SCHOOLS Board gets to witness progress

About 83 percent of third-graders passed a state reading test.
BOARDMAN -- School board members were treated to a personal look recently at a number of improvements made in studies and in the physical plant at West Boulevard Elementary School.
Robert Mastriana, an architect and partner at the 4M Company of Boardman, told board members that about $570,000 had been budgeted for improvements to the 50-year-old school. Work over the summer included:
UReplacing the school's flat roof with a slanted roof.
UPlacing 24-inch fitted plastic sewer pipes around the 14 beams lining the school's outdoor front corridor.
UPainting the ceiling.
URecoating the concrete walkway.
The cost of the roof and other work came to about $538,900, and most of the additional $32,000 went toward the concrete and painting work, Mastriana said. The project was finished around Labor Day.
School tour
Also on Monday, several West Boulevard teachers conducted an hourlong tour of the school to show board members pupils' work and to explain the benefits of various programs in place.
Many of the programs take place after school and concentrate on reading, explained Principal Don Robinson. A free after-school reading intervention program, designed to help pupils in grades 1-4, has had positive results, Robinson said.
About 83 percent of third-graders passed a state reading achievement test given last month, compared with around 60 percent last year, Robinson noted. This year, 45 percent scored in the advanced range, he added.
"Reading is the building block for success in other subjects," Robinson said.
The school also has four computer programs in place to make reading easier, Robinson added. One provides a printout of pupils' reading levels that goes home with their nine-week report card.
A Study Buddies program is set up to help first-graders improve their reading skills, said Marjorie Patterson, a reading specialist. That program runs October through May and has Boardman High School students volunteering one-on-one with pupils twice a week, Patterson added.
Beginning this year, board meetings have been held at all seven schools in the district so school officials can see what's going on at each school, Lazzeri said.