Alcester-Hudson, S.D. — The
teachers and staff at Alcester-Hudson
Elementary were disappointed three years ago when their school
was named as one in need of improvement under federal standards.
The teachers, many of whom had 20 years of experience, felt they had been doing their best. It was a difficult lesson for everybody at the district, 40 miles south of Sioux Falls, but it stuck.
Today, Alcester-Hudson's 150 elementary students are exceeding standards, and the school has worked its way off the improvement list established by the No Child Left Behind law.
If there's a broader moral in that experience for the 30 South Dakota schools still in need of improvement, it's to see the listing as a blessing rather than a curse.
"Being put on school improvement was one of the best things that happened to our schools," said Kathy Johannsen, who is test, technology and school improvement coordinator at Alcester.
It's a situation that more districts may find themselves in when new test scores under the federal No Child Left Behind program are released next month.
Of 172 school districts in the state last year, 111 are "on alert" in at least one subject. Within those districts, 212 schools face the possibility of failing to meet federal requirements. If students fail to score high enough, any of those schools could be in their first year of the school improvement process.
"We're really affecting many more schools and districts this year," said Diane Lowery, coordinator of the state's No Child Left Behind program.
In Sioux Falls, two schools are on the list now: Laura B. Anderson and Hawthorne elementaries. A third, Jane Addams Elementary, was on the list but is no longer a school because students will attend Garfield Elementary next year.
All but eight of the schools in the Sioux Falls School District were on alert last time around and are at risk of entering school improvement.
For Alcester, which made it into the needing-to-improve category based on federal regulations before No Child Left Behind, school improvement has meant an entire climate change. Students want to be in class and teachers closely follow curriculum standards and the school's goals, the educators said.
"Our teachers have become such cheerleaders for these kids," Johannsen said. "The kids really strive to do their best."
Getting on the list is generally considered undesirable because of corrective steps schools have to take when they are singled out. But schools in need of improving do get help with data and education expertise.
Title I schools, determined by whether there is a number of students living in poverty, also get financial help to improve, money that typically is spent on teacher training or compensation. Last year, South Dakota schools split $608,000. This coming year, schools will share $1.36 million, Lowery said.
The process Alcester followed would be similar for any school that finds itself in need of improvement, she said.
"It's not easy for schools and districts to go through the process. It takes a lot of work, a lot of commitment both from administrators and the teachers," Lowery said. "It's probably a process that's new to some of our schools."
Teachers take charge
Schools that fail to make the grade have to write a school improvement plan that involves administration, teachers and parents, for example. They also have to show results for two years in a row before getting their name off the list.
In Alcester's case, the process helped teachers coordinate more with each other, take ownership of specific curriculum standards and revamp some old lessons to meet today's state requirements, Johannsen said. Content standards are posted in each classroom so students know what they will be learning that day.
The school has also eliminated classes such as gym and music from the first 90 minutes of the day and the first 90 minutes after lunch. Those times are spent uninterrupted on math and language arts instruction, she said.
"It's easy in an elementary school to become a building of one room school houses where each room is an island unto itself," she said.
Instead, teachers now work together more and seek each other's advice in helping students who aren't progressing.
Leap in test scores
Schoolwide, 88 percent of Alcester students are proficient in reading and 85 percent are proficient in math. Those scores are far above the state proficiency rate of 71 percent in reading and 59 percent in math.
Alcester has made its strides despite changes in administration. The school has had three different principals in three years. Teachers stepped in and provided team leadership and the ideas that needed to be implemented.
"The challenge was put out there that we could become a distinguished school. That's our goal now," Johannsen said.
Parent Mary Beth Lundberg has seen changes in the school since her daughter Jessica, who will be a sophomore, was an elementary student. Her fifth-grade son, Derrick, is almost a grade level ahead of where her daughter was at that age because of the emphasis on learning.
"In the five years between them, they've really changed not only what they teach but how they teach," Lundberg said. "They definitely pay more attention to the content standards and what is taught at each grade. They keep the classroom fun. They didn't eliminate that."
As a result, her younger child is more equipped for the rigor and the transition to junior high in a few years, she said.
Teachers also are better able to explain to parents what they're teaching, why and what is expected of their children, she said. In the past, that information came across as more of a guess, she said.
When science is added in the future as a subject students must master under federal standards, Alcester classrooms will be ready, Lundberg said.
"The teachers are ready to look into it and figure it out. They've already approached the parents," she said. "About five years ago, it kind of would have broad-sided us."
Overcoming poverty
It may be more difficult for many schools on the list to make changes in test scores. Many of those schools are on or near Native American reservations and struggle with finding teachers. They have a high percentage of students living in poverty and a higher-than-average percentage of students who move in and out of the schools.
The Newell School District, in ranch country north of Sturgis, initially found two of its schools on the list of those that needed to improve. The middle school has since moved off the list, Lowery said. But the elementary school still is working through the process.
School CEO Tim McCann said the school's scores weren't terrible before getting on school improvement, but students weren't improving overall either.
Shift in outlook, approach
The improvement process focused the school on specific areas in which to get better and helped them implement a more academic focus.
McCann said he thinks the school will get off the list this year.
"The staff has done a lot of work, a lot of collaborating together," he said. "I think it refreshed a lot of teachers."
The entire outlook of the school changed, he said.
"Our focus has been from teachers teaching to students learning," he said.
When teachers looked at how each student learns best, their teaching improved, he said.
The school has had some fun in the process and changed student attitudes as well.
"We are having academic pep rallies," McCann said. "We get the band there. We have the kids do chants. We have some competitions between the classes."
In the middle school, the class with the highest grade-point average for each quarter earned a pizza party.
Involving students
The staff at Newell held assemblies telling students what they expect and asking for help to make the school the best in the state.
"We said, 'Are you in favor of it?' We took votes from the kids," McCann said. The result: 97 percent of the kids voted to do the extra work.
At both schools, change met with some resistance, educators said.
"There's a lot of resistance to change in everything," Johannsen said.
But when teachers started seeing results, she said they were more excited about the new approaches.
"I don't hear a lot of grumbling from teachers about changing things because it's decisions they made," Johannsen said. "The atmosphere has been created that you can just say if you have a concern."
Fourth-grade teacher Olive Scott said the change for her was to do much more planning to make sure she was teaching all the state standards.
"If we had a special little hobby unit we like to do but it didn't cover our standards then we maybe didn't do it or made it a little short unit rather than 10 days," she said. "We found ways we can incorporate fun things and still incorporate the standards."
Consultant help
Through the school improvement process, both schools have had help and monthly visits from consultants with Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning in Colorado. The schools receive expertise from education researchers, about a $50,000 annual value for each school, and the McREL consultants have been able to test strategies to see what will work for other schools that need to improve.
Mike Galvin, a senior consultant with McREL, said one of the biggest factors that he saw in helping Alcester improve was determination.
"They're a really dedicated group of teachers," he said. "There was a huge motivation to improve on their part."
In addition, the school staff learned to use data, took on the task of leadership, defined a common focus and shared the responsibilities to improve, the McREL consultants said.
Teachers also learned ways to better measure student progress rather than relying on a once-a-year standardized test, Galvin said. That's not often enough, he said.
With quicker feedback, teachers can change their approach part way through several weeks working on fractions, for example, rather than waiting to see after they're done whether their lessons worked.
Although Alcester-Hudson doesn't know whether it will reach its high scoring standards this year, educators are hopeful. The school has taken steps designed to sustain student improvement and has worked a year on just that aspect of improvement.
"They have come together as a staff with a common focus. The communication in that school is great and very different than it used to be," Galvin said. "They're very, very focused on the change process and working together."
Reprinted with permission.
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McREL is a nationally recognized, private, nonprofit organization
located in Aurora, Colo., dedicated to improving education for
all students through applied research, product development and
service. Its staff of highly respected educators and researchers
focuses on providing educators and policymakers with the highest
quality, field-tested, research-based products and services available
in PreK–16 education.
