U.S. Department of Education 2016 National Blue Ribbon ...

U.S. Department of Education

2016 National Blue Ribbon Schools Program

[X] Public or [ ] Non-public

For Public Schools only: (Check all that apply) [ ] Title I [ ] Charter

[ ] Magnet

[ ] Choice

Name of Principal Mrs. Priscilla Evans Yother (Specify: Ms., Miss, Mrs., Dr., Mr., etc.) (As it should appear in the official records)

Official School Name Eura Brown Elementary School (As it should appear in the official records)

School Mailing Address 1231 Alcott Road (If address is P.O. Box, also include street address.)

City Gadsden

State AL

Zip Code+4 (9 digits total) 35901-5513

County Etowah County Telephone (256) 546-0011

Fax (256) 546-6855

Web site/URL E-mail pyother@gcs.k12.al.us

Twitter Handle

Facebook Page

Google+

YouTube/URL

Blog

Other Social Media Link

I have reviewed the information in this application, including the eligibility requirements on page 2 (Part IEligibility Certification), and certify, to the best of my knowledge, that it is accurate.

(Principal's Signature)

Date____________________________

Name of Superintendent*Dr Ed Miller

E-mail emiller@gcs.k12.al.us

(Specify: Ms., Miss, Mrs., Dr., Mr., Other)

District Name Gadsden City School System

Tel. (256) 543-3512

I have reviewed the information in this application, including the eligibility requirements on page 2 (Part I-

Eligibility Certification), and certify, to the best of my knowledge, that it is accurate.

Date (Superintendent's Signature)

Name of School Board President/Chairperson Mrs. Kelly Cochran

(Specify: Ms., Miss, Mrs., Dr., Mr., Other)

I have reviewed the information in this application, including the eligibility requirements on page 2 (Part IEligibility Certification), and certify, to the best of my knowledge, that it is accurate.

(School Board President's/Chairperson's Signature)

Date____________________________

The original signed cover sheet only should be converted to a PDF file and uploaded via the online portal.

*Non-public Schools: If the information requested is not applicable, write N/A in the space.

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Part I ? Eligibility Certification

The signatures on the first page of this application (cover page) certify that each of the statements below, concerning the school's eligibility and compliance with U.S. Department of Education and National Blue Ribbon Schools requirements, are true and correct.

1. The school configuration includes one or more of grades K-12. (Schools on the same campus with one principal, even a K-12 school, must apply as an entire school.)

2. The public school has met their state's accountability requirements (i.e., avoided sanctions) in participation, performance in reading (or English language arts) and mathematics, and other academic indicators (i.e., attendance rate and graduation rate) using the most recent accountability results available for the year prior to nomination.

3. To meet final eligibility, a public school must meet the state's accountability requirements (i.e., avoided sanctions) in participation, performance in reading (or English language arts) and mathematics, and other academic indicators (i.e., attendance rate and graduation rate) for the year in which they are nominated (2015-2016) and be certified by the state representative. Any status appeals must be resolved at least two weeks before the awards ceremony for the school to receive the award.

4. If the school includes grades 7 or higher, the school must have foreign language as a part of its curriculum.

5. The school has been in existence for five full years, that is, from at least September 2010 and each tested grade must have been part of the school for the past three years.

6. The nominated school has not received the National Blue Ribbon Schools award in the past five years: 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, or 2015.

7. The nominated school has no history of testing irregularities, nor have charges of irregularities been brought against the school at the time of nomination. The U.S. Department of Education reserves the right to disqualify a school's application and/or rescind a school's award if irregularities are later discovered and proven by the state.

8. The nominated school or district is not refusing Office of Civil Rights (OCR) access to information necessary to investigate a civil rights complaint or to conduct a district-wide compliance review.

9. The OCR has not issued a violation letter of findings to the school district concluding that the nominated school or the district as a whole has violated one or more of the civil rights statutes. A violation letter of findings will not be considered outstanding if OCR has accepted a corrective action plan from the district to remedy the violation.

10. The U.S. Department of Justice does not have a pending suit alleging that the nominated school or the school district as a whole has violated one or more of the civil rights statutes or the Constitution's equal protection clause.

11. There are no findings of violations of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in a U.S. Department of Education monitoring report that apply to the school or school district in question; or if there are such findings, the state or district has corrected, or agreed to correct, the findings.

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PART II - DEMOGRAPHIC DATA

Data should be provided for the most recent school year (2015-2016) unless otherwise stated.

DISTRICT

1. Number of schools in the district (per district designation):

8 Elementary schools (includes K-8) 3 Middle/Junior high schools 1 High schools 0 K-12 schools

12 TOTAL

SCHOOL (To be completed by all schools)

2. Category that best describes the area where the school is located:

[ ] Urban or large central city [ ] Suburban with characteristics typical of an urban area [X] Suburban [ ] Small city or town in a rural area [ ] Rural

3. Number of students as of October 1, 2015 enrolled at each grade level or its equivalent in applying school:

Grade

PreK K 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

12 or higher Total

Students

# of Males

0 25 41 28 32 23 37 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

186

# of Females Grade Total

0

0

32

57

22

63

20

48

31

63

36

59

25

62

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

166

352

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4. Racial/ethnic composition of the school:

0 % American Indian or Alaska Native 5 % Asian 23 % Black or African American 1 % Hispanic or Latino 0 % Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander 70 % White 1 % Two or more races

100 % Total

(Only these seven standard categories should be used to report the racial/ethnic composition of your school. The Final Guidance on Maintaining, Collecting, and Reporting Racial and Ethnic Data to the U.S. Department of Education published in the October 19, 2007 Federal Register provides definitions for each of the seven categories.)

5. Student turnover, or mobility rate, during the 2014 ? 2015 school year: 8%

This rate should be calculated using the grid below. The answer to (6) is the mobility rate.

Steps For Determining Mobility Rate (1) Number of students who transferred to the school after October 1, 2014 until the end of the 2014-2015 school year (2) Number of students who transferred from the school after October 1, 2014 until the end of the 2014-2015 school year (3) Total of all transferred students [sum of rows (1) and (2)] (4) Total number of students in the school as of October 1, 2014 (5) Total transferred students in row (3) divided by total students in row (4) (6) Amount in row (5) multiplied by 100

Answer 8

25 33 393 0.084 8

6. English Language Learners (ELL) in the school: 5 % 15 Total number ELL

Specify each non-English language represented in the school (separate languages by commas): Spanish, Vietnamese, Ewe, Arabic, Mandarin, Telugu, Urdu

7. Students eligible for free/reduced-priced meals: 26 % Total number students who qualify: 104

8. Students receiving special education services: 6 % 23 Total number of students served

Indicate below the number of students with disabilities according to conditions designated in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Do not add additional conditions. It is possible that students may be classified in more than one condition.

0 Autism 0 Deafness 0 Deaf-Blindness 0 Emotional Disturbance 0 Hearing Impairment 0 Mental Retardation 0 Multiple Disabilities

0 Orthopedic Impairment 1 Other Health Impaired 14 Specific Learning Disability 8 Speech or Language Impairment 0 Traumatic Brain Injury 0 Visual Impairment Including Blindness 0 Developmentally Delayed

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9. Number of years the principal has been in her/his position at this school: 14

10. Use Full-Time Equivalents (FTEs), rounded to nearest whole numeral, to indicate the number of school staff in each of the categories below:

Administrators Classroom teachers Resource teachers/specialists e.g., reading, math, science, special education, enrichment, technology, art, music, physical education, etc. Paraprofessionals Student support personnel e.g., guidance counselors, behavior interventionists, mental/physical health service providers, psychologists, family engagement liaisons, career/college attainment coaches, etc.

Number of Staff 1 20 11 0

1

11. Average student-classroom teacher ratio, that is, the number of students in the school divided by the FTE of classroom teachers, e.g., 22:1 18:1

12. Show daily student attendance rates. Only high schools need to supply yearly graduation rates.

Required Information

2014-2015 2013-2014 2012-2013 2011-2012 2010-2011

Daily student attendance

99%

97%

98%

97%

97%

High school graduation rate

0%

0%

0%

0%

0%

13. For high schools only, that is, schools ending in grade 12 or higher. Show percentages to indicate the post-secondary status of students who graduated in Spring 2015.

Post-Secondary Status Graduating class size Enrolled in a 4-year college or university Enrolled in a community college Enrolled in career/technical training program Found employment Joined the military or other public service Other

0 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%

14. Indicate whether your school has previously received a National Blue Ribbon Schools award.

Yes X

No

If yes, select the year in which your school received the award. 1992

15. In a couple of sentences, provide the school's mission or vision statement.

Our mission is to provide a rigorous, yet balanced program that prepares students to succeed in a constantly changing, technologically driven, global, mulit-cultural society.

16. For public schools only, if the school is a magnet, charter, or choice school, explain how students are chosen to attend.

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PART III ? SUMMARY

Eura Brown Elementary School is a K-5 public school in the Gadsden City School System situated in the middle of an older, quiet neighborhood. Built in 1954, the school was first an annex to the downtown Striplin Elementary School. The developing Clubview Community grew quickly and by 1960 the annex became a first through third grade school.

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The award helped to officially put the "high standards" stamp on our school for students, faculty, and stakeholders. It has long been a source of pride for our school, school system, and city. For instance, tours are frequently requested by both area hospitals and the Chamber of Commerce to help with recruiting much needed new families to Gadsden.

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PART IV ? CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION

1. Core Curriculum:

Eura Brown Elementary School uses an academic content standards based curriculum that is outlined for each grade level under the Alabama College and Career Ready Standards. These standards define what each student should know and be able to do. All students and parents are aware of the learning standards progression and the goal of mastery. Students are constantly reminded of classroom standards with "I Can" statements on display in the classrooms.

Reading and language arts instruction is integrated into all content areas from kindergarten through fifth grade. Everyone from the music teacher to the technology specialist infuses reading and language standards into their instruction. Because kindergarten students have a wide range of maturity levels and academic abilities, part of their instruction is individualized using daily contracts and centers. The school's "Reading First" program begins in first grade and continues through fifth. It challenges all students with a focus on accelerated progress. At the sound of the 8:00 bell students begin to move through the halls to their reading classes. The students are grouped according to their reading level with the higher or above grade level students having larger classes and the lowest level having very small classes. This allows those students that are below grade level to benefit from increased one on one and small group explicit instruction from the combined efforts of a classroom teacher and a resource teacher. The one and a half to two hour block of time meets the individual needs of advanced readers, average readers, and guided readers and has proven to be very effective. Students move from class to class during the year depending on their progress, effort, and motivation. Volunteers and a shared system-wide reading coach assist in supporting students whose progress is not meeting expectations.

Math instruction in the primary grades concentrates on using numbers, number sense and operations moving from concrete to abstract. Showing students at a young age how numbers and operations are used in everyday life is also a priority. Mastery of addition and subtraction facts is a focus. Along with accuracy and speed, students strive for the facts to become automatic. Math instruction for 3rd ? 5th grades builds on prior foundational skills to include geometry, fractions, and beginning algebra. Learning multiplication facts to the level of automaticity in third grade is a grade level standard that is achieved by the majority of students. At the intermediate level the standards place a greater emphasis on precision, speed and accuracy, modeling, reasoning abstractly, justification and explanation, applying math to the real world and using critical thinking skills. Individual or small group additional instruction is given before or after school by classroom teachers for students who need it. Our math teams have placed first at the system's Math Fest for the last five years.

Exploration, investigation, and experimentation are practices consistently used in the science curriculum. Students learn the foundational knowledge associated with physical, life, earth and space sciences beginning in the primary grades. The concepts are taught again in greater depth as students ascend through the intermediate grades. Inquiry activities include kindergarten students collecting data on birds as they feed outside the classroom windows, first graders charting the sunset time for a month, third graders making rocks, fourth graders experimenting with electric circuits, and the highly anticipated week of exploration at Space Camp in Huntsville for our fifth grade students.

Part of the school's mission statement is that we will prepare students for a constantly changing, global, multi-cultural society. Our social studies curriculum uses the standards for each grade level as a base for teaching students about our community, state, nation, the world and its history. Fifth grade students research presidents and first ladies and portray them in an annual community Parade of Presidents and First Ladies Program. Third graders research our city and display historical facts while fourth grade students do Alabama heroes presentations. Economics becomes real when fifth grade students research the cost of living and currency from other countries and make comparisons. The annual National Geography Bee is an exciting school event. Several times through the years, including this one, the school's winner qualified for state competition.

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