Improving Groton Schools: Claude Chester Elementary

Claude Chester Elementary fell shy of the federal benchmark for adequate yearly progress this year, but it accomplished something other schools have not: It ranked 6th among 192 elementary schools evaluated for performance gains by the Connecticut Coaltion for Achievement Now, a non-profit group that reviews more than 1,000 schools in Connecticut.

The school received an "A" among elementaries and showed a 20.2 percent improvement in student achievement, according to the ConnCAN website.

"I'm beyond proud of my teachers, my overall staff, students and parents," said Principal Jamie Giordano. "We worked incredibly hard last year. We really honed in on specific goals for each student, and I really feel that was worth it."

ConnCAN's "top ten" lists recognize elementary, middle and high schools across the state with the highest rankings in student performance gains, overall school improvement, and minority and low-income student achievement.

New math program

Fifth grade teacher Deb Cocheo said she believes a new program called "Math Expressions" started in Groton last year was one tool that helped students.

Before the program, teachers pieced together material from different sources to come up with lessons to advance student learning. The last math program also didn't allow enough practice for students to master skills, she said.

"The new textbook takes students beyond the basic skills they need for the (Connecticut Mastery Test)," she said. It also provides students with their own textbooks; the prior program offered a teacher's guide and workbooks for the children, but no textbook they could go to for reference.

Carol Marsiglio, a remedial math teacher, said it also teaches multiple strategies to solve a problem.

For example, if the problem is, "John has 12 pancakes and Susie has 6; How many more does John have," students are taught they can subtract, use manipulitives to count, or count up from 6 to 12 to find the answer.

"It's really improved students' understanding of part to the whole," she said.

The Improvement Plan

This year, Claude Chester's improvement plan focuses on boosting the reading and math skills of students receiving free and reduced lunch, and reducing the need for discipline referrals to the office for all children.

The goals for the next three years are listed below:

•  Increase reading proficiency for students receiving free and reduced lunch by a minimum of 15 percent while improving achievement of all students.

•  Increase math proficiency for students receiving free and reduced lunch by a minimum of 20 percent while improving achievement of all students.

•  Decrease the number of office referrals for discipline by 50 percent.

The Targets

Below are the percentage of third, fourth and fifth graders at Claude Chester Elementary School who demonstrated proficiency or better in reading and math on the Connecticut Mastery Tests.  The federal goal for 2011 was 89 percent in reading and 91 percent in math.

Test results for specific groups of students, such as black students, Hispanic students or those receiving free or reduced lunch were not listed if there were fewer than 40 students in those categories.