COVER STORY

Elementary school embraces change for success

FROM THE OUTSIDE, Williwaw Elementary School looks like a typical Title I school in Anchorage, Alaska. On the inside, it's much more diverse. More than 41 percent of students have limited English proficiency. The primary language among students is Hmong, the Anchorage School District's third most popular language, behind English and Spanish. Of the school's 183 students in grades 3-5 who took state assessments last school year, only 16 were white.

Williwaw is a Title I school due to its extremely high population of students from low-income families. Also a challenge is the school's transiency rate of 33 percent; that means one-third of the students are enrolled at the school for less than the whole school year.

The diversity at the school proved to be a challenge educationally, as the city of Anchorage also struggled with growing diversity and an influx of immigrants and refugees from war-torn countries.

From 2003 to 2009, Williwaw only made Adequate Yearly Progress, a federal education benchmark, once.

Finding a new approach

That's when the school restructured itself. To come up with a new educational model, the district and school's staff developed a plan that incorporated many ASD departments, best practices from the Council of the Great City Schools, current school improvement plans and previously-used strategies. The plan outlined a schoolwide approach that provided language acquisition materials, training for staff and focused on vocabulary for all students.

The following year, Williwaw's new plan was implemented. Thirty minutes of dedicated English Language Learner time was built into the master schedule. Staff conducted universal screening and progress monitoring of students throughout the year. Core instruction was explicit and systematic. A Response to Instruction model was incorporated. An ELL coach, funded through federal stimulus money, spent two years at the school. But most importantly, all staff was on board, supported the plan and worked collaboratively.

The payoff

When test results came in, everyone crossed their fingers and held their breath, hoping their refocused efforts would show some gains in student proficiency. What they found was beyond what they hoped for; not only were stagnant test scores improving for their limited English proficient students, Williwaw ELL students were now outperforming the district averages in both math and language arts. Test scores jumped nearly 15 percentage points. Now, all students are benefiting from the focus on language developement.

Williwaw's Principal Bonnie Goen credits educators' willingness to evolve for the successes among her students, "It was an involved process where the staff embraced that the instruction presented was not working for all students." A change was made, and although not always easy, Goen said the outcomes proved successful and her staff and students look forward to what comes next.

Read more in the 2011 edition of Expect the Best (PDF)