• PARCC Scores - Mathematics (Middle grades 6, 7, 8)
• PARCC Scores - English/Language Arts (Middle grades 6, 7, 8)
• Discipline Rates

Key Challenge #1: Academic Progress - Mathematics and English/Language Arts

A challenge to our students’ success is their performance on PARCC ELA and PARCC Mathematics.  For the 2017-2018 school year, less than 50% of students in each grade level (6th, 7th and 8th grade) performed at a proficient level on the PARCC ELA assessment.  Similarly, less than 50% of students in each grade level (6th, 7th, and 8th grade) performed at a proficient level on the PARCC Mathematics assessment, with the exception of our Algebra 1 students in which 66% of students performed at a proficient level.

Due to a number of factors impacting student success on PARCC assessments, our students have made little growth in performing at a proficient level on our state assessments. We know that when our students struggle to master math skills in middle school, they will continue to struggle with math skills in high school. Our students will also lack the strong foundation necessary for success in future schooling and beyond. Strategies to support reading comprehension continue to be an area of focus for our staff, as well as strategies to support students’ writing.  As a staff, we also continue to focus on Type II Questions (assessing the expression of mathematical reasoning) and Type III Questions (assessing modeling and applications of mathematical concepts in a real-world context or scenario) for our students in math.  Strategies supporting the comprehension and application of tasks required within these questions is a focus for our staff members.

Key Challenge #3: Discipline Rates

We acknowledge that discipline referrals and time out of class negatively impact academic achievement for some of our students. While many of the staff members at George Fox Middle School work hard to build relationships with our students and show empathy toward our students with challenges, we continue to develop the relational capacity of our staff in order to grow our ability to support all of our students.  Our students enter our building each day with a variety of experiences and it is critical to our students’ success that our staff utilize trauma-informed strategies and discipline with dignity in order to support student behavior and their overall success in school.

Through this approach, our students will know that they have a team of caring adults who strive to assist them in developing academic success as well as developing into young adults who are capable of adapting and persevering through challenges.  GFMS continues to pursue the implementation of Restorative Practices school-wide, to implement PBIS strategies and interventions, and to provide professional development to teachers and staff to understand the social-emotional needs of students and the development of the adolescent brain as it relates to learning.

• Families in Crisis (mental, physical emotional, financial)
• Substance Abuse

Key Challenge #2: Families in Crisis (mental, physical, emotional, financial)

The surrounding community of Pasadena has grown substantially over the past few years with new housing developments being built and small businesses developing in the area. The community has experienced a rise in substance abuse, which has created levels of trauma impacting our youngest and most vulnerable families and students. As a result, families in the George Fox community experience a number of mental and emotional traumas that impact our students here at school.  The support and resources needed from our counseling team, pupil personnel worker, and school psychologist have steadily increased over the last few years. Our students and families require support not only from our school staff, but from other resources, such as Thrive. We know that social emotional struggles and experiences of trauma create roadblocks to student success in school. When students are working hard to manage the emotional stresses in their lives, they are unable to learn effectively in the classroom.

As a school community, we continue to focus on educating our staff on trauma-informed strategies for supporting our students, as well as offering support to our families through our counseling and support services departments.

• Socio-economic community disparity including employment, income levels, housing costs
• Significant changes over time in student and community demographics and diversity
• Access to community social programs