Assistant Principal Verna Boxnick and another guidance counselor. These new staff positions were filled by transferring existing district personnel to the elementary building. Everything with the new school year is going quite well. With the large size of this facility we faced some procedural challenges, one of which was the student drop-off and pick-up procedure. We believe we have most of the kinks worked out.

We continue to make steady academic improvements in most areas of student learning. In 2007 the state changed the norm-referenced test from the IOWA to the SAT-10 and we saw a decrease in 2008 K-2 scores.  In 2009 we saw huge gains in the number of students at or above 50% on the SAT-10 norm- referenced test from the previous year. 

Analyzing math scores, kindergarten moved from 50% to 65% of students scoring at or above 50%.  First grade went from 65% to 73% in Math.  Second grade saw huge gains in math problem reasoning, moving from 43% to 70% at or above the 50%.  We have continued to refine our math instruction through Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) at the second grade.  We plan to expand CGI into kindergarten and first grade this year.  We are also exploring new training for 3^rd and 4^th grade using Cognitively Guided Instruction.  Instructional blocks of time have increased and our schedules are more refined in the new facility, which we hope will help our student achievement. 

Our math scores on the Arkansas Benchmark Exam at both third and fourth grade are steadily improving.  In third grade the percent of children who were proficient or advanced has increased every year: 2007-80%; 2008-90%; 2009-96%.  Every sub population also has seen steady growth.  At the fourth grade level, the number of students scoring proficient or advanced in math were: 2007-73%; 2008-77%; and 2009-85%.  This is excellent growth. We contribute this growth to better instructional alignment, use of more formative assessments and further use of high yield strategies in instruction.  We also plan to implement the Cognitively Guided Instruction at the third and fourth grade levels. 

 We are seeing an upward trend in our K-2 scores the past two years.  Kindergarten Reading scores moved from 67% to 75% of the students at the 50% or above.  First grade reading scores in 2008 were 45%, and moved to 63% in 2009.  Second grade saw a gain from 39% to 49% in reading.  Scores continue to indicate we are doing things right.  Bonita Pearson, Literacy Coach, will continue to work with our teachers, and we will expand our professional library of resources to further our implementation of The Comprehensive Literacy Model.

Third Grade Benchmark Literacy scores showed a huge increase from 2007 to 2008.  We moved from 56% of the students being proficient or advanced to 84% of the students scoring proficient or advanced in 2008.  The 2009 scores, while still well above average, indicate a slight drop, moving to 78% of the students being proficient or advanced.  We want to see these scores steadily increase.  With additional training in Comprehensive Literacy and improved instructional strategies being implemented and refined with the Literacy Coach we hope to see this area make further improvements.  The formative assessments given through The Learning Institute (TLI) should also help improve this area by having current assessments to drive instruction.

The Literacy scores at the fourth grade show a slight increase over the past three years.  We hope to continue to see this growth.  We would like to see a more significant growth, but as the percent of students being proficient or advanced increases, the harder it will be to produce large gains.  We will be doing the same thing with Literacy training at fourth grade.    

When compared to the nation we do very well, but Arkansas is a state that is leading our country in education.  When we compare ourselves to other schools in our county (Pope, & Yell) we continue to rank as one of the top performing schools, but there is still room for us to grow.  We start out in kindergarten ranked first in reading and math and in first grade we ranked first in reading and second in math based on the National Percentile Rank.  By the time we get to the fourth grade we rank third in our area.  Few percentile points separate the top three rankings.  Since we have joined two excellent staffs to form the new building, we know our improvements will continue. 

We are effectively networking with other successful schools in our area. On our last professional development day, two teachers from Russellville presented specific TLI strategies for use in the classroom. Dover teachers found their ideas to be extremely helpful.  We intend to continue to work more closely with our neighbors to build a better networking system to assist all children.   At Dover Elementary School we will continue to work on the following elements to bring about improved student learning; Comprehensive Literacy strategies using our Literacy Coach Bonnita Pearson for training, High Yield Instructional Strategies, Cognitive Guided Instruction,  Professional Learning techniques to develop stronger leadership among the teams, Learning Team meetings, vertical team meetings, Student Intervention Team  meetings, The Learning Institute for formative assessment, Performance assessments and Performance or Standard based report cards and many more innovative teaching techniques. We will also collect data through Classroom Walkthroughs.  We will be having lead teachers trained in this method of data collection on October 27^th and 28^th at the new building.