Running head: COMPREHENSIVE SCHOOL ASSESSMENT

Paige Millan
Comprehensive School Assessment
Arizona State University
PPE 310
Dr. Hesse

Running head: COMPREHENSIVE SCHOOL ASSESSMENT

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Assessment Results

The school assessment tool used gave my placement school, Valley View, an
overall grade of an F. Looking at that result as well as my own observations of the school
I agree with this overall grade. There are both strengths and weaknesses of Valley View in
regards to the focus on healthful choices at the school.
Beginning with strengths, Valley View, in both my opinion and according to the
school assessment, is the strongest with nutrition in the school. Every student in the
Roosevelt district is welcome to free breakfast and lunch. Valley View is one of the few
schools in the district that are participating in having hot breakfast opposed to cold
breakfasts. In the past, when the students still had cold breakfast, much of the food was
processed and sugary. Now with the hot breakfast the food, although not perfect, is better.
Additionally, students at our school have access to a salad bar filled with fresh fruit and

Running head: COMPREHENSIVE SCHOOL ASSESSMENT

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vegetables to take as they please during lunch. When I observe what the students are
eating at lunch nearly every plate has a fruit or vegetable on it daily.
Another strength I have observed is the schools focus on nutrition through its
teaching garden. Students are able to learn about fresh fruits and vegetables as well as
help keep the garden up. This garden has been a great promotion of nutrition for the
students. When the garden was being planted, the corporation Aetna came to the school
and the students were able to participate in a day of learning about healthy choices. The
school has a very positive outlook on healthful choices and they appear to want to give
their students a chance to learn about how to make healthy choices in regards to their
nutrition.
Valley View does have weaknesses as I have observed and the school assessment
tool has displayed. A weakness I see is that there is not a large emphasis on physical
activity in the school. The school offers only 4 special areas: band, music, library, and PE.
Due to this, sometimes the students have PE once a week and others they have it two
times. PE is only 40 minutes long. Students are also given a 30-minute recess. This is not
enough time for the students to be given physical activity. Many students also spend a
majority of their time during recess socializing opposed to being physically active. This
means that many of the students are getting less than 60 minutes of exercise a week. It is
good that the students get 30 minutes of recess a day, and if the students are actually
being active at this time then they are getting an adequate amount of physical activity a
weekbut there is no guarantee that all students are getting the physical activity.
Another weakness the school has is the lack of promotion for healthy decisions.
Although Valley View has sports clubs, there are not many other opportunities that arise

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for students to be healthier. If the school had more opportunities for physical activity
events such as school-wide jog-a-thons, then more students may participate in healthy
and active lifestyles. Since the teachers at Valley View are not required to integrate health
into their daily teaching, I have not observed much promotion for healthy choices in the
classroom. Any discussions of healthy decision are few and far between. This is an area I
feel that Valley View needs to improve on and it encompasses the lowest areas on the
school assessment tool.
I believe that having physical activity integrated into the curriculum will be one
way to help improve policies at my school. Students will receive a wholesome amount of
physical activity daily if they are provided the chance to do so during their learning time.
Since physical activity is shown to improve cognitive functioning, students will not only
be getting exercise, but they will have improved school performance at the same time. To
implement this in all classrooms, all teachers should be provided with the statistics for
how physical activity correlates to improved cognitive functioning. Teachers should also
be given a plethora of different ideas of ways to incorporate movement into their lessons
throughout the day.
Another policy at the school that could be improved is the emphasis on eating
healthy. Since the school does fairly well with providing the healthy food, the logical next
step seems to be that the students should learn about the importance of eating healthy
food. Having the students learn about portion sizes and the amount of fruits and
vegetables they should consume for their age is important for them to lead healthy lives.
Simply providing the food to students is not enough to teach the students how to make
healthy choices throughout their lives, their curriculum should support the necessity for

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healthy choices. If this were taught in both the classroom as well as school wide, it would
be beneficial for all students.
All pillars of a students life contribute to the decisions that they make. If parents,
teachers, the school, and the community are not on the same wavelength about healthy
choices then students are less likely to live healthy lives. Due to this, it is important that
all stakeholders in a students life are engaged in promoting healthy behaviors. In doing
this, there needs to be collaboration amongst the teachers, parents, and the school. They
need to all contribute to ideas on how to promote healthful behaviors through the
curriculum at schools. Having parents and the community have and active role in what
should be included into the curriculum and teaching parents about the importance of
healthy behaviors at home are both ways to sync the stakeholders of a students life and
help them make more healthful behaviors.
To promote healthful behavior, the school can send home information of
surrounding community places that families can attend. Any surrounding recreational
centers or sports clubs are just a few of the places that the school can promote to families
to try out with their children. The school could also have any surrounding places to come
and speak to the students at schools to promote healthy decisions. Exposing students and
their families to a vast amount of outlets for healthy behaviors is a simple option that the
school can do to promote healthy choices for not only students but families in the
community as well.
The information gathered from the school assessment and my observations shed
light onto my potential topic for the Signature Assignment. I can see the emphasis the

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school has on healthful choices currently and it gives me ideas of how this can be
enhanced in the school and even through my own teaching.
Information
I am completing my student teaching at Valley View School located in the
Roosevelt School District. There are currently 645 students enrolled at Valley View. The
schools primary ethnicity is Hispanic with 85% of the school population being so. As for
the rest of the ethnic makeup, 7% is Black, 3% is American Indian, 3% is White, 1% is
two or more, >1% us Asian, and >1% is Native Hawaiian. The ELL proportion at the
school is currently 16%. Valley View school is a Kindergarten through 8th grade school
and the average student to teacher ratio is 27:1.
All students at Valley View receive free breakfast and lunch as Roosevelt School
District offers free meals to all students. Valley View is a Title I school and in 2014 it was
rated a C. The grade was unavailable for 2015 due to some test scores being unavailable
in that year. Valley View is located in an urban area. The ethnic makeup of the
surrounding school area is 53% White, 13% Black, 3% American Indian, 2% Asian, 25%
another race, and 4% being two or more races.

Link to E-portfolio: http://pamillan.weebly.com/school-assessment.html

Criteria

Exemplary: Points (5)

Proficient: Points (3)

Running head: COMPREHENSIVE SCHOOL ASSESSMENT

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Assessment

SCORE:

School
Context
/Writing
Style
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

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#.cou
rse#
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

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 EPortfolio to this assignment, however
it wasnt a direct link to this
assignment
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#.cours
e#
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