About Us
The mission of Milford Central Academy is to provide world class instruction to every student, in every class, every day.
World class instruction is defined as a classroom where all students are actively engaged in appropriate and rigorous learning activities where the teacher is coaching and facilitating learning.
To accomplish this we will focus on three areas:
Curriculum – align our curricular to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) – Over the past school year we developed curriculum maps aligned to CCSS for all subjects. This year we will implement those maps and continue to blueprint and revise existing assessments to make them more aligned to the CCSS and the expectation for rigor. Content coaches from the Southern Delaware Professional Development group will continue to work with our science, social studies, and expressive staff during PLCs. Our district reading and math specialist will work with ELA and Math to revise assessments.
Instruction – We will continue to develop effective, engaging teaching strategies. However, this year we will have a focus on writing and differentiation. We will be receiving specific writing professional development aimed at ELA and social studies through Schools That Lead and the University of Delaware. The ACCESS Project will provide ongoing professional development in the area of Universal Design for Learning. This training will show our teachers how to differentiate for struggling learners while still being aligned to the standards while maintaining the appropriate level of rigor.
Continuous Improvement – will be addressed in three ways:
Feedback – Feedback will be provided to students and teachers in various forms to foster continuous improvement. Students will receive grade progress reports in all core classes every other week. Students will be expected to analyze their performance and graph their data. Teachers may choose to participate in the Teacher to Teacher feedback project to receive feedback from a colleague. This type of teacher feedback will be student centered, and focus on how the students react to instruction. Administrators will offer continuous teacher feedback through DPAS II evaluations and walk-throughs.
Improvement Science - As part of our work as a demonstration site for the Schools That Lead (formerly Vision Network) we will be developing a culture based on Improvement Science theory. To begin developing this culture staff will be encouraged to try completing some small PDSA (Plan, Do, Study, Act) cycles to address issues in their own classroom. This practice will allow teachers to improve their own instructional practice using specific informed data. This work will be supported through our new School Improvement Team.
Student Agency – Last year we focused on teaching our staff and students about a Growth Mindset, based on Carol Dweck’s work. We will continue to focus on student agency this year by developing another school-wide lesson to be taught in 7th and 8th grade. We will use the Growth Mindset lesson we developed this year with 6th graders. Students will also receive bi-monthly grade reports in each class and are expected to use the reports to graph their progress and reflect on their performance. Teachers are expected to maintain a class chart for each block tracking their students’ grades.