• Attendance Rates
• Discipline Rates
• Numbers of 504 students
• Numbers of FARMS students
• LEP (Limited English Proficiency) students
• Special Education student enrollment
• Student Mobility Rate
• Quarterly Assessments scores - English
• Quarterly Assessments scores - Mathematics
• PARCC Scores - Mathematics (Elementary grades 3, 4, 5)
• PARCC Scores - English/Language Arts (Elementary grades 3, 4, 5)

Key Challenge #1: Mobility, assessment data

Due to the nature of our location and population served, our students and families are highly transient, routinely experiencing deployments and stressful work situations. This high mobility rate impacts our ability to target our students’ direct instruction needs. We don’t always receive student records from previous schools, so we don’t have access to information such as Quarterly Assessment data, reading levels, and PARCC scores that we would typically use to accurately assess a student’s instructional level or needs. In some cases, lack of consistency from year to year means we have to start all over with newly-arrived students instead of building on the solid foundation of previous schooling. Depending on where their families are in the deployment cycle, students may not be able to focus on their education because their emotional needs need to be addressed.As a result, we are implementing and expanding our Restorative Practices routines and structures to be prepared to support students and families (Indicator 6)

Key Challenge #3: Academic Performance

Due to high mobility and the intense nature of our families’ work, academic progress is difficult to measure and often paints an inconsistent picture of the school’s success.  The students we assess in the fall are frequently not the students we assess in the spring. Additionally, students experiencing mobility, deployments, and stress struggle to make expected academic gains. This impacts reading proficiency, quarterly assessment data, and state assessment data. A significant number of our students are referred to CDM, 504, and IEP processes. (Indicator 6)

• Student Mobility
• Families in Crisis (mental, physical emotional, financial)

Key Challenge #2: SEL/Mental Health

Our students are prone to increased incidence of social-emotional and mental health challenges. One reason for this is the stressful nature of military-related moves and deployments. Many families are deployed to Fort Meade, supporting the United States from behind a desk and bearing the weight of our country on their shoulders. The additional strain that comes from being a member of a military family has a significant impact on the mental health of many of our students.

In addition, Ft. Meade has an Exception Family Member Program (EFMP) which is a mandatory Department of the Army enrollment program for active duty service members that provides comprehensive and community support, housing, educational, medical and personnel services for those military families with special needs. The family members’ exceptional needs are taken into consideration in the military personnel assignment process. Therefore, the special needs may be the reason the family comes to Ft. Meade or is able to stay at Ft. Meade, so we have a higher percentage of students with special needs than many other schools.

Although we do have programs to address student needs, including our partnership with ITS to provide mental health services to students, we still see an increased need for counseling services and individual student support. Circumstances in their lives often mean that our students are not emotionally available for learning. This impacts their ability to participate daily in class instruction which in turn impacts their academic achievement. (Indicator 3)

• Socio-economic community issues (employment, income levels, housing costs)
• Access (or lack of access) to community academic support programs