Annual Education Report

Alternative Text: Zeeland Quest Annual Report

February 1, 2022

Dear Parents and Community Members:

We are pleased to present you with the Annual Education Report (AER), which provides key information on the 2021-22 educational progress for Zeeland Quest. The AER addresses the complex reporting information required by federal and state laws. The school’s report contains information about student assessment, accountability, and teacher quality. If you have any questions about the AER, please contact Leslie Rindfliesch for assistance.

The AER is available for you to review electronically by visiting the following website https://bit.ly/2LrBERa or you may review a copy in the main office at your child’s school.

For the 2021-22 school year, schools were identified based on previous years’ performance using definitions and labels as required in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). A Targeted Support and Improvement (TSI) school is one that had at least one underperforming student subgroup in 2018-19. An Additional Targeted Support (ATS) school is one that had a student subgroup performing at the same level as the lowest 5% of all schools in the state in 2017-18. A Comprehensive Support and Improvement (CSI) school is one whose performance was in the lowest 5% of all schools in the state or had a graduation rate at or below 67% in 2016-17. Some schools are not identified with any of these labels. In these cases, no label is given.

Fortunately, our school has not been given one of these labels. 

As a building we continue to work on making sure that all of our students are challenged in their learning and that they all are making academic gains throughout the year. During the past year we have continued sustainability of several programs despite the pandemic years that we’ve endured. These programs include a comprehensive phonics program (Phonics First), in grades K-2, a phonics program called Structures for our 5th graders, a rigorous reading program (Ready Gen), along with the continued work in a progressive and successful reading workshop in all grades; in grades K-6, our adopted writing curriculum (Write Well) as well as a continuing the use of Project Based Learning in correlation with Mystery Science in K-5. We have also continued the use of Project Based Learning and Mi Star Science as a resource in grades 6-8 and Big Ideas Implementation in 6-8 grades. 

We continue to strive to produce meaningful professional development focused around teaching using Project Based Learning, as well as seeking new innovative opportunities to improve how we teach at Zeeland Quest. 

We have addressed the needs of our struggling students through a response to intervention program called WIN (What I Need), where students are provided an intervention period of reading and/or math that will help them to be successful on Common Core State Standards. In addition, we continue to put Individual Reading Intervention Plans (IRIP) in place with parents of students who are not showing proficiency in reading at grades Kindergarten through 3rd grade, per the State of Michigan’s 3rd Grade Reading Law. We, now, are collaborating with our colleagues, district-wide, on how to address the gaps we are finding due to the COVID-19 Pandemic that we’ve all endured the last 2 years. 

We have increased the number of hours that our School Success Coordinator is working with students from 27.5 hours to 37 hours. This increase allows us to reach more students and more families in need of extra support in the areas of academics and social and emotional health of our students. In addition, as a district, we increase the number of social workers on our team. Each building is now assigned a social worker, full time, which has been a tremendous help in manning our families with the appropriate resources to help them as the whole child!

We continue to support and follow the attendance expectation that was set by the OAISD. We look to support families who are struggling to get their kids to school or to school on time. Through the support of administration and the implementation of a School Success Coordinator (SSC), we are able to monitor attendance and draw attention to the importance of being in school and not at home, giving families the opportunity to receive the support from school needed to help their child succeed. 

State law requires that we also report additional information that we have included below from the 2019-20 & 2020-21 school years:

PROCESS FOR ASSIGNING PUPILS TO THE SCHOOL

Students in Zeeland are assigned based upon their geographical home location.  ZPS also offers school of choice openings, which are placed after the residents of Zeeland are assigned to their home school.  Our Spanish Immersion & Balanced Calendar PBL program, ZQuest, is filled on a first come, first served basis and may change the building of choice for students.  There are 7 elementary schools in Zeeland and those schools feed into two middle schools, Cityside and Creekside.  New Groningen, Roosevelt, ZQuest, and Quincy elementaries feed into Creekside Middle School and eventually to Zeeland West High School. Adams, Lincoln and Woodbridge elementaries feed into Cityside Middle School, and eventually to Zeeland West High School.

THE STATUS OF THE 3-5 YEAR SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT PLAN

Over the past three years, the district has been working through steps in the MICIP platform to identify three key goal areas:  SEL (social-emotional learning), Mathematics, and English Language Arts.  ZPS elementaries are in the process of implementing Second Step, a social-emotional core learning resource.  At ZQuest, our focus has been adjusting our social emotional work through our MTSS-B process by updating our rubric to simplify expectations as well as create clear and concise consequences. We also continue to create a sequence of lessons that supports our SEL curriculum (K-5) and our be nice initiative. At the middle level, we continue to work with a group of teacher leaders in the process of choosing the appropriate SEL curriculum.  A PreK-12 Math Coalition is working to examine math achievement and instructional practices across the wide.  At ZQuest, our focus has been working toward common essential standards, along with vertical alignment that follows our scope and sequence. We continue to create interventions based on need in math at all levels, K-8, and use the data collected from our district’s math coalition to help guide our instructional practices.  The district is just beginning to examine ELA data, following an implementation cycle that began 7 years ago to determine strengths and needs.   At ZQuest, we have identified the following strengths and needs: ZQuest is working on refining the reading workshop model and also continuing our learning  in order to effectively integrate the skills and strategies our students are learning and practicing into our PBL units in cross curricular ways. 

A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF EACH SPECIALIZED SCHOOL

Students in the elementary program at Zeeland Public Schools are given the opportunity to participate in a variety of experiences in addition to traditional education programs that include special education, Gifted and Talented for 4th/5th grade students, Spanish Immersion, and Zeeland Quest (a K-8, year-round balanced calendar, project-based learning school).

IDENTIFY HOW TO ACCESS A COPY OF THE CORE CURRICULUM, A DESCRIPTION OF ITS IMPLEMENTATION, AND AN EXPLANATION OF THE VARIANCES FROM THE STATE’S MODEL

The Core Curriculum for our school is based upon the State of Michigan Standards and National Common Core Standards. This information is available at our school office or on our district website. Zeeland Public Schools makes sure our students are provided challenging lessons that are consistent across grade levels. A team of Zeeland educators regularly evaluates and revises our curriculum to ensure that classroom lessons meet state requirements for kindergarten through twelfth grade. 

THE AGGREGATE STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT RESULTS FOR ANY LOCAL COMPETENCY TESTS OR NATIONALLY NORMED ACHIEVEMENT TESTS

IDENTIFY THE NUMBER AND PERCENT OF STUDENTS REPRESENTED BY PARENTS AT PARENT-TEACHER CONFERENCES

During the 2020-21 school year, ZQuest had  96% of parents representing their student(s) at parent-teacher conferences, which were held via zoom due to the pandemic.

CONCLUSION

ZPS is proud of the work happening in each building.  The commitment of district staff to ensure that all Zeeland students are able to learn in an environment where they feel safe, valued, and loved is evident at all levels.  At ZQuest, we are particularly proud of the ongoing growth that students are making. Our teachers and parents are committed to the education of our children, and we have created a culture that allows our children to feel safe, valued and loved, all while knowing that there are no limits to when, how or where we learn.  With the partnership of family and community, we take pride in fostering lifelong learners.

Sincerely,

Leslie Rindfliesch
Director