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Title: Recommendation: I recommend that the School Board approve the grant project entitled, Lake Park Elementary Bringing Science to Life/Extension, awarding $23,000 from the Mary and Robert Pew Public Education Fund. Description: In the spring of 2002, the Mary and Robert Pew Public Education Fund granted Lake Park Elementary $260,000 to develop a science program that emphasized Inquiry-Based learning, a team teaching approach to teaching the standards and providing lifelike scientific experiences for students. With the help of Louise Grant and the funding from the Mary and Robert Pew Public Education Fund, we were able to employ a full-time science contact who has a great deal of experience in science education to support both our primary and intermediate teachers. We have been able to send almost half of our teaching staff to the NSTA conference over the last three years for staff development. Many of our teachers have met over the summer to plan and develop curricula to better meet the Grade Level Expectations. In addition, our third, fourth, and fifth grade students have developed and presented their own individual Science Fair Projects and are very familiar with the Scientific Process. While we are confident that our students have made outstanding progress in the sciences, we will begin the 2005-2006 school year with the goal that 75% of our 102 fifth grade students will score at a level 3.0 or higher on the 2006 Science subtest of the FCAT. In order to make this happen, we must connect student science experiences to a format that is more in sync with the FCAT. Our goal for the 2005-2006 school year is to help our students connect classroom science experiences to criteria that better resembles the FCAT by including a process of assessment that comprises the same descriptors that are used to evaluate short and extended responses on the FCAT. During the 2005-2006 school year, students will: Ø collaborate with their classroom teachers to develop a uniform standards-based response format for student responses to inquiry-based science laboratory experiences. Ø collaborate with their teachers to develop a rubric with criteria and descriptors that is similar to the rubric used by the state to assess student short and extended responses. Ø complete bi-weekly teacher or district developed assessments to verify mastery of standards and student understanding of appropriate answers to short or extended response items. Ø improve the FY06 mean score by 60 points when compared to the mean score for Lake Park Elementary during the FY05 school year. Financial Impact: The financial impact to the Special Revenue-Other Funds budget is an increase of $23,000. These funds will be allocated to the Lake Park Elementary School budget. All grant related expenditures and contracts are authorized for payments up to the amount of revenue allocated. For Additional Information, contact: Ann Killets akillets@palmbeach.k12.fl.us Marisol Ferrer Diana Miller Attachments (list):
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