Join the conversation

Frankford Elementary School in Frankford, Delaware has garnered national attention for bringing almost all of its overwhelmingly low-income student body to grade-level proficiency in reading, mathematics, science and social studies. In fact, Frankford far exceeds state averages for students reaching proficiency. (See our story about the school here).

We recently caught up with Frankford principal Duncan Smith, who described what’s been working in his remarkable school.

Public School Insights: I understand that Frankford Elementary continues to exceed state standards by a long shot, but that wasn’t really always the case and that in the mid-1990s, there was a very different picture. What happened?

Smith: The change came along with my predecessor, Sharon Brittingham. She came to Frankford and really set things in motion, bringing higher expectations for kids and higher expectations for teachers.

In the past, the school had a reputation of having a high percentage of minority students and a high percentage of low-income students. The expectation was that those kids couldn’t know things at the same levels as the students at other schools in our district or in the state.

So she came in with those higher expectations. Teachers really bought into it when they saw success—they saw the results. I think it really began to blossom from there. We have a very hardworking staff that really focuses on the kids’ individual needs. As long as we continue to do that, our students really do very, very well each year on the annual state test.

Public School Insights: You mentioned that she was able in many ways to inspire the teachers. Were these the same teachers who were there before the turnaround at Frankford?

Smith: A lot of them, yes. I think when she came in and set the stage for what the expectations would be, they either got on board or they retired. The expectations weren’t going to change.

[For example,] previously there was a wing of the school where all the special ed kids were. They got there in the morning, had classes all day. They ate lunch with their other grade-level peers and went back to that wing. They got on the bus and went home at the end of the day.

That had to change. I think that was one of the big things that Sharon put into place—the expectation that the special ed students would be in regular classes, teaming situations, or most importantly, receiving the regular curriculum…That was a culture change here.

Public School Insights: How does Frankford make sure that the students who may be struggling can keep up with their more successful peers?

Smith: We really look at assessment data. We have certain benchmark assessments that we give three times a year, and we also have interim assessments for reading and math. We look at the results, and depending how students do and according to their needs, we provide intervention times during the school day. We have extra ELL support, [paraprofessional] support, that might be put into a class to provide small-group reading assistance. We have many other programs. It’s about what the needs of the students are. We fit our interventions to meet their needs and help them be successful.

Public School Insights: You mentioned the use of data as very important and the benchmark assessments you give three times a year. As I am sure you know, many people worry about what happens when you teach to the test—are the gains really all that real? Have you ever had to confront that problem at Frankford?

Smith: Absolutely. I guess the belief we have is that if we are focusing on our state standards, the standards are what students need to know, and the state assessments are assessing those standards, then why is that a bad thing?

We want students to learn how to read at grade level, to compute, to be able to write, and they’re being assessed on that at their grade-level at the end of the year, so we are going to provide them with what they need to pass those tests.

Public School Insights: So you have a strong confidence, then, in the state standards and the state assessments, so that you can do this well.

Smith: Yes. We [use] other data [as well]. We have looked at report card grades, common math assessments, and unit assessments in reading. We do a lot of correlations between report card grades and state assessment results. They’re right on the mark.

In Delaware you can score a one through a five, five being the highest, on a state assessment. When we looked at our report card grades, we found a correlation with students who had 86%-92% in, say, reading scoring “fours” on their reading assessments. So report card grades and state assessments are very much in line.

We looked at some other things too, to give us some predictors of the expectations that we can have for students in the coming school year. For our end reading assessment…we looked at that compared to students’ results on the Delaware Student Testing Program, and there’s a correlation of about .71, which is a very strong correlation. So we feel that assessing our students within our own buildings is a good measure of how they are going to do on the state test.

Public School Insights: Another concern that people have sometimes aired is the concern that schools will focus exclusively on reading and math and let other things fall by the wayside. Has this been a challenge that you have encountered at Frankford?

Smith: Absolutely, and I think everyone in the accountability age of faces that. But we don’t let science and social studies go by the wayside.

In Delaware, fourth graders take the science and social studies state assessments in the fall, which is actually the end-of-third-grade assessment. In the last few years we have had close to 100% of our students pass the science assessment and about 90% of students pass the social studies assessment. I think those [results] show that we haven’t dropped science and social studies to focus on reading and math.

Public School Insights: I understand that teacher collaboration has also played a pretty strong role in the success you have had at Frankford. I was wondering if you could explain a little more about that.

Smith: As a district, we have become involved in professional learning communities. We had the DuFours come to the district a few years ago and share different models with us.

We are fortunate to have common planning for our teachers at each of our grade levels. We also have time worked into our master schedule where other staff in the building monitor a teacher’s students at certain times, to allow [that teacher] to score common assessments, look at data, talk about students [and]plan interventions as a grade level.

That has been probably the most powerful thing, I think …having that time built in. It’s not extra time after school, where [the teachers] have to give up personal time. [A]nd I have time as an administrator where I can join them, or our reading specialist can go in and join them, and we really focus on the kids and what their needs are.

Public School Insights: I have also read about before and after-school student pull-outs that the school has used to support struggling students.

Smith: Yes. We actually have changed that format a little bit in our building. We had before-school pull-outs which we called “early-birds”—and we had during-school pull-outs for reading or ELL students, or for our mentoring program. And then we had after-school programs.

What we found was students were getting mixed messages. [One student] might have three or four different extra supports, and they were being taught the same skills but maybe in a different manner. It’s easy for an elementary-age student, when hearing these different messages, to get confused.

Last year we committed ourselves, with the introduction to [Response to Intervention] forthe state of Delaware, to setting up an intervention block at each of the grade levels….So the only time when a student is being pulled from their individual homeroom is going to be that block.

[We took] each grade level and based on our benchmark assessments or some of our progress monitoring data, we divide those students up. We have a support staff of about five that join with the grade-level teachers.

With the struggling students we focus on trying to catch them up. We do a lot of previewing, a lot of vocab development, fluency, comprehension. With students already at benchmark we do a lot of acceleration activities and projects to help push them a little farther as well.

So the idea was to get away from [students being pulled out chaotically], which was a complaint of staff for many years, because you’d never knew who you were going to have. [For instance,] you may begin a reading lesson, and two of your students are going to mentoring and [another] four are off to reading support. Kids just coming and going.

So this model was very successful for us this year and we are going to continue with it.

Public School Insights: Is there anything I should have asked you but didn’t?

Smith: I’d just say that when you enter at Frankford now (and I am starting my fifth year here as principal),you really feel a difference. You hear the teachers talking about the kids and what their needs are. The whole atmosphere and the culture within the school focus on the students.

Our staff is outstanding. They’re dedicated to taking extra courses to advance their degrees andother trainings that are necessary to deliver instruction. I have teachers coming in over the summer to do some planning already for the school year. They’re very focused on meeting the needs of our kids, and we have a lot of needs.

Eighty-two% of our students last year qualified for free or reduced-price meals. Over 70% are minority. We have the highest percentage of African-American students in our district. The highest Hispanic population of any school in our district.

So [our students] come with a lot of different needs and challenges, and because the staff is dedicated to their success, the kids are successful.

Each year in Delaware, when the state test scores come out, they are posted in the newspaper. We have one major newspaper in the state of Delaware, called the Wilmington News Journal. And when those scores come out there is comparison, and the schools are ranked by the scale score. This elementary school is, say, fifth out of 96 elementary schools in the state in third grade reading, and so forth.

[W]e are right there among the highest-performing schools in the state, and we are very, very proud of our kids.

It’s a wonderful school. I have three children that attend here, and that is by school choice. Because I really feel what the teachers and the staff at Frankford have to offer my own children is a great thing.

As the principal, I have to make those decisions about what’s best for kids, and if I think it’s best for my children, then I think it’s going to be good for someone else’s children as well.