A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Elementary Schools

Academic Success Through
a "Full Service" School

OVERVIEW

Fienberg Fisher Elementary School is a "full-service" school where highly trained teachers, committed parents, and invested community partners combine academic, social, emotional, and health services to minimize the obstacles that keep students from achieving challenging academic standards. In striving for all students to become "independent, lifelong, academically successful, and healthy learners," the school adopted the Comer School Development Program in the 1991-92 school year to implement its schoolwide program. Continuing needs assessments have increased the school's focus on literacy, and, through a schoolwide reassessment, Fienberg Fisher upgraded and expanded its reading program in 1997.

Consensus is the primary decision-making strategy at Fienberg Fisher, so when principal Grace Nebb saw the opportunity to become a schoolwide in 1991, she turned to teachers, administrators, parents, and community leaders to help decide the school's new direction. "We saw the opportunity to eliminate little segments of education and to look at high academics instead of only remedial [interventions]," explained Nebb. Combining Title I and Bilingual Education Funds Act with other state-sponsored and foundation grants enabled Fienberg Fisher to implement these reforms.

Fienberg Fisher's instructional program meets the needs of its diverse student population, which includes a large Hispanic community as well as many newly arrived immigrant families. The school provides a strong safety net of social and human services and an intensive academic program. In the mid-1990s, when the school's comprehensive needs assessment revealed years of stagnant reading scores, the staff made literacy its academic focus and adopted a phonics-based literacy program with extended literacy development through writing and literature.

The school serves a diverse, low-income community that is largely Hispanic, but also includes new immigrant and African American families.

Grade Levels PreK-6 Number of Students (1997-98) 891 Schoolwide Since 1991-92 Racial/Ethnic Composition 77%  Hispanic 10%  African American 10%  White

VISION, LEADERSHIP, AND DECISION MAKING

The Comer philosophy encourages a team approach to school leadership that involves all adults who have a stake in children's education. The Educational Excellence Council (EEC) is the Fienberg Fisher decision-making body, and its members include representative administrators, teachers, and paraprofessionals;community participants include parents from partner agencies such as the police department, housing authority, a local health clinic, the mayor's office, Barry College, and the University of Miami. The EEC meets monthly to keep student and school improvement needs in clear focus. Four subcommittees each concentrate on a different school component: (1) the school improvement plan, (2) the school budget, (3) student discipline, and (4) an adult issues committee. After the EEC establishes the priorities and objectives of the school improvement plan, the subcommittee assigned to develop the plan devises ways to implement the priorities and then reports back to the EEC for its consensus. Both formal and informal dissemination strategies keep the large Fienberg Fisher community informed of decisions. To keep communications personal, EEC members ask those who attend each meeting to notify at least five people about the topics discussed or decisions reached. This personal feedback technique creates a "pyramid structure" for involving others, explained the principal, and it is a quick means of assessing community reactions to decisions.

STUDENT PERFORMANCE RESULTS

When cluster analyses by grade and subject showed flat reading scores, the EEC adopted SRA Reading Mastery. One of the attractions of this program is its continuous monitoring and assessment system. At the beginning of the year, students take a pretest that enables teachers to group them; as students develop their skills, they advance to the next level so no student need wait until the whole group goes forward. After every fifth lesson, teachers reassess students' reading rate and accuracy; after 20 lessons, students take comprehension mastery tests. Individual student profiles assess students' literacy skills and identify areas in which students may need additional academic support. In mathematics, pre-and post-competency-based curriculum tests, portfolios and projects, teacher-designed tests, and student competitions measure and track student academic growth and focus attention on student areas of weakness.

Every year, Fienberg Fisher students show significant progress. From 1994 to 1997, students in the fourth grade advanced 11 percentiles on the Stanford Achievement Tests in reading comprehension and mathematics applications. Students in other grades showed similar gains. In addition, the median percentile for all grades on the Stanford Achievement Tests between 1994 and 1996 increased by 5 percent in mathematics computation, 9 percent in mathematics applications, and 18 percent in science. Between 1995 and 1997, the average score for fourth-graders on the Florida Writing Assessment, which uses a scale of one through six, increased from 2.4 to 3.3.

RESEARCH-BASED REFORM STRATEGIES

In addition to its built-in monitoring system, the SRA Reading Mastery program contained other features that particularly suited Fienberg Fisher: an extensive training and modeling so that more staff and parents could implement the curriculum; an organizational strategy to increase daily reading and decrease class size; and a "direct" instructional approach, using coordinated basal readers and a common instructional style, that made teaching consistent across all classrooms. According to the school's language arts coach, the detailed SRA curriculum "has a little bit for everyone," such as decoding and comprehension, thinking skills and strategies, and language and literature instruction appropriate for students at all instructional levels. Extensive staff development ensures instructional coordination and quality, and engages more adults to teach reading, reducing the student-teacher ratio for literacy instruction. The school adopted a flexible block schedule to allow the science, physical education, and bilingual specialists to teach reading, while under the watchful eye of students' primary reading teachers. That way, during the language arts block in every grade, four or five trained reading instructors are teaching small groups of students at their instructional levels.

SRA Mastery Reading offers a little bit for everyone—decoding and comprehension; thinking skills and problem-solving strategies; and language, writing, and literature instruction—all taught in small groups by well-trained teachers.

During this small-group time, teachers devote 75 minutes to Reading Mastery skills, phonics, vocabulary, and reading fluency. They practice a "no errors" philosophy in which every student's effort is immediately corrected, if necessary, so that students cannot fall behind their peers. In addition, students learn to recognize how to use language effectively—in the remaining 45 minutes of the language arts block, teachers extend reading instruction to include writing, literature reading, and comprehension activities. The structure and flexibility of the program give less specialized teachers and some parents guidelines for assisting with the lessons while enabling the experienced reading specialists to monitor students' progress closely and to assign appropriate supplementary activities and projects.

Fienberg Fisher also incorporates the resources of a modern computer laboratory into its instructional program. The school is a pilot center for IBM's "Eduquest," a computer-based curriculum that puts multiple resources across content areas in students' classrooms by networking computers to large software instructional libraries. Thanks to the computerized curriculum, students can work on activities appropriate to their instructional level while teachers monitor their work. Two students from the same grade can sit side-by-side at the computer bank yet be working at two different instructional levels. In addition, ESL and LEP students can sit at a computer and get directions in Spanish for using the dual-language CD-ROMs. The Eduquest network provides computerized instructional programs, so teachers can readily make flexible decisions about appropriate assignments and students can access those programs whenever they are in class. Although some teachers were initially skeptical about using computer-based curricula to supplement their standards program, they were soon won over by its accessibility and students' responsiveness. In 1998, four teachers applied for advanced degrees in technology education to further their ability to integrate technology and teaching on students' behalf.

Fienberg Fisher has a full bilingual curriculum in all content areas and separate English instruction. Two kindergarten classrooms are piloting a two-way bilingual program in which teachers instruct students in English for a half day and in Spanish for the other half. Some students receive ESL instruction using computerized instructional programs.

Thanks to the computerized curriculum, students can work on activities appropriate to their instructional level while teachers monitor their work. Students from the same grade sit side-by-side at the computer bank and work at different instructional levels.

The Comer philosophy is the major approach used to give students emotional support. Teachers model a style of cooperation that they encourage in students. They also share supplies and advice, and they actively communicate with one another about the children in their classes. Frequent communication among adults is especially helpful in a school where students face many personal and academic risks. "We need input from the bilingual teacher, the social worker, and the classroom teachers to best help the child...we need to get all the people together to assess the child," explained a teacher. She added that parents notice the benefits of the Comer philosophy. If a child is having a problem in school, the entire team of teachers is available at a parent conference to prescribe a supportive plan of action.

Fienberg Fisher highlights these additional instructional program features:

Seascope is an integrated, hands-on, literature-based curriculum with a marine biology theme for fourth- through sixth-graders. Teachers develop language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies curricula around novels appropriate for students at every grade level. The Seascope curriculum is supported by a fully equipped science laboratory and a full-time science resource teacher.

Students with disabilities benefit from plans developed to meet their educational and behavioral needs. Serving as "structural ladders," the plans help these students evaluate and witness their own progress and, eventually, to rejoin mainstream classrooms.

Project COMET is a high-incentive program for students identified as dropout risks. It combines a career laboratory with academic classes in which students engage in hands-on activities.

Alternative Education is a small-sized dropout prevention program, implemented by one teacher and a full-time paraprofessional, that provides students with intensive personal attention and an enhanced basic skills development program.

The Library-Media Center's media specialist integrates printed material, online data, and multimedia materials to enhance instruction for all students.

Cool School, an after-school program, provides counseling, educational, and recreational activities for 150 at-risk students and parents. Social workers, teachers, and volunteers work in collaboration with University of Miami faculty, the Miami Beach Police Department officials, and Americorps executives to use art, drama, and community activities to provide alternatives to gang involvement and violence.

THE PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITY

"We don't do anything until we are trained," said a Fienberg Fisher veteran teacher of 13 years. Administrators, staff, parents, and community partners prepared for one year to become a Comer school by participating in a series of mini-retreats, workshops, and seminars. Having attended Yale's one-week Principals' Academy each of the past three years, Principal Nebb now conducts monthly sessions for new school staff and serves as a facilitator at the Principals' Academy.

Administrators and teachers choose topics for professional development by analyzing students' test scores. They compare achievement trends to the school's improvement plan goals and benchmarks, and they heed staff concerns raised in monthly grade level and faculty meetings. A Successful Schools grant enables the staff to assess its target goals against actual test scores in each subject, keeping teachers aware of student progress. A regional staff development team also regularly works with the staff to align the curriculum with Florida's Sunshine State Standards. Teachers also prepare students to take standardized tests, and they develop active teaching strategies that personalize learning for culturally diverse groups. Reciprocal reading and hands-on science are other seminar topics included in Fienberg Fisher's staff development programs.

A veteran Fienberg Fisher teacher explained, "We don't do anything until we are trained." Continuous training is available to teachers through on-site coaching, mini-retreats, workshops, and seminars.

Four on-site teaching coaches assist staff in using up-to-date methods to implement new language arts, technology, bilingual education, and science programs. A full-time language arts coach ensures proper implementation of SRA Mastery reading and effective preparation of students for the Florida Writing Assessment by observing teachers in classrooms, modeling lessons, making individual plans with her colleagues, and conducting specialized workshops. The technology coach trains the staff in using IBM Eduquest to teach reading, writing, and mathematics and keeps the faculty informed about new uses of the Internet at faculty meetings. As a member of the Home School Services Team, the bilingual coach assesses students' ESL levels, monitors the progress of LEP students, models ESL strategies, observes instruction, and helps teachers use appropriate ESL techniques in the classroom. Similarly, the science coach models the science instruction and conducts family science nights.

Fienberg Fisher also developed a 10-teacher team, trained in group dynamics and mediation, who serve as ombudsmen. These teachers help maintain open communication among the staff, address tensions within the student and school community, and serve as a liaison to parents.

PARENT AND COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS

Parents serve on all decision-making committees, attend PTA meetings, and contribute by working on parent patrols in the school building. They are volunteer teachers for small SRA Reading Mastery reading groups, and every other Tuesday, they attend the "Breakfast Club" where they learn about community resources, students' academic results, and parenting skills.

Fienberg Fisher's many parenting activities involve parents in the Healthy Learners Consortium, a parent-led group that meets monthly with the mayor's office, the housing authority, and family counseling services to address community concerns. The Consortium has become an advocate for the school in the community. Among its accomplishments are installing a traffic light at a busy intersection and a fence around the school; it also contributed two buildings that serve 60 children in Head Start. The Bright Horizons Parent Resource Center, directed by a parent community involvement specialist, arranges adult educational services, family literacy, parent education, and parent and school networking services for parents.

SUSTAINING CHANGE

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[ A Team Approach to Literacy Acquisition ]

[ Ensuring Success for All Students ]