Meet our Volunteer of the Year!

Nine years ago Nancy Whitaker had a dream and believed that she was being called to teach children to read. Rather than just tucking the dream away, she decided to take action. Nancy works at Landstar and decided to reach out to her nearest public school, Chets Creek Elementary, and volunteer some time during lunch. Before long it was obvious to Nancy that Chets Creek had many, many students that she could help but it was too many for her to help alone. She enlisted her colleague Sandy Adams and they in turn enlisted the colleagues in their office to join them during their lunch time at the school.

Nine years later, Nancy, with Sandy's most capable assistance, heads the Landstar Tutoring program that has touched hundreds of first graders over the years. They bring 30-40 tutors each year who come for a half hour during lunch and read one-on-one with a specific student. During lunch on Tuesdays - Wednesdays - Thursdays you can see them in the hallways in children-sized chairs or in the Media Center sitting side by side quiety talking and laughing and reading together. More recently we have even been able to match some of our Second Language Learners with native speaking tutors from Landstar! Over the years the program has grown to include chess tutors who come to teach our gifted students to play chess and offer them challenging chess matches. We also have a large group of mentors, many of them men, who mentor some of our 4th and 5th grade students under the direction of Liz Duncan, our Behavior Therapist. All of this - because one woman had a dream and acted on it.

A couple of years ago a parent called me to complain that her 1st grader needed a Landstar tutor. She explained that her older child had had a tutor and that had made all the difference. I explained to her that we just didn't have enough tutors to include her 1st grader. She was quite frustrated with me and said, "Well, where can I buy that Landstar program. I'll just buy it and teach it to my child myself!" But that's the whole point, you can't buy this program - there's not enough money in the world - because it's about relationships. It's about service.

This year our PTA selected Nancy Whitaker as our PTA Volunteer of the Year. I can't think of a better choice. Nancy has never had a child at Chets Creek. She gives because she is called - servant leadership. Oh, that we all could follow her example...

At-risk Discussions

Today the principal met with each grade level during their traditional Teacher Meeting time. She asked each teacher in turn about the children in her Progress Monitoring notebook that were"at-risk." She has a notebook for each grade level. She looked at each child's Diagnostic scores, she wanted to know if a PMP (Progress Monitoring Plan signed by the parent) had been written, if a retention note had been sent, if the child had ever been retained, if the child had been referred to the  Intervention Team and what the teacher was doing to make sure that the child would be as successful as possible. The Guidance Counselor also attended the meetings all day making notes of children who need to be seen because they are going through a hard time or whose parents need a call or families who may need help with repeat head lice causing repeated absences or children who just need motivation or maybe a mentor. Next week teachers, administrators, paraprofessionals, office staff and custodians will be asked to step up and "mentor" one of these identified children.

In kindergarten we discussed about 30 children, noting that many of them were siblings of those identified earlier in the day. What sets these discussions apart is that teachers bring their data. They know their children and can quickly list the interventions - Reading Mastery with Julie, a parent volunteer coming in to drill letters and sounds, multiple parent conferences, small group or one-to-one work, Target interventions - that they are using to make a difference. You cannot hide in these meetings because you are held accountable, but the conversation is also not threatening. The other thing you feel in these meetings is that teachers really care about children. You don't hear sarcasm and snide remarks. The teachers don't spend time blaming parents or making excuses. They are reflective. They ask questions. They ask for help when they need it... and I hope they leave with a more cohesive plan of action. That, after all, is what this day is all about!

State Of the School

Today, as is the tradition, Susan Phillips, Principal of Chets Creek, delivered her "State of the School" address. Each year the principal goes through several slides that show the faculty where each grade level is at this time of year based on the "Chets Creek Diagnostic." These K-5 assessments in Reading and Math (and 5th Grade Science) were written by Chets Creek teachers and have been edited and revised over the years. Each assessment is given three times a year. We use this data to analyze where we are compared to previous years and to predict how we will do on our state mandated test, the FCAT. Because we have historical data, we are able to predict our success within a few percentage points! This data also helps us identify and target the "bubble" kids that can go either way and that will need that extra push of intervention in these last few weeks.

Our principal reminds us of our targets - not as a scare tactic, but as a reality check. Can we really improve on 97% of our bottom quartile kids making gains? She emphasizes how important K-2 teachers are to this process, even though they are not part of the state's test. She realizes that our 3rd - 4th - and 5th grade scores stand on the shoulders of the strength of our primary school. She also reminds us again today that it is about relationships. "If you can't relate to a particular child, then find someone who can. It might be a kindergarten teacher, a teacher assistant, someone from the office, one of the custodians, but find someone that will care and hold that child accountable." We know, from research and from our experiences, that children that feel like someone cares will work harder and will want to succeed, not only on a test, but in life.

The principal ends her speech today by asking each of us to take out our dream journals and to respond to several statements, including, "Within our reach lies every path we have ever dreamed of taking. Reflect on the path that you need to take in these next few weeks to prepare your students for our state assessment." And finally, "What is the gift that you can bring to your neediest children right now?" Dreaming is how we get there, but life is the path that we take.

Safety Nets

Kindergartners enter their first year wide-eyed and eager to learn. They believe learning is easy, fun and EXCITING! However, they come with widely different preparations. Because of this we devote more energy and time, more attention, and more resources to our earliest learners at Chets Creek. We don't wait to see which children will figure it out and which students will still be struggling at the end of the year. We take advantage of what we know about early intervention and provide immediately for students that start the year behind our entering benchmarks. We identify these children in the first weeks of school and then provide daily"safety nets."

For some children small group work in the classroom every day is enough of a safety net, but for some of our others, we provide a more intensive intervention. It does not mean that we don't expect these students to meet the end of the year expectation, but it does mean that we want to catch them before they fall and prevent challenges later. In groups of 5-6 we pull these students for a 40 minute intervention with a certified teacher during their Literacy Block. The idea is that these children will have a small, intensive intervention without distractions and at the same time, the classroom teacher will have a smaller group of children so she can concentrate on other small groups. Because we use Readers' and Writers' Workshop in our general education classroom, we looked for an intervention that was different. Instead of more of the same, we were looking for a way to address the diversity of learning styles. We chose Reading Mastery because of its direct, explicit teaching that concentrates on phonics and phonemic awareness. This is our eighth year of using this intervention, and we feel it provides a safety net that catches many students so that they can move to the next grade level as confident learners. To prevent the common pitfalls of "pull-out" we have attached each of our safety net teachers to a regular kindergarten class where she spends her afternoons as a co-teacher. This keeps her "in the loop" instead of an island and prevents the problems often found in a pull-out intervention. Providing early intervention with a strong teacher in a small group is a cornerstone of what we believe about making a difference for each and every learner in kindergarten.