Salem School District officials have been notified that for the fourth consecutive year the high school and elementary schools have received an “A” on the Arkansas Department of Education’s (ADE) report card. The ADE reporting system has been in place for five years. Areawide Media reports the high school received a “B” the first year and since then, both have received the top grade.
ADE is mandated to evaluate school performance to work toward continuous improvement for the educational delivery system. Under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which replaced the Secondary Education Act, schools are awarded letter grades.
In addition, Superintendent Wayne Guiltner reports the elementary school has received numerous awards from the Office of Education Policy (EOP) administered by the University of Arkansas. The Salem Elementary School has received six awards for literacy and math.
In the initial scoring, the elementary school was rated fourth best in performance in the state. After a category which includes the percent of students receiving free or reduced lunches was factored in, the elementary school was rated the top school in the state. In all, the Salem Elementary School has received 11 EOP awards.
In addition, Superintendent Guiltner says Salem Public Schools officials compare the district with the other schools in the 17-school Arkansas Educational Cooperative of which it is a member. The elementary and high schools are both the top-rated school in the cooperative.
When combined, they are the top-rated district. Superintendent Guiltner has been with the district in some capacity for 20 years. He tells Areawide Media he has reviewed 16 years of data, and Salem has been the top-rated district in each of the 16 years.
He adds this is an even bigger accomplishment when considering every school in the area is doing well. There are only a “handful” of school districts in the state where all schools in a district received the letter grade of “A,” he adds.
Guiltner was asked what he considered to be the “keys to success.” He notes three or four schools visit Salem each year to evaluate the schools to determine what Salem is doing to attain such a high level of achievement and, hopefully, discover the “secrets” of its delivery system. He says there are not really any secrets.
To illustrate, he relates an experience he says he would not use if it had not been related to principals and superintendents attending a state-wide conference.
The Cabot School District, which he notes is a great school, is one whose representatives visit Salem. Representatives from Cabot visited with the principal and observed teachers, and when they left, they had not yet picked up on any perceived differences. Only when they returned to their school did they reflect on possible differences, and the representatives later shared this with the conference participants. The key they noted was that Salem teachers were teaching “bell to bell.” They didn’t stop teaching the entire time the visitors were present.
Guiltner says Salem teachers don’t take time out of instruction to do other things, and the district is very protective of instructional time. He says the top factors district officials consider key to the learning process are high expectations and protecting instructional time.
Guiltner was asked what role distance learning (instructional delivery from a remote site) plays in the district’s education plan. He notes the state of Arkansas requires each student to have at least one distance learning course in order to graduate. He says all students take at least an art course. He says most students probably take at least three distance learning courses before graduation just on electives they choose. Many of these are online concurrent credit courses (by definition, concurrent credit permits high school students to enroll in college-level courses under current conditions) paid for by the district.
There are many more options, including online advanced placement and concurrent credit courses. Guiltner says the district opens the entire course catalog of Virtual Arkansas to students, and they are told they can take anything in the catalog. The only cost to the district is providing textbooks.
The discussion continued with the impact this type of instruction was having on continuing learning when instruction is impacted by weather-related closings. Guiltner says this “alternate method of instruction” (AMI) plays a key role in permitting learning to continue from other locations than the school. School officials know from conducting a survey that around 70% of the students have access to some form of Internet.
On another matter, Superintendent Guiltner says the district has been approved to construct six classrooms. Bid openings were conducted earlier this month, and 48 bids in 15 categories were received. The school board recently approved the project to go forward, with a goal of completing the project before the next school year begins. Guiltner says the space is needed for a large class is coming, and this project will permit the seventh and eighth graders to have their own wing.
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