El Dorado schools to continue to focus on improvement

Editor’s note: This is the sixth and final installment in a six-part series looking at Union County schools and the grades each received from the state. The first part looked at how the state calculates each grade. Each installment after that has covered a different school district in Union County.

The El Dorado School District is looking to continue focusing on areas where it saw improvement in the state’s grades.

In the grades released from the Arkansas Department of Education in October, Hugh Goodwin Elementary School received a B, Northwest Elementary School received a C, Retta Brown Elementary School and Yocum Elementary School received Fs, Washington Middle School received a C, Barton Jr. High School received a C and El Dorado High School received a C.

Arkansas released the grades for the 2017-18 school year in the beginning of October both to the general public and to the schools. The grades and breakdown are available at myschoolinfo.arkansas.gov. In Union County, no school received an A grade.

Jim Tucker, El Dorado superintendent, said the district is seeing growth in the areas that it’s been focusing on.

“Whenever we look at the reports, we try to dissect specific data,” Tucker said. “What we were looking for was areas, that we’ve worked on, is the growth in those areas. That’s what we saw. And then you look to see what areas we need to improve on, but the positive of course is the areas of growth that we saw. You put in a lot of work, you try to do a lot of things, but you don’t really know if it’s going to pay off until you see those results.”

One of the areas Tucker said the district has been working on is a new reading program that was implemented two years ago, which is something the district developed itself. Tucker said it’s a mixture of the Orton-Gillingham, which is designed to be a multisensory form of teaching reading, and guided reaching. Tucker said teachers got training in and new teachers are getting training in as they come into the district.

Tucker said one of the issues when a program is implemented at schools across the state is that the district will do a one-time training, but that people coming in need training and current teachers can need refreshers. This is something, he said, that the district is committed to providing for programs.

The district has also been working on math and science, Tucker said, but there’s been a strong focus on reading since “that’s the base for everything.”

Going forward, Tucker said the district is going to continue to work on those areas.

“We saw growth, but we’re still not where we want to be,” Tucker said. “So the areas that we saw growth are still areas of focus. The same things we saw positives in, those are the same things that we need to continue working on. We’re not where we want to be so we just keep working on what’s growing, and then also keep an eye on are we declining in anything, which we’re not.”

Tucker said the district is starting a little bit of a strong focus on math this year with Eureka Math also known as Engage New York Math program, which is based in explaining the logic behind math problems and using different visuals to help students follow along. Tuck said the district is looking changing the math curriculum for all grades. Tucker said anytime the district implements something, there isn’t a great gain to be seen the first year, but that he and the math chair have been happy with how the two programs are going so far.

“There’s a sense of urgency there,” Tucker said. “Teachers have been stepping up and having a good attitude. Teaching is a tough tough job, people don’t realize until they do it, but they’re moving forward with it and making gains.”

Additionally, the district is working with Elbow to Elbow consulting with five of the schools – Retta Brown and Yocum Elementary schools, Washington Middle School, Barton Jr. High and EHS – which Tucker said is providing an outside set of eyes to look at things differently than people in the district would.

Tucker said that principals meeting once a month to discuss how the school improvement plan, which can be found on the district’s website, is going as well as presenting to the school board twice a year on how things are improving within their school to establish accountability.

One of the programs Tucker said the district has in place and is continuing to work on is the response to intervention system. Through this, teachers and administrators can identify a student who is starting to struggle in a subject and try to get that student additional help before they fall further behind.

Another system the elementary schools have started to implement over the past few years, which Tucker said is proving to be helpful, is the standards based reporting system. This year, it is being used in kindergarten through second grade at all four elementary schools. The system does away with the regular letter grades and instead tests students based on whether they’re meeting a certain benchmark on their own, with a little bit of help, with a lot of help or struggling even with help.

“We know where the deficit areas are,” Tucker said. “Individual students, we know where the deficit areas are, and we know how to help those students get where they need to be because of the standards based reporting.”

When looking at the grading system as a whole, Tucker said that any time a system tries to judge how good or bad a school is, there’s going to be issues with it, but it is the system that Arkansas currently has and thus it’s the system that the district has to work with. He said he isn’t sure if there is a system that would be an accurate representation.

“I don’t think its an accurate representation of what a school is, at all,” Tucker said. “There’s many factors that come into play. As you look across the state at schools and students that on average didn’t perform well, it basically came down to two things. It came down to attendance – students that check out early, come in late, don’t come to school, they just didn’t perform well – and those who may not have a strong support system at home, they didn’t perform well.

“It’s consistent throughout the country. Those two things play a big role in how well a student can do. The school is going to do everything they can, but it still takes support. We feel good about what we’re doing, we feel good about our community, the El Dorado School District has a great community and support system. We appreciate our parents. We are going to do as much as we possibly can to help every child.”

Tucker said that he feels as though it’s his job to help the teachers the best he can and then the teachers will do what they can to help the students.

“I think we have really good systems in place, innovative systems that really aren’t being used anywhere else in south Arkansas to try to help our teachers and our students,” Tucker said. “I think our staff here does a really good job with that.”

Michael Shine may be reached at 870-862-6611 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter and like him on Facebook @MichaelAZShine for updates on Union County school news.