Join the conversation

Story posted October 3, 2008, Updated August 29, 2011.

Results:
• In 2011, 80.8% of 5th graders met or exceeded standards on the state reading test, up from 77.4% in 2005, with the number of students exceeding state reading standards (the highest performance level on the test) up by 10% from 2010.

On the edge of Alabama, 15 miles from the Mississippi state line, lies Aliceville. With only 5,000 residents, the town relies on agriculture and timber for jobs, and many of its residents live at or below the poverty level. Driving through downtown, you see three closed gas stations with their prices permanently set at $2.58. A right turn takes drivers past an established housing community and a few newer complexes, and then two long, low red brick school buildings come into view.

Experience might suggest expectations for many students in Aliceville aren't very high. One might assume that social promotion is the norm; that few students perform on grade level; and that students are lucky to make it to 16 without dropping out.

That was a fair description of Aliceville Middle School, whose student population is 99% African-American and 96% free or reduced price lunch. Just five years ago. AMS was in the state's dreaded "school improvement" category for poor test scores, and nearly one-third of students were being socially promoted. But in 2004, the "dynamic duo" of Principal Johnny Johnson and literacy coach Tammy Brown arrived. Johnson came with one overarching goal in mind: Aliceville Middle School would be a Blue Ribbon School by 2009.

It's been a fairly quick turn-around from school improvement in 2004 to one of Alabama's top-achieving Title I schools in 2008. The story of Aliceville Middle School's success is a lesson in how the culture of a school can shift from that of benevolent low expectations for students--and no collaboration among teachers--to a true professional learning community where students and teachers learn together and everyone in the building believes every child can learn.

Year One: Sharpening the teaching focus
Neither Johnson nor Brown, the school's first full-time literacy coach, had seen the student data before they took their positions. "We didn't know what we were getting into," jokes Brown. "We sat down and looked at (the data) and realized we had our work cut out for us."

Literacy training. Brown and Johnson began the change process by involving Aliceville Middle in a new program being piloted by the Alabama Reading Initiative (ARI). After years of summer teacher training, ARI leaders wanted to see if job-embedded professional development during the school year would help teachers develop instructional strategies in literacy. Brown bore the main responsibility for training the faculty. Teachers tackled new strategies each month, trying them out in their own classrooms under Brown's helpful direction.

"I heard people talk about the summer training, but what really worked for me was learning the strategies the job-embedded way," says Shannon Johnson-Lilienthal, a fourth grade reading teacher, "I could learn [these strategies] and then go right back to my classroom and practice them with my students. I didn't have to wait two months to try them out, or cram all the training into two weeks. It was very, very helpful."

New scheduling. According to Johnson, many faculty members were teaching subjects they didn't like in self-contained classrooms. At the end of that first school year, Johnson and Brown interviewed the teachers to see what subjects they wanted to teach.

Now, in 5th and 6th grades, teachers work in pairs: one teaches reading and social studies, the other math and science. In 4th grade, where student numbers are lower, there is one reading teacher, one math teacher and one social studies/science teacher. All teamed teachers share common planning time.

Using data for instruction. Prior to 2004, the Aliceville faculty did not use student data to drive instruction. Today, Johnson leads three mandatory data meetings each month, one per grade level. Teachers talk about individual students, address problems, and make action plans for improvement. "Our data meetings are very robust," Brown says. "We look at grade assessments, [the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS), data from Alabama's Assistive Technology Act Program STAR], pre- and post testing, and intervention scores."

The teachers quickly came to appreciate the use of data to drive instruction. "Every day we're looking at data," says Rhonda Mosely, a fourth grade math teacher. "We use the data to move the students in and out of intervention groups, reading groups...You're constantly aware of where your kids are and where you need to get them."

Year Two: Establishing timely interventions
In 2005, Aliceville Middle was removed from the school improvement list. Still, Johnson and Brown knew more was needed. At the beginning of the school year, they introduced an intervention curriculum for struggling readers, targeting small groups of students for 45 minutes each day.

Midway through the year, Johnson and Brown saw need for and implemented a math intervention program as well. And the intervention strategies have paid off, as every child in fourth grade has made at least a half-year gain in math skills since the beginning of the year. In addition, the number of students needing intervention is getting smaller.

Years Three & Four: Focusing on Adolescent Literacy
In 2006, Aliceville Middle was chosen to participate in the Alabama Reading Initiative's Project for Adolescent Literacy (ARI-PAL), which focuses on grades 4 through 9.

Strategic teaching. One of the final "big ideas" Tammy Brown had introduced during her first year as literacy coach was strategic teaching. Strategic teaching calls for every lesson to have a clearly conceived beginning, middle and end, and to allow students to do five things: read, write, listen, talk and investigate. Teachers now submit lesson plans weekly, with every lesson meeting all the tenets of strategic teaching. It took a few months for teachers to adjust, but once they saw the positive effects on students, they were hooked. By incorporating different literacy strategies into the beginning, middle and end of the lesson, faculty members say, they accelerated the pace of learning. Students are no longer sitting in desks completing work in isolation. They are working together in pairs or small groups on activities and projects.

"It does put a lot on the teacher," Rhonda Mosely admits. "It pushes you to get a beginning, middle and end into 50 minutes of class time. It pushes you to keep the kids moving. It also means that we don't just get to sit at our desk and grade papers while they do worksheets. We have to do that kind of work on our planning time or after school or at home. But it is so worth it to see how the learning has increased."

Professional collaboration. In fact, the teachers at Aliceville Middle School have become very adept at teaching each other. During regular data meetings, it soon became clear that there was a weakness in vocabulary in 6th grade, while the 5th grade students were very strong in vocabulary. The faculty embarked on a three-week rotation to strengthen vocabulary instruction in the other grades. During the first week, 4th and 6th grade teachers observed the 5th grade teachers in their classrooms. 5th grade teachers visited the 4^th and 6th grades to teach model lessons. The third week, 6th grade and 4th grade teachers returned the favor by teaching model lessons back for the 5^th grade teachers.

Though they give up planning time to do this, the teachers enjoy the collaboration. Says Sheila Douglas: "We get to see each other teach. That is so different from the way I used to teach. It's the biggest change I've seen in my 20 years. We never used to go into each other's room...To me, that has made a lot of difference."

Sweet success
Today, the hallways of Aliceville Middle are covered in student work, it's clear there is rigorous work going on and that expectations are high for every student, and the success stories at this little school are almost too many to count. "We have some of the best reading teachers in the state. It's amazing," Johnson says. "The boys here had the attitude of, 'Well, I'll get to 16 years old and I'll just drop out.' But our boys are our best readers now."

And it's not just boys who are learning to read. Johnson-Lilienthal has 11 special needs students, most of whom entered her class reading at a first-grade level or lower. All have made significant gains this year. "If you'd put me in front of a class with 11 special education students five years ago, I would have cried," she laughs. "But with the strategic teaching and the reading intervention, I'm able to reach them."

Not surprisingly, the school's standardized test scores have been rising. Among the most dramatic changes are that in 2007, 94% of 4^th graders met or exceeded standards on the state reading test, up from 64% in 2004. In addition, 89% of 6^th graders met or exceeded standards on the state math test in 2007, up from 23% in 2004.

While student achievement is on the rise, discipline problems are on the decline. And "Students didn't like to be recognized for achievement four years ago," says Brown. "Now, they eat it up. Learning is cool now."

Looking forward
One common characteristic of highly successful schools is the faculty's unwillingness to rest on its laurels. Johnson and Brown set school-wide goals every year. In 2006-2007, the goals were to support writing in all grades and to focus on math fluency. State assessments showed that both math fluency and writing improved. "In fact," says ARI's Denise Perkins, "this school has not had a student score at Level I on the writing assessment in three years."

In 2007-2008, the teachers decided they needed to integrate more technology into their classrooms and more writing in the content areas. As a result, technology use tripled.

"Next year, I can see us taking a hard look at content areas and have writing be a focus," says Brown. And thanks to a grant, the school will also be integrating art into strategic teaching.

The school will be facing funding challenges next year. But whatever the future holds for Aliceville Middle School, there is a sturdy foundation of collaboration and high expectations to ensure success. With a strong leadership team, dedicated faculty, and engaged students, the school will no doubt bear the blue ribbon of excellence some day soon.

"The attitude of the students has changed," Johnson says with a firm nod. "They know they can succeed now. They know they can pass. Everyone in the building-students and teachers-has had a taste of success and they want more. They want to be recognized as a good school."

AUGUST 2011 UPDATE:

80.8% of fifth graders met or exceeded state reading standards in 2011, up from 77.4% in 2005 and with an increase in 10% for students exceeding expectations in the last year alone. The current principal is Mr. Fred Young.

For additional information, please contact: The Learning First Alliance: info@learningfirst.org

Adapted with permission from the Alabama Best Practices Center.

Full citation:
Jennifer Pyron, "Aiming for a Blue Ribbon in Alabama's Black Belt." In the Fall 2008 issue of Working Towards Excellence: the Journal of the Alabama Best Practices Center, Volume 8 Number 1.

Copyright © 2008 by the Alabama Best Practices Center.

Click here to access the original article as contained in the Alabama Best Practice's Center website.

Photos courtesy of Aliceville Middle School