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Story posted February 18, 2010; Story updated July 24, 2012.

Results:
• In 2011, 73% of students with disabilities passed both the state math and reading tests, compared with 42.1% of such students at the district level and 34.4% at the state level
• Made Adequate Yearly Progress every year since 2002-2003 

North Carolina’s Laurel Hill Elementary School is a model school. Its rural, diverse and high-poverty student population consistently exceeds state targets on standardized test scores, and the school has made AYP each year since 2003. It has also been recognized for its great working conditions.

But getting there wasn’t easy. In the early 2000s, one challenge stood out: The school failed to make AYP because of the performance of its students with disabilities (known in North Carolina as its “exceptional children”). Rather than throw up their hands at the daunting task of educating special education students, staff at Laurel Hill made lemonade out of lemons. They took the opportunity to study their school and its structure, revise its schedule and move to full inclusion. The result? A Blue Ribbon school that can confidently say it is meeting the needs of all its children. Principal Cindy Goodman* recently told us about the school and its journey.

Public School Insights: How would you describe Laurel Hill Elementary?

Goodman: Laurel Hill is a pre-K through fifth grade community school. We have about 500 students and are located in an extremely rural community. We have a very nice facility, which is about 11 years old.

We have an outstanding staff that holds our children to very high standards for behavior, for academics…just high standards in general.

Public School Insights: What kind of population does the school serve?

Goodman: Our community, the little town of Laurel Hill, is located in Scotland County, North Carolina. The county currently has, and for a good while has had, the highest unemployment rate in the state. So it is a very poor area. Between 70 and 75% of our students qualify for free and reduced price lunch, and we are by no means the poorest school in the county. We are an average school in terms of that population.

We serve a diverse population. About 58% of our students are white, 22% are American Indian and about 20% are African American. Also, roughly 18% of our children qualify for exceptional children services.

Public School Insights: Let’s focus on the students who qualify for exceptional children (EC) services. I understand that their performance has really improved over the past few years. What has happened at the school to facilitate that improvement?

Goodman: The year I came to Laurel Hill, the school had two self-contained, multi-grade level classes that served our exceptional children—EC is special education in North Carolina. So children were in special education all day. That was certainly not fair to them. They were not being exposed to the standard course of study, in part because that is an almost impossible task to ask of a teacher serving children on three different grade levels. And behavior in those classes was predictably inappropriate. As a principal, I actually hated to visit those classrooms.

That year, our school did not make AYP because of that EC subgroup. Something had to change. So, as a staff, we had discussions about it. We talked about what we were doing and the importance of teaching all children. We talked about how the existing structure was not fair to our exceptional children, and we talked about how we could change it. I had a young, bright EC teacher who had some strong ideas and became a catalyst for some of the structural changes here. Things just started to happen.

Our school is now organized very differently. We have no self-contained classes, and we use block scheduling in reading and math in the upper elementary. Those two reforms—the move to inclusion and the switch to a block schedule—are closely related and together are the key to our success in educating this population.

Obviously with inclusion our EC children and regular education children are together in the same classrooms during our instructional blocks. Students are grouped in these classes based on skills and performance, not label. Teachers make up the groups, which are flexible—children move from one level to another if they are performing well or not performing very well.

So when we block for reading and math, those classes that include EC students are co-taught by a regular education teacher and an EC teacher. The EC teachers are scheduled into our regular education teachers’ grade-level planning time, so they can truly co-teach and are not just glorified teacher assistants. In fact, visitors to the school often point out that they cannot tell which teacher is the exceptional children’s teacher and which is the regular education teacher, which is what we truly want.

We were probably the first school in the district to go to an inclusion model, and we had total support from the district in making this transition. We had a director of exceptional children who was a forward thinker who knew this was the way we should all be doing EC anyway, and she was very supportive. There is a different person in that position now, but because of our track record she's also been very supportive.

And just to be clear, the most severely autistic children and children who are severely and profoundly handicapped are served in special environments in our county. But children who are labeled behavior problems—they are in the mix at Laurel Hill. They are part of this population. The children who are emotionally and mentally disabled—they are in the mix. We have students who are mildly autistic. I think it is important to be clear about who we are and are not serving here.

Public School Insights: That is an important clarification. And just a clarification on your structure—you specified this arrangement is for reading and math instruction. What about the other subjects?

Goodman: Exceptional children are also included in the regular ed classes in social studies, specials, homeroom and really all other times. They are never in a self-contained environment.

In fifth grade, science is blocked like reading and math. While unfortunately they do not have access to exceptional children’s teacher during that time, in most cases these children are in classes with a teacher assistant. And whenever possible at other times we try to keep our exceptional children in classrooms with two adults.

Public School Insights: How has the academic performance of EC students changed since they have been included with the regular ed students? How has their behavior changed?

Goodman: Behavior is all about expectations, and EC students’ behavior is no different than anyone else's. We do use some school-wide positive behavior strategies, and in general we have remarkably good behavior because our teachers expect it.

Academics are also about expectations. Our exceptional children perform very, very well. Last year on the North Carolina end-of-grade tests, the statewide target in reading for all students was 43.2%. It is a very difficult test. Our exceptional children, who are our students with disabilities subgroup, achieved 61.4% on the test. In math, the statewide target was 77.2% for all students, and our exceptional children achieved 90.9% proficiency.

So their performance is very good. We are not satisfied with their reading, but we are not satisfied with our reading school-wide. So we continue to work and strive to do even better.

Public School Insights: When you were making the transition to the inclusion structure, what challenges did you face?

Goodman: I think the number one challenge was fear. Traditionally, “those” children were isolated and our regular classroom teachers did not have any ownership of them. I think they saw them as scary and difficult.

Part of the fear was that the teachers knew that I am very daily data-driven and have high goals for everyone. I think they were all worried about the test scores. That was the biggest issue. Not the children themselves—children are children—but teachers were worried about the EC students scores being attached to their names. So to help allay their fears, I initially told the teachers that we were not going to worry about test scores. We would continue to print the exceptional children's scores as an EC group, rather in with the regular homerooms.

It is so funny, because I think back to that and I have a hard time believing we ever had that conversation. Now they're just kids and everybody has ownership. Needless to say, we no longer print EC scores separately. Now they are included with the homeroom. But that is what I did then. Looking back, I don't know if I would do it the same way again, but it worked. It got us over that initial fear.

We also started the blocking schedule when I came, which also helped us gain that feeling of ownership. If you were a fourth-grade teacher and you were only responsible for your twenty students, you did not think about the other eighty students in the fourth grade. But now that we change classes, teachers see many more children and have ownership of the entire grade level. And the common grade-level planning sessions—that helps too. So all these things have combined to help establish the culture that “These are our kids.”

Also, the nice thing about the way we have our schedule structured is that if you teach the lower blocks that have most of the exceptional children—and again they are in with regular ed children—then you are going to have help, another adult in the classroom. I have never yet had to ask someone to teach the low block. The best teachers volunteer to teach the low blocks, so I've never had to worry that these children are getting shortchanged. And it is not uncommon at all for a teacher to say to me, “I want the low block again next year.” That is so rewarding for me.

Public School Insights: What about the logistical challenges to establishing a co-teaching system?

Goodman: Part of what has helped us is that, due to the size of our school and the size of our exceptional children population, we have had—until budget cuts this year—three EC teachers in the building.

Initially I basically just sat down with the team and we came up with a structure. Each of the three EC teachers is responsible for one grade at the school in which students have to take state accountability tests. So one works with the third grade, one with the fourth and one with the fifth. Each is also responsible for a primary grade. In the morning, during core classes, the exceptional children’s teacher is in the inclusion class in the upper elementary. Then after lunch she is either in inclusion or pulling younger kids to help them with remedial skills.

This year we suffered budget cuts in North Carolina. We actually lost an EC position. So I went to the district office downtown and told them that for our inclusion program to keep working, I needed three bodies—not necessarily full-time teachers, but I had to have three teachers. Knowing the success we've had and how our program is structured, they gave me a half teaching position back. So this year, for the first time, we’ve had an EC teacher in each third, four and fifth grade in the morning and the two teachers who are here full-time serving the three primary grades. So we had to adjust, but it still works. And that is only because the district was generous enough to give us that half-time position.

Public School Insights: To shift gears a bit, I was wondering how Laurel Hill handles students, both EC students as well as those who are not classified, who fall behind in their studies.

Goodman: The most challenging group for us is not our exceptional children, by any stretch of the imagination. Our EC children get so much support and so much help. The most challenging group for us is the children who don't place. But we do have several supports in place for them. We are lucky to have a child and family support team. We have a full-time social worker and a full-time nurse. This team addresses health issues, attendance issues, even housing and clothing issues—anything may interfere with learning. And they are really good. They do tons of home visits. They are just a real strong support system that helps some of our needier children get to school without the obstacles that so often interfere with learning.

This team has also done a lot to improve attendance. There are nine elementary schools in this system, and when I got here we had the poorest attendance of the nine. And, though since I think my third year here we have had the highest achievement of the nine, we have continued to struggle with attendance. It has just never been a high priority here. This is a very country school, and it is not unusual for parents to keep their child out to hunt or something like that. But since we got the social worker and nurse team two or three years ago they have really targeted attendance, which has made a huge difference.

We also have a student services management team, SSMT, made up of our guidance counselor, an administrator and classroom teachers. A teacher who has a struggling student, when her own interventions are not working, takes that child’s name to this team. The team offers strategies, support and suggestions she might use to try to reach that child. They are very effective. A lot of times, a more experienced teacher can offer a strategy that another teacher may not have thought of.

In terms of more specific academic interventions, we have a phonics-based reading program here. And our exceptional children who struggle—and it is usually children who move into our district who are behind when they transfer in—receive direct instruction in reading. Some non-special ed students get that instruction as well.

And also, in our blocking system, we have six different levels of instruction. A block that would have exceptional children would likely also have some struggling regular ed children. So they would have the benefit of co-teaching, and the exceptional children's teacher is not going to ignore a struggling student just because he doesn't have a label. In addition, in some of our lower blocks, regardless of whether there are EC students in the class, we might have a teacher assistant borrowed from a primary class. Because while non-EC struggling students may not qualify to have two teachers, they often need small groups and two adults. And small classes—our teachers always keep the lower groups smaller. It's all about helping the kids.

Public School Insights: What kinds of support do you have for your highest performers, to ensure they have the opportunity to reach their potential?

Goodman: The higher blocks are in some ways an enrichment. While all our teachers teach the standard course of study, you can do so much with kids if everybody understands the concept. We only qualify for a part-time AG [academically/intellectually gifted] teacher here, but our blocking helps both those children and our lower performers to meet their potential.

In North Carolina, we measure proficiency. But we also measure growth. And it is really important to us that all our children, including our highest achievers, are making expected or high growth, which are the two measures in this state. We really look for it when we disaggregate our data.

Public School Insights: What advice would you offer to schools looking to make a transition to a block and inclusion setting like Laurel Hills?

Goodman: I think that you have to have lots of conversations about it. I think that the fear of the unknown is probably one of the biggest challenges and that, for example, one of teachers’ biggest fears is that behavior is going to deteriorate in their classrooms. I think that as administrators it is important to, upfront, let teachers know that behavior expectations are the same for all children. And scores are scary things in North Carolina. We are very, very, very data-driven here, and I am probably as bad as it gets, but I think that taking that off the plates of the teachers initially was probably a good thing to do. Though again, thinking back, it was funny that we ever had that conversation.

Also, see it in action. Visit a school that is doing it, which I think would be a far easier task now then it would have been when we started.

But I think the main thing is understanding it can be done and trusting that the administrators are going to support the teachers, whether it's in terms of class size, whether it's in terms of having a teacher assistant in the room for core instruction…whatever it is. I think there has to be some trust there.

Public School Insights: Are there any questions I should ask you, but didn’t?

Goodman: I just think that this is such an important topic, and such an important group of children to discuss. Lots and lots of schools do not make AYP because of this particular subgroup. And it seems like a daunting challenge—how in the world can we do this? But it can be done. Children can do amazing things.

Scheduling is the key to being successful. And I do not know a teacher—and I have got some great teachers here—who can successfully expose a classroom of children to three different curriculums, three grade levels. I mean, we say you can do that and you may be able to do that for a day or two, but over the course of a year you just cannot do that. And if you have your school set up so that you are not exposing your exceptional children to the grade level curriculum, you are never, ever going to be successful.

*This photo is from a celebration of Laurel Hill Elementary School’s North Carolina Real D.E.A.L. award. Real D.E.A.L. schools are honored not just for outstanding student achievement, but also for excellent teacher working conditions. Pictured from left: Angela Purcell (Laurel Hill Math Facilitator), Dr. June Atkinson (North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction), Amy Sloop (Laurel Hill Language Arts Facilitator), Carolyn McKinney (Executive Director of the NC Professional Teaching Standards Commission), Cindy Goodman (Laurel Hill Principal), Darwin Williams (Scotland County Board of Education Member), Dr. Shirley Prince (Scotland County Schools Superintendent), and Bev Perdue (North Carolina Governor).

*Note: On July 24, 2012, we learned that Cindy Goodman is no longer principal of Laurel Hill. Jonathan McRae currently holds the position.