A pair of schools in Franklin County, VA has consistently made remarkable academic achievements since implementing SFA.
The Challenge
As two of Franklin County, VA’s five schools implementing Success for All Programs, Dudley Elementary and Windy Gap Elementary have both been getting great results. Dudley followed in the footsteps of Windy Gap, dissatisfied with its scores on state Standards of Learning (SOL) tests. Wanting to boost its numbers, school administrators looked at the other school’s experience with SFA – where students made remarkable gains in the first year of the program – and decided to follow suit.
The Results
With the implementation of SFA, both schools saw immediate results. At the beginning of the 2011-12 school year, 58% of Dudley students were reading on or above grade level. At the end, that number jumped to 80%, and its SOL scores went from an 86% pass rate to 92%.
One year ahead of Dudley, Windy Gap started with 46% of students reading on or above grade level. In the first nine weeks the number rose to 52%, and it continued to climb to 82%. “SFA gave us a common language, a common goal,” says Principal Hopkins. “It is total school support system and truly leaves no one behind.”
So enthused by its results, Windy Gap shared their success at the Virginia School Boards Association Conference in 2012, speaking about how SFA has helped to boost scores, lower discipline issues and influence school culture. “Not only has it changed the attitude toward reading and the importance of reading, but it also changed the climate of the school and made it much closer,” says Hopkins.
The schools noticed other benefits as well. SFA Facilitator Fields saw SFA’s influence throughout the school day. She says: “I think our teachers are stronger in other subjects because of it, because they carry over those strategies they use in reading into science and social studies and all the other programs we have.”
Both schools continue to reap the rewards of a solid SFA implementation. At Dudley, “Kids are speaking in complete sentences,” says Newell. “It’s really a delight to see them giving feedback based on the rubrics.”
At Windy Gap, Hopkins has noticed that students are generally happy and excited to be at school, reflected in the average monthly attendance rate of 97%. “Our kids like coming to school,” she says. “Even when we have snow days or holidays they want to be here. I think that speaks volumes.”