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CONTACTS:
Mike Gregory
Principal, Greenwood Elementary
Phone: 541-663-3580
Jay Rowell
La Grande School District Superintendent
Phone: 541-663-3202
Painting themselves a new model
When Mike Gregory started as principal at Greenwood Elementary in La Grande, his school had a low state report card rating. But by last year, the school's math scores had climbed from 58 percent of K-6 students at the state benchmark to 95 percent. Reading also climbed to 90 percent from 56 percent.
A three-year federal Comprehensive School Reform (CSR) state grant helped tremendously, Gregory admits, but the goal could not have been reached without ownership among his teachers.
“We spent about a year researching various programs and visiting schools,” he said. “We agreed to use “Different Ways of Knowing,” a program developed by the Galief Institute. We knew we had good teachers and good techniques. We found what we suspected: We were like a boat with rowers paddling in different directions.”
With Annie Painter, a long-time Oregon educator, artist, and children's book author, serving as freelance consultant and Marty Frasier, district Title 1 coordinator, the team of teachers, staff and parents worked their way to success.
Both the year-long research process and the fact the team had to find its own ways to integrate “Different Ways of Knowing” into its curriculum created the sense of ownership. Gregory says he is confident that even without more grant money, the “change model” they have created will continue.
Key to the school's success was data-collection, team research, and a joint decision to use art as a teaching tool to reach different types of learners in math, reading, writing and science.
ODE gave Greenwood an “Exceptional” rating this year
-- and now other teachers are looking into how this model could work in their districts.
“We're learning things about individual kids that we might never have known,” said Gregory. |
