Rock Quarry Elementary (Tuscaloosa City) Instructional Round

May 2- Rock Quarry Elementary (Tuscaloosa City) 
Grades: K-5
# Students: 535
Demographics: 79.3% white, 8.2 % African American, 7.5% Asian/Other
We serve a large number of ELL students. We have 17 different languages represented in our building.
F/R lunch: 11.6%
Registration: 8:15 a.m.
Begin: 8:30 a.m.
End: 2:30 p.m.
What can participants expect to see when they visit?
It is our sincere desire that when people visit RQE they immediately feel a warm and welcoming culture where adults and children enjoy spending their days together. Our faculty reflects a mix of veteran and novice teachers. This combination yields a blend of established practices and experience with new styles and strategies. We enjoy learning from each other and plan as grade levels and vertically on a regular basis to extend our professional learning. RQE has participated in the PCN process for the past three years. During this period of time, our team has shared our PCN “best practice” learning at our local school level through professional learning called “RQE Learns”. We have focused our learning on using research based programs (Reading Street and Investigations-Math), strategies and practices. We use common core standards to plan our instruction and utilize learning targets to guide student based learning. The use of learning targets and checks for understanding has been the focus of our RQE Learns professional learning. In addition, we have included recently extending our questioning strategies to higher levels and extending our writing curriculum/practice to include exemplar writing.
Our teachers strive to provide a high level of academic conversation/discourse in the classroom experience and extend learning through the use of academic vocabulary in daily learning practices.
We have a strong student support RTI planning team at RQE. Our administrative team meets with each grade level on a monthly basis to review student data (academic, behavioral, attendance and etc) and plan interventions to meet student needs.
We strive at RQE to demonstrate a culture of excellence in our learning.