Riley Award Case Statement

							                                Riley Award Case Statement
                      Taylors Elementary School Improvement Council

Introduction

Students at Taylors Elementary are residents of Greenville County, a suburban community with a
population of approximately 379,616. The median income for Greenville County is $41,149 and the
median home value is approximately $111,800. The percentage of families living in poverty increased
over the last decade from 7.8% in 1990 to 7.9% in 2000. The racial composition of Greenville County is
predominantly white (77.5%) with approximately 18.3% African-American, 3.8% Hispanic, and 1.4 %
Asian. Taylors Elementary has different student composition than Greenville County as a whole.
According to 2005-2006 data, the racial composition of Taylors Elementary was 62% White, 24% African
American, 10% Hispanic and 4% Other. Additionally, in 2005-2006, 45% of our students received
Subsidized Meals having qualified for free or reduced lunch status.

Parents of our students work in management/professional, sales and office, service, and construction and
maintenance occupations. Some of these parents own or manage businesses which partner with our
school to meet the needs of our students. During the 2005-2006 school year, these businesses included
Publix at Wade Hampton Village, Family Dental Care, Ambling Management, A Step Above Dance
Academy, Papa Jack’s Cajun Foods, Heritage Home Inspections, Sprinkle Prosthetics, and Xtreme
Cleaning.

Issue Addressed

In 2005, Taylors Elementary SIC learned that our school failed to meet NCLB Adequate Yearly Progress
(AYP) for the 2004-2005 school year. We were excited to learn we had met 18 out of 19 objectives
(including all academic objectives), but were stunned to learn we would not meet AYP due to the
attendance rate of our Subsidized Meal Students. We also learned that we did not meet this objective by
less than .01% of a point. Our principal reacted by appealing this decision to the State Superintendent of
Education.

In addition to this appeal, SIC decided we had a bigger issue to address. We realized that our attendance
rates and, more specifically, our tardy rates were too high and resulted in the loss of valuable instructional
time. We categorized this problem under Action Plan #3 of our SACS Plan – learning personal and social
responsibility skills. We knew that some situations were completely out of our control, such as single
parents who worked night shifts and could not get their kids to school until after they got off work.
However, we also knew that if we could find a way to motivate our students, they would put the pressure
on at home to make sure that they not only attended school every day, but would arrive on time.

Actions Taken

Inspired by the Greenville County School District annual Attendance Blitz, Taylors Elementary SIC formed
an attendance committee in October 2005. This committee brainstormed and came up with five actions to
motivate students into taking pride in school attendance.

Action #1
Our new school motto is Taylors Elementary – All About Pride. We worked with this theme and developed
a poster campaign. The poster featured our new logo – the Taylors Topcats – and the message
“Attendance is Important – Have Pride in Attendance!” These awareness posters were hung all over
the school, especially in stairwells and entryways, to constantly remind our students and parents that
attendance is a big part of the educational process.




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Action #2
Building on the idea of the annual attendance blitz used by our school district, SIC decided to hold a
monthly “Secret Attendance Blitz.” Only the attendance committee knew these dates, which were chosen
to target dates where attendance is low (right before holidays) or before important events (such as
standardized testing). The grade level with the best attendance rate on the day of a secret blitz won
special honors and a banner on their door – bragging rights for the month.

Action #3
Another action taken was distributing perfect attendance medals. All students were given colorful clips to
attach to their backpacks at the beginning of this program. Each month, the attendance committee would
receive a printout of attendance rates for all students by class. Students with perfect attendance
(including NO TARDIES) were awarded special medals to hang on the backpack clips.

Action #4
In 2005, our school implemented the Baldrige Model of Continuous Improvement. This resulted in the use
of all kinds of data collection techniques, including student data notebooks and different data displays
(plus/delta, etc.). We used data displays to show progress in attendance rates, tardy rates, and missed
instructional time. These results were posted during PTA nights to show students and parents progress
that had been made and work still needed to be done to get children to school every day and on time.

Action #5
The highlight of the attendance program was our Race for Attendance. We made a huge, colorful chart
that was hung behind the secretary in our school office. The chart had every class and every class had at
least 20 slots. Every day a class had perfect attendance with no unexcused tardies, they moved ahead
one slot (we put little race car stickers on the slots on the chart). Each day these classes were recognized
in afternoon announcements and the official “standings” were read. The first class to have 20 days (not
consecutive) of perfect attendance won a lunch with our principal, which included ice cream sundaes and
a special surprise (a small gift). Again, not only were we stressing attendance, but also how important it
was to be on time.

Results

Result to Action #1
Posters were never tampered with, and their message encouraged discussion among individual students,
classes and parents.

Result to Action #2
The secret blitzes were a huge success. The secret blitz was played up during morning announcements –
students were to be on the lookout for it sometime soon! The classes which won the banner for their
classroom door were very proud and the classes who lost the honor to another class were determined to
work extra hard to gain the banner back. It got the students thinking about their own responsibility to show
up for school on time and how students who come in late or who are absent affect class instruction.

Result to Action #3
The perfect attendance medals were a real hit. The students loved collecting them and showing them off
on their backpacks. We know for some students it was very important to get that medal every month. The
growing number of medals was an inward sign that they were working hard and an outward sign to other
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students that attendance is important. There are even 6 graders who went to Taylors last year who have
kept all their perfect attendance medals.

Result to Action #4
As a result of graphing the data, visual displays motivated the classes to work toward a targeted goal.
The amount of instructional time lost decreased each month. In September, weekly data showed that
minutes of instructional time lost due to absences and tardies averaged 602 minutes. By October, the
time lost had decreased to 401 minutes of lost instructional time weekly. In May, the school had narrowed
the gap to less than 300 minutes of lost instructional time due to tardies each week.


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Result to Action #5
This action was the most popular of all the actions implemented by our attendance committee. As with the
secret blitzes, the Race for Attendance really stressed personal responsibility and classroom
accountability for all students. The race was close for many classes. Having lunches in a special location
with our principal was really a hit. Having ice cream sundaes and getting treats provided even more
incentive for students to win the race. This time with the principal was also used to showcase different
projects the students had been working on recently. One class read aloud different stories they had
written after lunch was finished. One particular fifth grade class did not do very well during the first and
second race we had. In fact, they had only two days of perfect attendance. During the next race,
something sparked them and they eventually went on to win that race!

Overall Result
Overall, student response was overwhelmingly positive to our actions taken to resolve the issue of
attendance and tardy rates at Taylors Elementary School. Awareness of the importance of attendance
was achieved and students and parents worked hard to help solve this problem. Our student attendance
rate went from 96.0% during the 2004-2005 school year to 96.8% for the 2005-2006 school year. In
addition, Taylors Elementary reduced the number of lost instructional time due to tardiness from 601
minutes in September 2005 to approximately 300 by April 2006.




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Jim Watkins, SIC Chairman           November 13, 2006




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