By Beverly Creamer and Treena Shapiro
Advertiser Education Writers
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If you go into a first-grade classroom at Hau'ula Elementary early on a Monday morning, you'll hear the teacher and students reading aloud together in small groups.
In a kindergarten classroom, they'll be sounding out letters together. Or going over the sounds of vowels, consonants and combinations.
Farther down the Windward Coast at Kahalu'u Elementary, the entire teaching staff might be immersed in a brainstorming session to develop a new lesson for an area in which students are deficient. Last year it was geometry, and this year the proof of success was seeing scores shoot up dramatically in that subject — from 20 percent the year before to 84 percent last year.
Across the island at Ma'ili Elementary on the Wai'anae Coast, the same things are happening. In a few classrooms with especially challenged children, the student-teacher ratio may be 6-to-1.
Despite the fact that 66 percent of Hawai'i's public schools failed to meet new higher goals under the federal No Child Left Behind Act in the latest annual scores released Thursday by the Department of Education, bright spots show it can be done.
And some of those brightest spots are in schools that made the higher standards this year but have fallen short in the past and are in some level of remediation under NCLB: Hau'ula, Kahalu'u and Ma'ili elementary schools, and Jarrett Middle School, among them.
All of them struggle with difficult populations, including high percentages of low-income children. At Ma'ili Elementary, for instance, with a population of 800 students including 85 percent who are low-income, 50 students come from the homeless shelter next door and another 75 or so are foster children.
What's making the difference for these challenged schools? A number of things, including:
Going into last year, the staff analyzed 2004 test results to identify where the students were weaker in reading and math, and shored up their lesson plans accordingly.
Teachers mapped out their curriculum ahead of time, aligning it to the state standards so they would know what they should be covering at what point in the school year.
Several programs were also aimed at boosting student achievement in math and reading, including Accelerated Reading and Accelerated Math and a Direct Instruction reading program for students who needed extra assistance in reading comprehension, decoding and phonics.
But principal Gerald Teramae said the key was a united mission of affecting positive student achievement at the school.
At a secondary school, teamwork can be difficult, since unlike in elementary schools, middle school teachers specialize in a single subject area and resist incorporating other subjects in their classroom. At Jarrett, however, teachers have been open to the challenge. "They've come to realize that, 'If I need to teach reading in art, or if I need to teach reading in P.E., that's what I'll do,' " Teramae said.
"We still have our challenges, but the general consensus among our teachers and staff is that we work together as a team," he said.
Both Ma'ili and Hau'ula have hired the consulting services of a nonprofit Eugene, Ore., company called National Institute for Direct Instruction run by the son of the college professor who developed and researched Direct Instruction 30 years ago as part of the national Project Follow Through that analyzed effective teaching tools.
"This program has been the foundation," said Hauge who instituted the reading program first, then math, and most recently the writing and critical thinking segments. But she said the school was so far behind it has taken six years to see substantial progress.
The school groups children in learning clusters as small as six students, and sometimes, as few as two for special ed students. As well, paraprofessionals join teachers in the classroom for extra attention to students.
"Even children with IQs in the 60s have learned to read if we've had them for a significant period of time," she said.
Principal Amy Arakaki said when the school sent out a notice for Math Fun Night "we got few responses, but when we changed it to 'Casino Night' — wow, we got so many." The program was the same — focusing on probability, patterns and adding and subtracting — but marketing it differently to the families made all the difference.
The school has a monthly Movie Night when families gather on the lawn to watch a big-screen movie; and a Curriculum Night when every student's work is displayed and then a movie is shown. And on testing day, the PTA — known as the Kahalu'u 'Ohana — serves free breakfast to all students. Testing is done in smaller groups of about 12 students so children won't be as distracted.
Teachers also collaborate in looking at key school deficiencies and then build new teaching programs based on the Hawai'i standards, brainstorming techniques so they share successes and discard nonworking methods. It was the teachers who developed a program in which all students read for 15 to 30 minutes a night — with parents signing off on it. Rewards such as a cookies-and-ice-cream social come to those who complete their reading. As well, teachers research what is succeeding at other schools and incorporate those programs if they fit.
As part of a new math program, students in Grades 2-6 are focusing on writing explanations of how they came up with answers and their progress is monitored twice monthly. Math proficiency by the end of the year moved from 20 percent to 60 percent.
Odagiri said the school targets students struggling in math, gave them extra tutoring and saw their scores rise; as well, it provided a special three-hour daily math tutoring session during spring break for third- and fifth-graders struggling with math.
Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com and Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com.
