WATERBORO — Brightly colored clothing, leis and festive music were the order of the day at Waterboro Elementary School as students and staff celebrated a landmark achievement Tuesday. This year marks the first time in more than three years that the school will be considered to be fully meeting the federal Annual Yearly Progress standards.
A school rally was held in the morning, followed by a snack of orange Freezepops, Hawaiian pizza for lunch and, best of all, no homework Tuesday night.
“It was a lot of fun, there was a lot of positive energy recognizing all the hard work,” said Principal Mark Petersen of the assembly. “The kids were wound up; it was probably one of the most exciting days I’ve had here. It was raucous and loud, the energy was amazing.”
A “We Made It” banner now hangs in the school’s entryway, adorned with balloons, he said, and memories of the teachers’ silly skits at the rally won’t soon fade away.
“It’s a pretty happy place anyhow; we just really wanted to blow our own horns,” said Petersen.
It’s been a long road for Waterboro Elementary, which was placed on the failing list in 2006 after failing to meet AYP for two consecutive years prior. As a result, Waterboro was deemed a “continuous improvement priority school” and placed on a plan to raise test scores.
“The school as a whole made AYP, but one subgroup did not and that got us in hot water,” said Petersen, explaining that each subgroup ”“ such as those for minority or economically disadvantaged students ”“ must also meet standards.
Despite considerable improvement in scores, Waterboro Elementary has been considered “on hold” since 2007, because two years of meeting AYP are required to be removed from the list.
“We did, we fully met it this year,” said Petersen. The 2008 results came to the school in August, he said, but they waited to celebrate until three weeks ago when the state confirmed the results by letter.
Because of the school’s previous “failing” status, federal Title I funds were required to be allocated to improving the school, said Superintendent of Schools Frank Sherburne. The money went toward staff training and improving literacy ”“ and Petersen said it’s paid off.
“The bad news is that we’re on this list, but the good news is we got additional resources to do what we needed to do,” he said. “It provided a wonderful opportunity to basically look at everything and restructure.”
The Title I funds were focused on staff development, consultant visits and data analysis, rather than funding staff positions, said Sherburne, so the impact of the money will continue even as the funding ends now that Waterboro Elementary meets standards.
“The goal is to create and change the climate so it’s an ongoing improvement process,” said Sherburne. “It’s not meant to be a short term fix.”
April Noble, literacy coach, who was named SAD 57 teacher of the year, has been instrumental in providing professional growth opportunities for staff, said Petersen. Teachers now regularly meet within grade levels to discuss plans, identify those students who are struggling and provide them with a tutoring program.
“The biggest thing is that the staff is committed to doing things differently,” said Petersen. “When we identify some kids who are not meeting standards, we’re remediating.”
The result has been that not only do previously struggling students now meet the standards, but a greater number of students are now exceeding the standards, he said.
“The focus has been on intervention models and taking a more proactive stance on supporting kids,” said Sherburne. “We’ve started strategic internal assessments before state testing to give us indicators about what students need.”
At the rally Tuesday, Petersen said, “We gave ’em a little ”˜atta-boy’ for their hard work and we threw down the gauntlet to keep up the standards.”
A letter was also sent to last year’s fifth grade Waterboro Elementary students, now at Massabesic Middle School, to acknowledge their work, said Petersen. The sixth grade’s move leaves Waterboro elementary with 560 students, grades kindergarten through five.
“We need to take time to celebrate,” said Sherburne. “Part of learning is reflecting and celebrating when the outcome is what you want.”
— City Editor Kristen Schulze Muszynski can be contacted at 282-1535, Ext. 322 or kristenm@journaltribune.com.
Comments are not available on this story. Read more about why we allow commenting on some stories and not on others.
We believe it's important to offer commenting on certain stories as a benefit to our readers. At its best, our comments sections can be a productive platform for readers to engage with our journalism, offer thoughts on coverage and issues, and drive conversation in a respectful, solutions-based way. It's a form of open discourse that can be useful to our community, public officials, journalists and others.
We do not enable comments on everything — exceptions include most crime stories, and coverage involving personal tragedy or sensitive issues that invite personal attacks instead of thoughtful discussion.
You can read more here about our commenting policy and terms of use. More information is also found on our FAQs.
Show less