• Category 2

    Selected in 2018

  • Grades: k - 5
    School Setting: suburban
    Town Population: 95,000
    Student Enrollment: 602
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 0.5%
    White/Caucasian: 99.5%
    Hispanic: 0%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0%
    Asian: 0%
    Native American: 0%
    Other: 0%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:22
    % Reduced Lunch: 91%
    % ELL Learners: 75%
    Founded: 1927
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Donna Jakubik
  • CONTACT:
    6801 Mead
    Dearborn, MI 48126
    313-827-6454
    jakubid@dearbornschools.org
Maples Elementary School
Dearborn, MI
Maples School supports its students and families in their emotional and academic needs.
Describe specific programs in place to ensure that families are involved in the success of your school and students.
We encourage family involvement with monthly parent instruction sessions and meetings. Teachers provide parents with strategies to assist their child in math and reading. Standardized tests are explained and results are shared and reviewed to assist parents in understanding their child's progress. In addition, Maples holds a literacy night, a math night, a Playworks evening, and classroom showcase allowing parents the opportunity to visit classrooms while students are learning to see teachers and students in action.
Describe the most successful activity your school has initiated to strengthen ties to your community.
Maples School supports its students and families in meeting emotional needs as well as academic needs. Maples staff hold monthly parent meetings to educate parents on topics including teaching strategies, healthy habits, assessment results, nutrition and parenting skills. The parent liaison has built community partnerships to connect families with needed support and facilitates collections of winter coats, backpacks, school supplies and clothes for refugee students as well as homeless families and children. Our focus is ensuring parents feel welcome and know that they are an integral part of the school so that they will want to stay within the community. Poverty is complex and requires a comprehensive community-wide approach. Our goal is to build a strong partnership with our families to support them in order to push each of our students to reach their full academic potential.
Describe your philosophy of school change or improvement.
Our goal is to move all students forward to their fullest academic potential. Teachers begin at each student's level and work to accelerate their achievement by a year and for those struggling learners a year and additional catch up growth. Title I resources both staff and materials are utilized to support this acceleration.
What are your school’s top two goals for the next year?
Maples teachers will continue to influence the social emotional learning of all our students by focusing on the habits of mind for building positive citizens. Classroom engagement and high level questioning will increase student motivation and learning. In addition, we will continue to highlight student learning with recognition for both academic achievment and growth.

Secondly, our staff will continue to work in professional learning communities to identify the essential learnings and common formative and summative assessments and build an in school intervention model to support high levels of mastery for all students.
What is the single most important factor in the success of your school that others could replicate?
Our school has worked hard to build a sense of teamwork in grade levels as well as across the building. We have spent time using Playworks to teach students the importance of teamwork in both the classroom and the field. Staff and parents work together so students know all stakeholders are involved and working towards the same goal.
Describe the program or initiative that has had the greatest positive effect on student achievement, including closing achievement or opportunity gaps, if applicable.
Teachers support a varied level of student achievement levels in language arts with a combination of whole group, small group and individual student learning. Support staff push into classrooms for tier II and III instruction while also co-teaching and modeling lessons for staff in a coaching framework. Students are taught at both independent reading levels and grade content levels each day. Grade level text is used in a supported small group model to ensure all students have access to rigorous content and begin to build skills even when they read below grade level. In addition, english learners are scaffolded in their native language as necessary and are offered additional academic supports during their day.

Early intervention and education is key to future academic success. Maples has emphasized the need for preschool with our parents. A Young 5’s program was developed in 2017 and has become an asset to our early education program.
Explain how ESEA federal funds are used to support your improvement efforts.
ESEA funds have been used for both staff and resources. Additional resource staff were hired to work with students in classrooms to provide an additional small group intervention each day. These interventionists are using an intervention resource purchased for all classrooms for the classroom teacher and interventionist to work collaboratively delivering focused and strategic reading instruction and the students instructional level.

A parent liaison is also funded with our Title I funds. This liaison speaks the home language that the majority of our families speak so she acts as a bridge between staff and parents. She also acts as a community liaison, securing resources for families in need and also arranging wrap around services such as medical appointments for students.

Funds also support the full time implementation of Playworks and a coach in the building daily. This program works to assist students in building positive relationships while working and playing together.
Identify the critical professional development activities you use to improve teaching and student learning.
Teachers participate in a variety of professional development activities learning both district level initiatives and building wide initiatives. In addition, a large team of teachers attended summer institutes in Professional Learning Communities. This learning is shared with all staff across the building throughout the year. In addition, teachers have the opportunity to attend district wide professional learning offered throughout the year as well as county level opportunities.
Describe how data is used to improve student achievement and inform decision making.
Through a Professional Learning Community process, the staff at Maples utilizes both national (NWEA) and state (M-Step) data to make regularly monitor student progress. We determine which students need additional intervention, as well as which students are performing at high levels, provide appropriate interventions through a focus on differentiation and online adaptive and individualized resources for classroom and home use.

Staff collaborates during common planning time and release time to determine the essential standards and align common assessments. We use this time to create consistent practices and routines across the grade level as well as across the building. This process also allows teachers to review and plan curriculum together.

In addition, grade level teams and individual teachers have an opportunity, three times a year, to meet to discuss student achievement and practices and strategies to continue to move students forward.
Describe your school culture and explain changes you’ve taken to improve it.
During the last three years, Maples has experienced a large number of changes in both the teaching staff and support staff as well as the administration. Currently half of the 28 classroom teachers are new as well as both administrators and three quarters of the support staff.

Such a large change has required time for staff to become familiar with district and building practices, routines, curriculum and expectations. During this school year, the third year, staff are working together to refine former practices while building new ones as well.

Maples has always had a culture of high academic expectations while supporting the emotional and social needs of students as well. This year we started a new focus on Social Emotional learning to support all our students while building positive citizens including an introduction to growth mindset and using habits of mind in our daily lives. These habits will be expanded next year to build persistence and independence in all our learners.

Stats
  • Category 2

    Selected in 2018

  • Grades: k - 5
    School Setting: suburban
    Town Population: 95,000
    Student Enrollment: 602
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 0.5%
    White/Caucasian: 99.5%
    Hispanic: 0%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0%
    Asian: 0%
    Native American: 0%
    Other: 0%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:22
    % Reduced Lunch: 91%
    % ELL Learners: 75%
    Founded: 1927
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Donna Jakubik
  • CONTACT:
    6801 Mead
    Dearborn, MI 48126
    313-827-6454
    jakubid@dearbornschools.org