Educators offer recipes for student success

January 4, 2010 at 12:04a.m.

Warren spends nearly twice as much money per pupil as Canfield does.

By MELINDA GRAY and AMY BROWN

Officials at the highest and lowest performing elementary schools in the Mahoning Valley agree on the three factors that most affect students’ success: Attending school regularly, having parents who are involved in their educations and learning to read and comprehend at an early age.

Canfield earned an “Excellent With Distinction” rating on the 2008-09 Ohio report cards, meeting 29 out of 30 state indicators for progress. Warren, which scored an Academic Watch rating, met three out of the 30 indicators.

In addition to being at opposite ends of the performance spectrum, the two schools are also economically, demographically and socially paradoxical.

Canfield rates at the top of almost all measures; Warren’s at the bottom, except for one area: per pupil spending.

Warren spends almost twice as much to educate its students as Canfield. At Canfield, officials spend $4,969 while Warren spends $9,468.

This is because of the teachers’ salaries, ratio of students per teacher and resources offered to low-income children. Free lunches, free vaccinations and help for families of low-income children all figure into per-pupil spending.

In Canfield, only 5 percent of children qualify for free or reduced lunches. In Warren, 72 percent of children qualify.

Canfield Superintendent Dante J. Zambrini attributes his district’s success to the method of teaching used in classrooms.

“Our teachers try to give formative assessments to see what they know, what they don’t know, did they get it or didn’t they?” Zambrini said. “They reteach a lesson or if you’re really behind and there is a gap, then you will get extra help throughout the day.”

He also said that Canfield schools’ high attendance rates and the parents’ participation are important to high test results. Canfield schools see a consistent mid-to-high 90 percent attendance rate.

“The key thing is commitment to engaging with the children, making sure someone sits down at a kitchen table and goes over homework.”

Mary Jo Cross, head of teaching and learning at Warren schools, has a similar view of attendance and parent participation.

“From experience and what I know, at one time, there were intact families. Neighbors knew the kids. There was always someone interacting with the kids,” she said. “Now you have kids going home alone. ... There is no one there to ask how their day was. Those meaningful conversations with adults make a lot of difference. Those things you can’t measure; they are so critical.”

Statistically, only 32 percent of children attending Warren City Schools live in a two-parent home. In Canfield, 76 percent do.

One of the three state performance standards that Willard Elementary School in Warren met was attendance. Cross said that this may be due to the extra programs Warren offers such as three foreign languages, band, choir, visual arts, technology courses and many more.

These extras are offered as early as fourth grade. Cross said they are often enough of a pull to get students to attend school.

“The philosophy in our district is that kids have lots of different talents. We want to develop those talents,” Cross said. “We find that as we go through middle school and high school, sometimes those are the main reasons kids want to come to school.”

Canfield does not offer such extra courses for the elementary grades.

Some Canfield educators said they are reluctant to peg their success to any single program or philosophy, and instead said it is a combination of many forces, including the fact that many of them have taught together for many years.

For example, Canfield’s Hilltop elementary school has five fourth-grade teachers who have taught together for 10 years. Principal Kathy Mowry gives credit to the teachers’ abilities to collaborate and work well together.

The Canfield fourth-grade staff, however, has a different take. Melissa Urmson, a fourth-grade language arts and social studies teacher, said the high scores can be linked to students’ abilities to read and then comprehend what they have read, as well as write about it.

“This is the first step to accomplishing anything,” she said.

Canfield teachers also call parents at home to let them know about their children’s progress in class. They send home a daily agenda planner so that the students and teachers can write in it daily.

Though it has been tried, Warren does not have a similar program.

Canfield’s teaching staff is also taking advantage of the Internet, where they post lesson plans for parents to follow. Warren offers a less-detailed curriculum map online for each grade.