Mission:

The mission of Garrett County Public Schools, in partnership with our community, is to inspire and foster student growth by providing rigorous instruction and real-world learning opportunities, sustaining a culture of excellence, offering research-based supports for diverse learning needs, and preparing our students for life in an ever-changing world.

Goals:

All students will be challenged with a rigorous instructional environment preparing them to become life-long learners and responsible citizens.
Partnerships with all members of our community will be fostered and strengthened by engaging them in the education of our children.
All students and staff will learn in a safe, secure, and caring environment where everyone is valued and respected.
The school system, every department, and every school will be a good steward of system resources and will manage them in a cost-effective manner.
All employees will be highly qualified and effective in their jobs contributing to a self-renewing organization.

We work toward achieving our mission through the School Improvement Plan (SIP). The school improvement planning process in Garrett County Public Schools is a systematic, on-going cycle involving planning, implementation, evaluation, and renewal of school and district improvement activities to meet local and statewide goals and priorities. The process focuses school and district improvement efforts on student needs by bringing together all stakeholders to plan for improvement; by focusing planning efforts on priority needs and closing achievement gaps between subgroups of students; by building upon school and district capacity for high-quality planning; and by making connections between the funds that flow into the district and the priority needs in schools. Each school's plans for improvement are based on:

a comprehensive analysis of school data (Collection of data from multiple sources including, but not limited to student achievement, student growth, climate, attendance, human capital, discipline, focus group surveys, and observations);
- a root cause analysis of all data to identify the root causes of challenges in identified content areas, grade levels, subgroups, and overarching programs;
- Identification of priority needs;
- development of specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART goals);
- development of evidence-based strategies for each goal. Strategies are action plans that must align with and support goals that focus on providing opportunities for all students to meet the state's academic achievement standards;
- development of action steps for each strategy. Action steps are specific tasks that must be developed with the purpose of implementing the strategies within the plan. These action steps will include the benchmark for monitoring progress, the person responsible for implementation, and the estimated date of completion, and may include the funding sources to be used to support the action step.

Please click on the link to view the Yough Glades School Improvement Plan 25-26 in its entirety. If you need assistance with accessing this document, please contact Email Dr. Nicole Miller for assistance.

Questions regarding School Improvement Plans should be addressed to: Email Dr. Nicole Miller, Chief Academic Officer.

Yough Glades Elementary