Spring Break – Opportunities for Learning

Next week begins Spring Break for the Greene County schools and many other school districts in the state. Our students and staff will have one week to rest, relax and re-energize, returning on April 9, to complete our school year. But Spring Break is also an opportunity for our parents to help extend the learning of their students; and it is a great opportunity to maximize family time.

I urge parents not to lose the time that Spring Break offers to plan additional activities for student and family learning. If you stay in the county next week, plan day trips for your children. These day trips could start out early in the morning taking sack lunches made at home, and ending early in the afternoon with a return home. The day trips can take students to historic sites in Greensboro, Atlanta, and/or other places within an hour or two driving distance. Day trips allow families to spend time together and also allow students and families to visit a place they have not visited before. Certainly, trips that are longer than a day are great too – they usually take more planning and many times, more money.

The most important part of the trips would be to make certain that you have conversations with your children. Ask your children what they think about the shape of a rock or some plant you might see when you are walking or hiking; ask them why they think the Aquarium in downtown Atlanta was designed that way or why the fish at the Aquarium have such bright colors and why some fish don’t; ask them how they think the dinosaur was put together in the Fernbank Museum of Natural History.

These are good questions to start your conversations with your children. I suggest starting with your own questions, because our children have natural curiosities and there will be more. I encourage good stimulating conversations with children and of course, spending a lot of time listening to what they have to say. In my experience, that is the best way to learn – listening to children.

The best part of the day trip is the return home. This is time for recapping the day and going over what you saw and what was learned. You can also begin the wind down talking about what you will eat for dinner, who will help with the cooking, and who will help with clean-up.

Spring Break can be more than a time of sleeping late every morning and students being bored all day because there is nothing fun to do. It can be a time when families cook meals together; students learn how to prepare a meal, hem a skirt or hem those much too long pants. It can be a time when families talk about the books they have read or want to read; it can be a time when the family sits down to play a game of UNO, checkers or learns to play scrabble; it can be a time for learning how to take pictures of what we did all week using a disposable camera and then to make your very own scrapbook rather than purchasing one.

The biggest enhancer for student learning, motivation and success is having real life experiences. It doesn’t mean that we need to take our children to an island for the week to learn about other cultures. Don’t get me wrong, that is a great spring break trip. However, if you cannot go to an island, think about a family trip to the library and selecting books to take home to READ; think about taking a day trip to Athens to see what a great university looks like. Above all, talk to your children, and listen to what they have to say to you. Spend time enhancing your child’s learning, it is one of the many ways you can help us educate, inspire, challenge and support our students. Remember, it’s all about the children.

Reading is Fundamental!

The Greene County School System and the Greene County Library held a kick-off to their partnership to get our community to read.  Read to the children, read to others who may not be able to read, read for enjoyment.

Thank you to our community friends and neighbors who joined the children in releasing their green and white balloons to celebrate reading in Greene County.

When I was a young girl, I read all of the time.  I could escape in books and discover places in which I could travel and meet new people; I could go to faraway places and learn new things about the people who lived there.  I remember that the books I loved the most in elementary and junior high schools were Nancy Drew mysteries and the books about a talking Pig.  I think his name was Freddie. 

I loved Freddie the Pig books because Freddie talked to the other animals on the farm.  He travelled far and wide and had many, many adventures and shared his stories with the other animals on the farm.  I remember in one book, Freddie was a detective, in another he was a politician, in another he was a pilot and then a magician.  There were so many Freddie books that I could read all day and many nights.  Did I stop and consider that pigs couldn’t talk? NO.  His stories were so fascinating that I did not even stop to think that a talking pig did not make sense!

Reading can do that for you.  Reading can take you places that you may not be able to go by yourself.  Reading can introduce you to people that you have never met before.  And, reading can teach you things you never would think you could learn.

That’s why I think reading is fundamental!

Reading is a skill that everyone must have in order to survive in today’s world.  It is not a 21^st century skill, but an old world skill.  You see, long ago if you could read, you were an important person and you were probably a person of wealth because books cost money.  There were no libraries a long time ago.

Today we have many places to go to find books that won’t cost us anything.  We can find books in our school libraries, books in our homes, and even more books in the county or public libraries.  These books are free to use, to borrow and return to obtain the next book.

Jackie Broderick, Greene County Library Manager, quoted Frederick Douglas by stating, ‘once you learn to read, you will be forever free.’

Ms. Broderick stated, “Reading 15 minutes every Tuesday evening in March from 7-7:15 p.m. will allow us to be free to dream our dreams, reach our goals and aspire to be all we can be.”

Join us in helping our children understand why Reading is Fundamental.  Be a good role model for the children, read at least one day a week – Tuesdays in March.  Of course this “is all about the children.”

The start of a New Year – tips to make reading an enjoyable experience

With the start of each new year, we are incline to make resolutions we feel will help improve either our lives or the lives of our loved ones. Whether we pledge to lose that unwanted weight, spend more time with our families, or volunteer more, we begin each year with a new zest on life. This year, I encourage our parents – especially those who have children in grades kindergarten through 5 – to spend more time reading with them. Reading helps boost vocabulary, while allowing your child to learn about different people, places, and things.

Below are a few tips for you to use to make reading an enjoyable and positive experience for both you and your child.

1.      Predicting. Look at the book cover together and talk about what the book might be about. What story will be told? What is the main topic and what might the main character be like?

2.      Read familiar books over and over again. Children need practice in how to read comfortably – and with expression – using books they know.

3.      Build reading accuracy. As your child is reading aloud, point out words he/she misses and help him/her read words correctly. If you stop to focus on a word, have your child reread the whole sentence to be sure he/she understands the meaning of the word.

4.      Build reading comprehension. Talk with your child about what he/she is reading.  Ask about new words. Talk about what happened in a story. Ask about the characters, places, and events that take place. Ask what new information he/she has learned from the book. Encourage him/her to read labels, etc. on his/her own.

5.      Share conversation with your child over meal times and other times you are together. Children learn words easily when they hear them spoken often.

6.      Read together every day. Spend time talking about stories, pictures, and words.

7.      Be your child’s best advocate. Stay informed about your child’s progress in reading. Talk with your child’s teacher and principal about expectations, assignments, and needs, and work with them to help your child learn.

8.      Be an active reader and writer. Children learn habits from the people around them.

9.      Visit the library often. Story time, computers, and homework help are available for the entire family.

I wish each of you a wonderful year full of good books and a renewed passion for reading. Remember, “it’s all about our children.”

Happy Holidays

As the end of another year draws to an end, I would like to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year filled with joy, love and good health. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank you for the many hours you have devoted to our students. Whether you spent hours mentoring our elementary and middle school students, reading to preschoolers or tutoring our high school students, your work did not go unnoticed. To those of you who helped welcome our students back to school on Day One or donated school supplies and clothes to help make the first day of school special, I say thank you.

I could go on and on, telling you about the many friends and neighbors that have helped us help the students.  You have been the community that has partnered with our schools and our staff in an effort to help them learn and to be ready for the world after high school! 

As we all celebrate the holidays with family and friends, remember this is the perfect time to tell the people we care about how much we care about them.

Blessings to all of you this holiday season.

Happy Thanksgiving!

What am I thankful for this Thanksgiving? As I ask myself this question, I am reminded of all the many things I hold special in my life. I think of my family and friends, but most importantly I think of the 2,200 students that walk the halls of our schools each day. I think of how important our jobs are and how it is up to each employee in this school district to help educate, encourage, inspire and challenge these young people to be the best they can be. We are a family here; a family that is united and committed to educating our students.

Without our teachers, staff, students and yes, parents; we would not be able to call ourselves a family. We would be nothing but buildings and equipment. And Greene County School District is more than just buildings, books, computers, playgroup equipment and buses. A school district is the body of people who study and teach and learn in it, who fill each building’s hallways every day. A school district is the warm faces that greet you when you walk in one of the buildings.

As this Thanksgiving holiday approaches I am reminded of the smiling faces I see daily as our Preschool students move throughout our building each day. It is those faces that make me thankful for Greene County and the residents of this county. Those faces are our future and it is a blessing to know that I have the opportunity to serve them and all the students in this school system.

So as I think of what I am thankful for I would be remiss not to include the members of our community who do not have children in our school district, but are willing to support this school district all the same. You serve as volunteers in our schools, mentors to our students and you help prepare our students on their job-readiness skills. Many of you are willing to assist a student if they are in need of a uniform, a computer for home or a donation for a fieldtrip. You are a part of our family as well.

So as we all begin preparing for Thanksgiving, I encourage each of you to take a few moments to spend some time in reflection, remembering the journey and paths we have travelled and think about those things for which we are thankful. I’m sure you will be amazed at how many things you are thankful for.

My fondest hopes are that your Thanksgiving is filled with special moments with family and friends.

It's all about the children

When I came to Greene County, I knew that we had a lot of work to do with the children in this county.  One of the ways “choice” emerges is because people want “another” way.  In the case of school systems, people want choice in educational opportunities.  This is not a new phenomenon; it began with magnet schools and magnet programs.

Yes, we do have a lot of work to do in the school district; students not being able to read was not new, we just did not know how far behind they were.  How did they get there?  Good question, but we do know that we must stop moving students forward if they cannot do the work.  This issue was more magnified when the AYP bar was raised to a higher level last school year.  (And will be raised again for the 2011-12 school year.)  However, NCLB and AYP forced our school system to become more transparent and staff in the schools became more accountable.  Believe it or not, some people still do not understand what all of this means.

Since early 2009, we have:

• Put the International Baccalaureate Program in place in our middle school; we have raised the rigor of learning and students are responding; not all but in far greater numbers than before; this meant a re-training of teachers in strategies that would motivate and engage student learning – it's working and the students who will have been in this program for three full years will be in high school next year!
• Developed and added a violin program beginning in kindergarten; these students outscore all students in their grade level on the CRCT test scores in proficiency and exceeding in reading & math; - this program is working; I believe it is because the parents are so involved; and now we have over 100 students participating.
• Last year, we purchased a tool for measuring student outcomes, the NWEA test; this is a nationally normed test that lets us know precisely where all of our students were on grade level as compared to other students in the nation; surprise, many of our students were behind, more than 50 percent in our high school reading at very low grade levels; did the teachers know this, yes, they did – they just did not know how far behind the students were.
• Last spring, we applied for a grant to help us begin the work that needed to be done with the high school; a grant that would provide for staff needed and programs that might engage students and get their commitment for learning; this grant provides more than 4 million dollars over a three-year period to “shake things up” and get us on the right track for student academic achievement.
• Year two of this grant provides for more structured parent involvement in the learning process – we will go out into the community to talk to parents, since they are not coming into the schools.

Further, this year the following directives have been given to principals and staff -

• Kindergarten students must know the 200 site words by the end of the school year; this is one of the expectations that needs to be fulfilled in order for students to be reading on grade level.
• Third grade students must learn their times tables by the end of the first semester; parents must assist them in this effort.
• Parents must come and pick up the report cards of the first and third marking periods and meet with their child's teacher; failure to do so will mean an appointment with the principal and the teacher to discuss student progress; the Board of Education created a policy on this last year at the request of the superintendent.
• We will identify all students in the 2012 graduation class and monitor their classroom performance to ensure completion and high school graduation; which will be difficult assuming that some of these students may be reading at less than a 9th grade level.  Moreover, several more of these students have not achieved the number of course credits necessary for graduation.
• Students will speak in complete sentences in responding to questions in classrooms.

This is a continuation of work that has begun.  We do know that our students have made progress; our students have made gains – just not enough to make the annually increasing bar that they must surpass.  We have the numbers, we have the data.  We hope the community will begin to understand what the challenges are and have been.

Perhaps it was not noticed before, as the bar was low enough for even lagging students to pass. However, AYP requires that states have annual measurable objectives (AMO's) that increase every year – this means the bar gets higher and higher.  We can catch a kid up one year or more and sometimes two years – this is difficult work and I applaud our teachers for getting the job done. However, as the bar goes up to 100 and next year we are required to get to 95 percent and students are at 87 percent - you can see the difficulty.

I hope this begins to answer some of the questions our Community and Friends have.  You have heard this before, but it “does take the Queen Mary a while to make the 180 degree turn.” We are in the process of turning and it will take a few more years to approach the 180 mark!  Continue to support our work; we do it because it is all about the children.

My Thoughts on AYP

Nationally, US Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan has predicted that approximately 83% of the public schools in America will not make AYP.  In Georgia, this past year, 63% of the school districts did not make AYP. Because we know what the AMO (Annual Measurable Objectives) numbers are, we know what percentage of our students will need to pass the tests over the next three years.  We know that 2012 “cut scores” for Math will be 83.8%; for 2013, the “cut scores” will be 91.9%; and for 2014, the “cut scores” will be 100%.  These cut scores follow the trajectory required by NCLB, “100% of this nation’s children will achieve proficiency on the state level exams that they take by the 2014.” 

Georgia’s path began in 2003 where mastery required that 50% of students meet proficiency levels for two years in a row.  In 2005, proficiency requirements jumped to 58.3% and stayed there until 2008.  In 2008, the Math AMO’s jumped to 59.5%, staying there until 2010, when scores jumped to 67.6%.  As you can see the road to 2014, is marked with sharp inclines in the percentages of students expected to achieve proficiency, as 2011 required 75.7% of students exhibit proficiency and 2012 will require that 83.8% demonstrate proficiency.  Perhaps this is why the Secretary of Education is now permitting states to submit waivers.

Greene County Schools System (GCSS) has received its preliminary results for the Criterion Referenced Competency Tests for grades 3 through 8 for the 2010-2011, school year.  These final results (includes re-tests) are yet to be published by the state department of education.  However, we share the final results as determined by school district records.

Greene County Preliminary CRCT Results

2010-11 School Year

Union Point Elementary School made AYP as did our Charter School – LOA.  Union Point became a Distinguished Title I School, as they have made AYP three years in a row now.

We compared our 2000-2010 scores to our 2010-2011 scores.  In General the following occurred:

In Reading, Improvements in 5 of   6  Grades Compared to 09-10

In English/Language Arts, Improvements in 4 of 6  Grades Compared to 09-10

In Math, Improvements in 4 of 6  Grades Compared to 09-10

In Science, Improvements in  3 of 6  Grades Compared to 09-10

In Social Studies, Improvements in   3  of  6  Grades Compared to 09-10

In Reading Language Arts, an AYP subject, 88.3 % of Greene County students in grades three through 8 met or exceeded standards on the CRCTs in 2009-10. (Preliminary results for 2010-11 showed   90.5 %* meeting or exceeding standards.)  *Includes Re-Tests

In Math, an AYP subject, 70.5 % of Greene County students in grades three through 8 met or exceeded standards on the CRCTs in 2009-10. (Preliminary results for 2010-11 showed    75 %* meeting or exceeding standards.) *Includes Re-Tests

3rd Grade: é 1.5% (+)

4th Grade: ê 8.5%  (-)

5th Grade: é 6.5%  (+)

6th Grade: é 2.0% (+)

7th Grade: é 2.0% (+)

8th Grade: é 3.0% (+)

In English/Language Arts, GCSS demonstrated improvement in   4  of   6   grades shown below:

3rd Grade: é    9.0% (  +  )

4th Grade: ê 14.5%  (  -   )

5th Grade: é    3.0%  (  +  )

6th Grade: ê   1.0%  (  -   )

7th Grade: é    5.0%  (  +  )

8th Grade: é   4.0%  (  +  )

In Math, GCSS demonstrated improvement in   4  of    6  grades as shown below:

3rd Grade: é    1.5%  (+)

4th Grade: ê 10.5%  (-)

5th Grade: é    6.5%  (+) 

6th Grade: é   2.0%  (+)

7th Grade: ê   6.0%  (-) 

8th Grade: é 16.5%  (+)

In Science, GCSS demonstrated improvement in   3  of   6  grades as shown below:

3rd Grade: é 2.0%  (+) 

4th Grade: é 12.0% (-)

5th Grade: é 1.5%  (+) 

6th Grade: ê  1.0%  (-) 

7th Grade: ê   3.0%  (-)

8th Grade: é 12.0% (+) 

In Social Studies, GCSS demonstrated improvement in   3    of   6  grades as shown below:

3rd Grade: é 23.0%  (+)

4th Grade: ê 12.0%   (-) 

5th Grade: é    1.5% (-) 

6th Grade: é    20.5%  (+)

7th Grade: ê    22.0%  (-) 

8th Grade: é      8.0%  (+)  

Although No Child Left Behind has its many faults, one important outgrowth of the law has been a focus on using student assessment data to drive instruction. The other and perhaps the most important is the intent of the law to cause us to focus on all of the students.  Because we must look at subgroups of students, as well as, total student scores, we have opportunities to see where student need is and what students have the need.

This last school year, while three of our five schools did not make AYP, we did see marked improvement at the grade levels.  However, we still have more work to do.  We will share best practices and celebrate the teachers who have demonstrated 100% proficiency on these same tests with their students.  We know that they have been able to obtain success; what we need to learn is how they have been able to do it.  We will work together, collaborating as we work, because it is all about the children.