McKinley High School School Improvement Status

Summary of Progress

During the 2022-2023 school year, McKinley High School made progress in addressing several school wide priority needs.

Development of a Comprehensive Leadership Team

In the 2022-23 school year McKinley High School revamped its Academic Review Team (ART) into a comprehensive leadership team which is now composed of department chairs, academy leads, coordinators, and administration. The team was revamped because in the prior school year WASC suggested that the school’s department chairs were not adequately equipped to make a broad range of decisions, in particular the planning of schoolwide teacher professional development. The team was provided with training led by the Center for Tomorrow’s leaders in September of 2022 and the training helped to establish each member’s role as a part of the school leadership team. In addition selected members of the ART attended a facilitative leadership workshop led by Carolyn McKanders from the Adaptive Schools group. The role of the ART going forward will be to identify and plan for staff professional development and to monitor school wide initiatives.

Continued Implementation of Department, Program and Academy Action Plans

Starting in SY 21-22, all departments, programs, and academies created their own Action with yearly goals aligned to McKinley’s Academic Plan, WASC Critical Areas for Follow-Up and the HIDOE Nā Hopena A‘o statements. Action Plans include the department/program/academy’s vision, measurable goals, and interim measures of progress, action steps and links to evidence and data. Action Plans are monitored by team members frequently throughout the year and evidence of progress needs to be linked to each action plan at the end of each semester.

Schoolwide Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Initiative

The importance of SEL and the impact that mental health can have on student achievement and overall well-being has become a top concern at MHS, especially in the midst of the COVID pandemic. Continuing in SY 22-23, weekly SEL lessons for all students have been incorporated into their 20/20 classes in effort to promote student well-being and success. Action Plans developed by departments, programs and academies also have at least one SEL goal to provide additional levels of support for all students.

Preliminary SEL data gathered from student Panorama surveys has shown an increase in scores across certain topic areas (social awareness, growth mindset, emotions regulation, sense of belonging and selfefficacy) for Fall 2022 and Winter 2022 survey results when compared with Spring 2022 survey results.

Teacher Professional Development to Support EL Students

This school year McKinley High School’s EL Department conducted professional development for the teaching staff at most faculty meetings. The PD provided strategies that teachers should be using to support our English learners. The EL Department received its training from WestEd which conducted quarterly training for school EL cadres from the KMR Complex Area. Through WestEd the complex area was exposed to a number of research based strategies that were recommended to use in support of English language learners. The two strategies McKinley opted to focus on for the 22-23 school year  were Oracy and Quality Interactions. Both strategies are embedded into SY 23-24 department action plans.

Student, Parent and Community Outreach Events

McKinley reaches out to students, parents and the community throughout different programs, departments, classes and organizations. Academies offer sessions for parents to connect with teachers and discuss ways to support their child. The Athletics program provides opportunities for students to participate in a number of sports and volunteer for community service events throughout the year. Programs such as JROTC and band enable students to connect with their community through performances, competitions and exhibition events. Events such as 8th transition presentations, 9^th grade parent night, Beyond the Oval, and Summer Bridge are offered yearly.