the most¦ student learning. It is quite possible that we tried to solve too many of our problems at once which, in turn, may have actually created different issues that needed attention. In hindsight, it seems that what we failed to do is simply master the things that we, as trained educators, know work. Rather, we went out searching for "quick fixes" with this initiative and that, knowing we could not fully put in the time and resources to see them through effectively. Similar to a struggling franchise in the world of sports, now is the time to focus on the basics and rebuild our team and our systems. In order to rebuild our team and system it will be done through the relationships that are built each day between all the involved stakeholders(students, teachers, support staff, parents and community members). Franklin-Simpson High School has developed a "best practices" set of systems that are follwed to ensure continous improvement.

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