Indianapolis Star October 4, 2008

HEADLINE: School Deemed "High Performing"

Perry Township's Winchester Village reported gains in 3 groups 2 years in a row

By Bill McCleery

Winchester Village Elementary School has earned recognition for showing consistent academic gains by traditionally underperforming groups of students.

The U.S. Department of Education has recognized the Perry Township school as a Title I High Performing School, a designation that comes attached with a $25,000 grant.

Winchester Village was one of five schools statewide to earn the label, which equates to a runner-up status to the state's leading Title I award recipient. That school, Hawthorne Elementary in Warren Township, was named Indiana's Title I Distinguished School.

Schools in the Title I category are those serving high percentages of low-income families, measured by the number of students qualifying for free and reduced lunch. To earn the national awards, schools had to show two years of adequate yearly progress, or AYP, according to measures of the federal No Child Left Behind law.

Principal David Rohl praised his staff for working to ensure that all students make progress.

"We have access to some great assessment tools now," Rohl said. "We have worked to use that over the past several years to individualize instruction. The teachers know what each child needs to move to the next level."

Rohl spoke specifically of a computerized method of performing monthly assessments that gives teachers and students immediate feedback. The tool, called the Tungsten benchmarking system, was first used in the district's two Edison-operated elementary schools and then adopted at other sites.

Communication is a huge key to success, Rohl added, both among teachers and between teachers and students.

"We're having excellent conversations with our students about their own achievement, and that has been awesome," Rohl said. "(The computerized tests) let students see instantly where their strengths and weaknesses are. They're able to analyze their own data, and that's part of how we've gotten them to own their own achievement. They're able to set individual goals and work toward attaining them."

The school also has utilized tutors to provide greater one-on-one time for some students, the principal said. The three groups of students who have shown the most dramatic gains in recent years are African American, special education and English language learners (ELL), or those whose primary languages are foreign.

Perry Township Schools director of special programs expressed pride in Winchester Village's accomplishments.

"It provides our district hope that any school can see these kinds of improvements," said Vickie Carpenter, who counts Title I programs among those she oversees. "Winchester Village has one of our district's highest free and reduced lunch populations, and it has high mobility (families moving into and out of the area) and many ELL students.

"If Winchester Village is able to achieve this level of achievement, there's no reason all of our schools can't do it. Mr. Rolf and his staff have set a bar for our district to show that if you have best practices in place, you can really make a difference."