http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050516/NEWS0102/505160334/1077/NEWS01
Monday,
May 16, 2005
Sources
of excellence offer examples for Ohio
Enquirer
staff writer
•
Criteria
for selection
(PDF)
The
Ohio Department of Education discovered these five common threads among the
Schools of Promise:
1:
They deliver rigorous instruction aligned to the
standards.
2:
Leadership results in continuous improvement of
instruction.
3:
They design instruction to ensure every student's success.
4:
They engage parents and the community to support student
success.
5:
They create a culture where everyone feels valued.
RELATED
STORIES
•
Celebrate
Ohio's 'Schools of Promise'
(5/17/2005)
•
New
Miami High School
(5/16/2005)
•
Reading
Central Community Elementary
(5/16/2005)
•
Felicity-Franklin
High School
(5/16/2005)
•
Cleveland
Elementary
(5/16/2005)
•
Lockland
High School
(5/16/2005)
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Shroder
Paideia Academy
(5/16/2005)
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Pierce
Elementary
(5/16/2005)
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W.E.B.
DuBois Community School
(5/16/2005)
•
St.
Bernard-Elmwood Place High School
(5/16/2005)
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Felicity-Franklin
Elementary
(5/16/2005)
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Felicity-Franklin
Middle School
(5/16/2005)
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Hughes
Center High School
(5/16/2005)
•
Gilbert
A. Dater High School (5/16/2005)
Reading
Central Community Elementary is so academically successful that the state is
paying researchers to study how they do it.
Many
kindergartners come to school not knowing their alphabet or how to write their
names. More than half the students qualify for free or low-price lunches. Many
come from homes without computers or phones.
Yet
the school has achieved a statewide Excellent rating. This school and 12 others
in Greater Cincinnati are among 102 rated by the Ohio Department of Education as
Schools of Promise.
They're
known for their successes in closing the achievement gap among students from
various socioeconomic, racial and ethnic backgrounds. And now, these
high-performing schools are becoming models for other educators
statewide.
"It's
clear to us that achievement is possible, regardless of where you live, the
color of your skin or the size of your parents' bank account," said Mitch
Chester, assistant state schools superintendent. Chester was among 100 educators
statewide who visited the seven Schools of Promise in Hamilton County last month
to learn how they closed the achievement gap.
What's
their biggest secret? A no-excuses, can-do attitude. If the students aren't
learning, it's not their fault. It's the teaching that needs to be
changed.
These
schools also use data to monitor student progress throughout the year, so
educators don't learn at year's end that some students have fallen
behind.
Instruction
is adjusted and tailored to help students catch up.
Connie
Garafalo, principal at Reading Central Community Elementary, recalled decades
ago when teachers went only by their gut instincts that a student wasn't
learning.
"Unfortunately,
that's kind of why we're in the situation that we are in now with
accountability. Show me on paper. We've got teachers now making graphs, graphing
students, progress monitoring. It's awesome to see. Everybody's doing this," she
told a group of visiting educators.
Laura
White, whose kindergartner attends Reading Central, said she was surprised to
see how her 5-year-old daughter, Mya, blossomed at the school this
year.
Her
daughter, the youngest in her class, was passive and shy in the fall. But with
assistance from her teacher Cheryl Maddux, Mya embraced school, White
said.
"She
made my daughter comfortable," White said. "I think the kids who needed extra
attention at the beginning of the year actually got it. Mya got to sit next to
(Maddux). She got to be her helper. It was just little things like that to get
her acclimated to all the fresh faces."
But
most impressive were the academics, White said.
The
school staff explained at the beginning of the year that kindergartners would be
reading sentences by the end of the year, and they kept that
promise.
"I
never, ever thought my child would be reading books to me at night at this age," she
said.
The
school doesn't have the same resources as wealthier schools, but you'd never
know it, White said. "They're just
dedicated," she said.
Terry
Nichols, a Title 1 reading teacher at Central Community, logs progress reports
in binders as large as phone books.
She
and grade-level teachers track students' scores all the way from kindergarten
through sixth grade. They log information such as reading fluency and
comprehension.
While
talking with four first-graders about a book they had just read, "The Lion and
the Mouse," Nichols noted that one student had trouble identifying the setting
of the story, confusing it with the characters. She explained the difference and
made a note to work on those concepts with the girl again the next
day.
The
recordkeeping is meticulous and time-consuming, but Nichols said good progress
reporting is worth it.
"It
catches kids before they fall through the cracks," she said, pointing to one
student's report that showed trouble with reading comprehension. "He's reading
beautifully, and he can tell the characters, but if I didn't have that marked,
you would not know."
But
it's not all about numbers and data at Central Elementary. The days are filled
with personal touches.
Val
Stacy's kindergarten students stood in line, reading their short stories to her.
"I love pizza. ... I love you, teacher," one girl read.
"And
I love you too. Nice job," Stacy said, hugging her.
Because
Reading is such a small district, there's daily interaction among teachers and
parents, who have a chance to ask about their child's day and how he or she is
doing. "A lot of our parents never
graduated from high school," Garafalo said. "School was not a good place for
them. They don't know how to get engaged."
But
Central has worked hard to forge relationships with parents and make school a
good place for them now. Almost 100 percent of families attend parent-teacher
conferences. Preschoolers and their parents are invited to the school's Parent
Resource Library, where there are activities, and they can check out educational
toys and books.
At
Gilbert A. Dater High School, a Cincinnati Public School with a 47 percent
disadvantaged population, the school's graduation rate last year was 92 percent,
in a district where the graduation rate is 72 percent. More than 90 percent of
Dater seniors went on to college last year, most to four-year
institutions.
When
Ohio educators visited the Price Hill school, they noted examples of rigorous
instruction and a positive culture where students are embraced. Among the
classrooms they saw was Brigette Shell's senior zoology class. On that day,
students were eating alligator jerky while studying
reptiles.
"We
talk about the economic impact of animals on the world," Shell said. "I try to
bring in some outrageous foods, plus it's just fun to get the kids' attention
... It's something that helps make it real life for the students and shows many
facets of zoology."
Dater
is a small high school, by design, with 644 students. Formerly a junior high,
Dater is in its third year as a 7-12 high school.
"We
really are kind of a throwback to the '50s," principal Beverly Eby said. "We are
really a high school that people remember what a high school should be, where
everybody knows everybody, where a principal actually knows who you are and goes
to your events."
"We
had an opportunity to create a culture, develop our own culture and say, 'This
is what we believe,' " Eby said. "We set up mission statements that weren't just
words. It's something we really believe in.
"We
have no throwaway kids here. That's the important thing. It's really one of the
biggest things that's made us successful. All staff people, not just teachers,
have a vested interested, from the custodians to the
secretaries."
About
25 percent of the students are in the Special College Preparatory Program, in
which they take accelerated classes in English, math, science, social studies
and Latin.
Last year, about $700,000 in scholarships were awarded to students in Dater's
Class of 2004.
"We
can't sit back and be totally pleased with what we do," Eby said. "If you
do, you fall behind. There's always a sense of not being satisfied, that we
have to keep moving forward."
E-mail
ckranz@enquirer.com.
Jennifer Mrozowski contributed to this report.