Addressing Disrupted Learning

Students will be thoroughly assessed at the beginning of the school year. Teachers will analyze data at all levels: student level, class level, grade level, and schoolwide level. Recovery strategies will be discussed and implemented based on the findings. Teachers will be trained in identifying and reacting to emotional and mental needs for both adults and children. Student mental and social health will be supported with the use of uplifting, meritorious lessons and literature.

We will create a strong foundation for students' academic success by prioritizing their social, emotional, and mental health through the implementation of school clubs. Each day students are given the option and opportunity to engage in after school clubs that will allow them to satisfy their social and emotional needs that was suppressed by isolation due to COVID-19. Extracurricular opportunities allow our children to decompress from the vigorous school day and socially interact with their peers. ESSER III will fund the stipends that are given to the staff to run these essential programs. The clubs that will be offered but not limited to is Social Skills after school club for 1 day a week 1 hour each day. This club will allow students to work through their social skills issues after months of isolation. Students are selected through a referral basis and then opened to the rest of the population.
1 Interventionist to work with students addressing learning loss through implementation of evidence-based interventions throughout the school day to ensure that such interventions respond to students' social, and emotional needs and address the disproportionate impact of the coronavirus on the student subgroups. The average student to teacher ratio is 1:5 in Grades K-2 and 1:7 in Grades 3-5. Villa will focus on students who receive and require specialized services and supports to achieve and surpass grade level goals and expectations set by the learning intentions of Arizona's College and Career Readiness Standards (AZCCRS). This includes students who are identified as needing special education services and English language learners who have not yet developed English language proficiency along with each major racial ethic groups, children from low income, gender, migrant students, students experiencing homelessness and children in foster care. We are also focusing on the bottom 25% of students who struggle to demonstrate grade level proficiency in literacy and mathematics and require strategic interventions. Progress will be monitored through evaluations with the paraprofessional and the student. The interventionist will focus on the bottom 25% of students who struggle to demonstrate grade level proficiency in literacy. Our charter will implement Leveled Literacy Interventions and utilize evidence-based practices. Ask many questions and observe student responses; questions allow students to connect new material with prior learning. Guide student practice by asking good questions and providing feedback. Teachers also use formative assessments to monitor the effectiveness of their teaching practice and make modifications as necessary. We will be funding the salary of one full time interventionist.

The school safety plan again outlined procedures to most safely return to instruction, while supporting the increasing academic, social emotional, and other needs of AMS Students. AMS South placed an emphasis on supporting the most at risk students by ensuring coverage in event of teacher illness or vacancy, and a low student/staff ratio in classroom support by increasing number of paraprofessionals to support tier I instruction. In addition, each site was given Interventionist FTEs to support student learning gaps, provide intervention, and support student learning. The LEA offers a long instructional day, and the ESSER III grant funded Intercession learning. There will also be a counselor position to address the social emotional needs of the LEA's most at risk students.

The school safety plan again outlined procedures to most safely return to instruction, while supporting the increasing academic, social emotional, and other needs of AMS Students. AMS placed an emphasis on supporting the most at risk students by ensuring coverage in event of teacher illness or vacancy, and a low student/staff ratio in classroom support by increasing number of paraprofessionals to support tier I instruction. In addition, the site was given Interventionist FTEs to support student learning gaps, provide intervention, and support student learning. The LEA offers a long instructional day and there will be more interventionist pull out. There will be a counselor to support the social emotional needs of students, that the site did not have previously. Principle 5 of supporting both the social emotional and academic needs of students has been a primary need for this site in the CNA.

AESS's mitigation measures have been successful in keeping students safe, thereby keeping the student population attending in-person which is the most effective way to teach. Staff and teachers continue to work with individual students who need extra help outside of the classroom. A staff member is made available to meet the social, emotional and mental needs of the students. Students may see this staff and get counseling and guidance any time.

Funds used for 1.0 FTE for one French and Journalism teacher's salary = $36,529.25
Funds used for 1.0 FTE for one Science teacher's salary = $33,883.63
Funds used for 1.0 FTE for one Social Studies teacher's salary = $39,667.96
Funds used for 1.0 FTE for one French and Journalism teacher's retirement benefits = $5,811.84
Funds used for 1.0 FTE for one Science teacher's retirement and health benefits = $7,217.01
Funds used for 1.0 FTE for one Social Studies teachers retirement and health benefits = $8,858.37
Funds used for 1.0 FTE for one English Language Arts teacher's salary = $33,025.15
Funds used for 1.0 FTE for one English Language Arts teacher's benefits = $8,023.63
The charter operates within a 200 day school year in order to give the teacher and students more time outside of classroom hours to address the academic needs of our vulnerable population. Funds will be used to retain the teacher in order to reduce classroom size during the COVID19 pandemic. The majority of our students are in vulnerable populations with the highest percentage being children from low-income families. The LEA's ELA curriculum alignment can be found in related documents.
Funds used for 0.75 FTE for one School Counselor's salary = $30,271.24
Funds used for 0.75 FTE for one School Counselor's benefits = $6,345.55
Funds will be used to retain one school counselor during the COVID19 pandemic. The counselor works with the LEA's children from low-income families, children with disabilities and students experiencing homelessness. The counselor is available to discuss any issues with students with a primary focus on improving the mental health in vulnerable populations.
Funds will support the retention of teachers and the counselor during the COVID19 pandemic.
Funds will be used for maintenance of the school's air conditioning and ventilation systems in order to improve air quality during the COVID19 pandemic. AZ Trusted Air will be the company performing the maintenance.
Funds will be used for maintenance of the water well which is the school's primary water source, which will allow the LEA to continue to provide clean water during the COVID19 pandemic. Mike's Drilling, LLC will be performing the maintenance.
Funds will be used to build a fence and gates around the school to facilitate access control and be able to better monitor adherence to the school's COVID19 policies. The business completing this project will be Montoya's Ornamental Ironworks.

All support programs, including before/after school assistance, which includes both academic and social emotional support, is available to all students; however, sites will also use D/F reports, free-reduced reports to help decisively support students who have been disproportionately impacted by COVID. Moreover, before/after school tutoring, extended day credit recovery courses and Summer credit recovery programs include courses options that support students with IEPs and students who are English Language Learners.

Amphitheater will ensure that the interventions it implements to address the academic impact of lost instructional time, will respond to the academic, social, emotional, and mental health needs of all students, and particularly those students disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, including students from low-income families, students of color, English learners, children with disabilities, students experiencing homelessness, children in foster care, and migratory students.

Psychologists will help families find resources and small group activities to deal with emotional trauma and mental health due to COVID. Project R.I.S.E. will provide teachers to address learning loss and credit recovery, and The Amp Up! summer school program will provide instructors for remediation including teachers and paraprofessionals to address learning loss and offer opportunities for credit recovery. After-school tutoring will be offered at each school, which will provide instructors to help students with credit recovery due to learning loss caused by COVID.

Capital technology items will be purchased to support the Teacher's ability to offer remote instruction due to COVID. We will increase fresh air intake in ventilation systems by installing new HVAC systems, in accordance with CDC guidance. Professional development activities will be implemented to assist instructional staff in curriculum development, instruction techniques, and staff training to improve instruction for all students who were affected by COVID learning loss. A Pandemic Mitigation and Compliance Officer will be responsible for implementing mitigation measures, in accordance with CDC guidelines. Instructional Technology Specialists will support remote instruction between teachers and students and prepare for future responses to outbreaks. School Health Assistants will be added due to added responsibilities of health office due to COVID.

Pandemic Teachers will be added for supplemental instruction for all students to overcome learning loss due to COVID. Teachers will establish baseline academic achievement levels for individuals and small groups of students, prepare acceleration plans to close gaps between expected achievement levels and current levels which may have been caused by school closures, hybrid learning models, and remote online instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A new Grant Administrator will be hired to support additional work associated with ESSER Grants. Retention stipends will be offered to employees to retain staff due to COVID workforce shortages. PPE and cleaning supplies will be purchased for increased sanitization of schools in accordance with CDC guidance. The internship center at Amphitheater High School will be remodeled to allow for social distancing and to provide additional opportunities for students who were affected by learning and opportunity loss due to COVID.

ESSER III funds will also be used to provide continuity of services including after school academic programs and tutoring by the classroom teachers. Summer school will be offered for three years to allow our most vulnerable populations (special education, english learniers and title 1 students) to receive additional learning opportunities to address any loss of learning

There are several ways the LEA will ensure that interventions address the academic impact of lost instructional time and respond to academic, social, emotional, and mental health needs of all students. All schools within our District are Title I schools and therefore serve the students that were disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

To meet the academic needs of our students we will:
-Implement summer learning programs - This includes providing extra duty for certified and classified staff to teach using evidence based practices, extra duty for staff to be trained on evidence based practices and resources, and extra duty for staff to coordinate and plan for the summer school program
-Implement comprehensive after school programs - This includes extra duty for certified staff to provide evidence based instruction to students after school during the school year
-Provide additional instructional assts. to work with students in 1st-2nd grade to pull small groups, model instruction for students, and provide support so students can access the curriculum being taught by the teacher.
-Provide acceleration teacher specialists who will provide small group intervention to students and assist schools in providing a MTSS structure for their students so all students can be provided the supports they need to learn at high levels
-Purchase supplemental evidence based online programs such as Moby Max to provide students with opportunities for blended learning and additional learning outside of the school day
-Increase technology in the classrooms to increase engagement, allow teachers to utilize blended learning opportunities, and allow for critical thinking of students
-Purchase supplies/materials so students have access to resources necessary to achieve at high levels
-Provide an Acceleration Specialist Director to oversee and provide leadership to the Acceleration Specialists and assist schools in creating their MTSS structure to support students
-Provide PD to teachers/staff on evidence based practices including feedback, goal setting, teacher clarity, and collective teacher efficacy

The LEA will also provide support and interventions for students regarding social emotional learning including:
-Salary/benefits for Response to Intervention - Teachers who will work to create a MTSS structure in the area of behavior and social emotional learning. These individuals will work to provide small group and individualize plans for students to ensure they receive the behavior and social skill instruction they need to be successful in the classroom. These individuals will utilize evidence based materials - I can Problem Solve.

The LEA is providing summer school to vulnerable populations and after school tutoring/enrichment. Additionally SEL will be taught to students in summer school for an hour each day.

Hearn students identified as having learning opportunities will participate in potentially two sessions of summer school in June 2021 and July 2021. Summer sessions are also being planned for summer of 2022 and summer of 2023. Vulnerable populations including minorities, low socio economic students, foster youth, migrant youth, special education students will be identified and learning gaps noted. Each "workshop" will be staffed with teachers who will identify the evidenced based program and/or resources to utilize to serve the students attending their workshops .Hearn Academy students will continue to be identified through AzM2 year-end assessments, Galileo Pre-tests and teacher feedback. The students will participate in summer learning workshops to provide individual instruction to support student proficiency in standards student may not have achieve in the past school year. The instruction will be delivered by classroom teachers across the school grades K-8 in both Math and Language Arts. Summer learning workshops will meet four days a week for two summer session in the summer of 2022 and 2023. For the workshops, teachers will utilize resources from Savvas Learning Companies for Math and ELA, Imagine Learning and Envision Math. Each workshop will have a student to teacher ratio of approximately 15:1. The effectiveness of the program will be monitored using student academic performance in the classroom as well as student test scores on Galileo as well as pre to post assessments of student individual education plan. A SEL Specialist and SEL paraprofessional will play critical roles in assisting teachers and students to enhance the academic character and social-emotional skills of all students. The Second Step program, an evidence and researched based program, will be the social emotional learning curriculum that will be implemented school-wide.

Hearn Academy will plan and implement targeted comprehensive after school academic programs for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th quarters of the 2021-2022 and 2022 and 2023 school years. 10 staff will be identified and recruited to provide targeted academic support during each 9 week quarter for one hour after school, 4 days per week. Students will be identified based on prior year AzM2 results, FY22 pretests and other assessments to identify learning losses. Vulnerable populations including low socio economic, major racial and ethnic groups, children with disabilities, English learners, homeless students, and youth in foster care will be identified and evidence research based interventions will be utilized during the afterschool workshops. Hearn Academy students were identified through Spring 2021 AzM2 year-end assessments, 2021 Galileo Pre-tests and teacher feedback. The students will participate in workshops to provide individual instruction to support student proficiency in standards student may not have achieve in the past school year. The instruction will be delivered by classroom teachers across the school grades K-8 in both Math and Language Arts. Workshops will meet between two to four days a week. For the workshops, teachers will utilize resources from Savvas Learning Companies for Math and ELA, Envision Math and Imagine Learning.. These workshops will take place between 45-60 minutes before or after school. Each workshop will have a student to teacher ratio of approximately 15:1. The workshops will either be full year or half year. Full year programs will begin no later than the first week of October and run for about 15-18 weeks. Half year programs will extend until the end of March at the earliest and the end of April at the latest. The effectiveness of the program will be monitored using student academic performance in the classroom as well as student test scores on Galileo as well as pre to post assessments of student individual education plan.

A behavior analyst and a behavior technician will be added to staff and implement Zones of Regulation. Zones of Regulation is a metacognitive framework which teaches students the skills for emotional regulation. It is based on social-emotional theories and is shown to be effective with typical students as well as students with executive functioning disorders including ADHD and Autism. Student subgroups and populations being addressed by the interventions include students of all racial and ethnic groups, economically disadvantaged students, children with disabilities, English learners, migrant students, and students experiencing homelessness and children and youth in foster care. In addition, it integrates best practices of Trauma Informed Care and mental health support aligning with the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) core competencies. It integrates the evidence-based best practices of Central Coherence Theory, Cognitive Behavior Management, and Systemizing Theory. A literature review of The Zones of Regulations can be found here.

The use of a board-certified behavior analyst (BCBA) is effective in addressing the behavior needs of students whose education and stability have been adversely impacted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A behavior analyst is trained in assuring that quality interventions are used in shaping the behavior of students who often use negative behaviors to communicate their needs. BCBA's are skilled in conducting functional behavior assessments (FBA) which are systematic sets of strategies used to determine the underlying function or purpose of a behavior, so that an effective intervention plan can be developed. FBAs meet evidence-based criteria with studies across all ages of students, as well as in the domains of behavior and communication.
Zones of Regulation curriculum is also included which is comprised of a book for each teacher and training will be done by the Behavior Analyst and Director of Student Support Services.
The success of the Behavior Analyst will be monitored through behavior referrals and behavior assessments conducted during FY22 and FY23 A pre and post Behavior Assessment will be documented to assess the effectiveness of the Behavior Analyst.

.75 math and reading interventionist to provide interventions to work with students addressing learning loss through implementation of evidence-based interventions during the day to ensure that such interventions respond to students' academic disproportionate impact of the coronavirus on the student subgroups. Reading and math teachers effectively analyze and utilize all benchmark assessments to identify targeted students, inform intervention, and instruction. Identify specific learning gaps and then organize targeted students' intervention groups for each grade level based on findings, develop a student-centered data informed system of intervention to support at-risk students in meeting the State's Academic Standards. Cicero Prep will focus on students who receive and require specialized services including students that are not meeting state standards and falling below grade level. This includes students who are identified as needing special education services and English language learners who have not yet developed English language proficiency along with each major racial ethic groups, children from low income, gender, migrant students, students experiencing homelessness and children in foster care. The student to teacher ratio for reading is 1:5 and the frequency is 3 days a week. We are also focusing on the bottom 25% of students who struggle to demonstrate grade level proficiency in mathematics and reading and require strategic interventional student performance and progress regardless of grade level or individual capability are measured and monitored formatively using quarterly benchmark assessments. The LEA will be using Read Naturally and Moby Max to implement in the interventions and funding .75 of the interventionist to provide the interventions. The cost for the Read Naturally program will also be included. Student progress reports are uploaded regularly, so parents can monitor learning development, growth, and progress. All teachers administer in-class assessments once a week to once a month and conduct daily quick checks that serves as formal and informal checks for understanding.

Understanding the challenges that our students have faced over the last two years has driven the decision to budget $4,899.84 in off-contract pay and a hard to fill stipend for a school counselor to provide groups before/afterschool to address social and emotional needs. Cicero Prep recognizes the strong connection between a student's social and emotional status and the ability to learn. For many of our students their learning loss may be directly tied to the struggle of 2020 and beyond. This position will work with students before and after school to address the social and emotional needs of the students, work on and provide strategies to support students in unique living circumstances that impact their adjustment to school, develop and run counseling groups for students identified as having life circumstances that impact academic or social well-being within the educational environment, and work alongside other school mental health staff and school administration to provide crisis supports as deemed necessary at Cicero Prep in grades 6-12. This includes students who are identified as needing special education services and English language learners who have not yet developed English language proficiency along with each major racial ethic groups, children from low income, gender, migrant students, students experiencing homelessness and children in foster care. The counseling sessions will be a student to counselor ratio of 1:5 and will take place 3 times a week for 2 hours each day. The students will be selected through a referral basis targeting students that are experiencing high anxiety and depression.