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Running Head: School Assessment

School Assessment
By Juanita Ortega
For
PPE 310: Health
Literacy for
Schools
Spring 2016
th
February 7 , 2016

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Running Head: School Assessment

For the Spring semester 2016 I was placed in the Isaac School district,
specifically at Alta E. Butler. I was surprised that I could find little to no information
about the school for this assignment as the school is not a new one. Some of the
information I do have off the top of my head is that it is a k-5 Title One public school
which means that at least 40% of the student population receives free school lunch.
The school is located right off the I-10 and 35 th avenue in the heart of the city of
Phoenix. The surrounding area is full of fast food restaurants and convenience
stores, along with retail businesses and businesses related to automobiles and
warehouses for furniture, etc.
By casual observation I would say that at least half of the population is
Hispanic/Latino. About a quarter of those students are ELLs and most of those
students are Spanish speaking. There are few black and white students with even
less of other minorities being represented. The website azreportcards.com reports
that the school has a 95% attendance rating. That could have something to do with
the program classes take part in which allows students who do not miss school for a
whole month to watch a movie. Azreportcards.com also reported that the school
received a grade of C for the previous school year.
The school received an F rating on the website for the School Assessment.
One of the schools strengths has to do with support for students mental and
emotional health. The school has a counselor that goes to each class about every
two weeks to talk with the kids about refusing drugs, being kind and putting a stop
to bullying. Her name is Ms. Skelly and she talks with students for 40 minutes using
role playing, and multimedia. The other strength the school has a P.E. program that
educates children about the importance of nutrition and physical activity instead of
just letting the children run around. There are posters in the gym about warm ups
and cool downs among other things.
The schools weaknesses were a lack of movement in school and lack of
opportunity to be active after school. These scores were 0% and 20% respectively.
We can start to fix these by doing brain breaks during school for certain transitions
and during lessons too. I recently looked through the available activities from the
Energizer Booklets on forprevention.org and I realized that there are a lot more
ways we could implement physical activity in our lesson plans. I chose one to focus
on for my class that requires students to perform physical activities like jumping
while they practice applying vocabulary as a whole class.
The second thing I think would be fantastic to start would be an afterschool
activity program that focuses on just staying active and cooking healthy snacks.
Kids at our school dont have after school programs for anything other than the
academic after school program, choir, or team sports, which is a shame because not
everyone is athletic enough to be chosen for a team. The closest park is half a mile
away and the school does not allow students to linger on campus after school
unless they are a part of the aforementioned programs.
I think that getting the school to stay open to students for longer would go a
great way to increasing childrens activity levels. Parents could come down to be

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Running Head: School Assessment
active with their kids or teachers could join in activities to be role models for the
students. This directly ties to my proposed signature assignment because I
suggested that the students keep track of their physical activity versus screen time
and intend to challenge them to increase the physical activity gradually until its
twice that of the screen time. I wanted to include a parent/family challenge portion
too and the school would be a great resource if they would participate.

Resources:
Alta E. Butler School - Academic Indicators. (n.d.). Retrieved February
7, 2016, from https://azreportcards.com/AcademicIndicators/Indicators
Energizer Booklets | Prevention Partners. (n.d.). Retrieved February 07,
2016, from http://forprevention.org/p2/what-we-do/be-activelegacy/energizers/

***www.schooldigger.com and www.unitedstateszipcodes.org were not

helpful in my search. ***

Heathy Leadership http://eportfoliomsortega.weebly.com/healthyleadership.html

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Running Head: School Assessment

Criteria

Exemplary: Points (5)

Assessment

SCORE:

A minimum of 2 strengths and 2

weaknesses were described
Assessment was completed online and
posted to your E-Portfolio
A direct link was placed at the end of
your document to the assignment in your
E-Portfolio
Suggestions to improve school policies
were clearly stated
At least 2 suggestions to engage
stakeholders were provided

Proficient: Points (3)

A minimum of 1 strength and 1

weakness was described
Suggestions to improve school policies
were stated but lacked sufficient detail
At least 1 suggestion to engage
stakeholders was provided
Assessment was completed online and
not in your E-Portfolio
A link was provided to your E-Portfolio
to this assignment, however it wasnt a
direct link to this assignment

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Running Head: School Assessment

School
Context
/Writing
Style

SCORE:

School context contained detailed

information on
grade levels
% free/reduced lunch
enrollment,
proportion ELLs
average class size
urban/rural/suburban,
ethnic makeup
state test scores
AYP status
All of the following are listed in the file
document name submitted
Lastname.firstname.assignment#.course
#
This rubric was added to the last page of
the document submitted
Your document was in APA 6.0 format,
including cover page, body and
reference section with no errors

School context contained some detailed

information on
grade levels
% free/reduced lunch
enrollment,
proportion ELLs
average class size
urban/rural/suburban,
ethnic makeup
state test scores
AYP status
Most of the following are listed in the
file document name submitted
Lastname.firstname.assignment#.course
#
This rubric was added but not at the end
of the document submitted
Document was in APA, however errors
were found in formatting of the sections

PPE 310 Healthy and Active Schools, Assessment and School

Context
*** I cannot get this to turn landscape without turning the whole thing***