The Anniston Board of Education heard from two Anniston city school principals Wednesday morning about the state of education at their respective schools.
Teresia Hall, principal at Cobb Preparatory Academy, and Phillip Posey, principal at Anniston High School, both spoke of students’ progress in attaining reading and math benchmarks over the last year.
Cobb Preparatory Academy
“Our children are doing pretty well,” Hall said about her kindergarten and pre-K students at Cobb Prep.
“It’s good to share good news,” Hall said.
Hall said the goal of the reading program at Cobb includes explicit and systematic instruction that will allow all students to become proficient readers.
The objective of the reading program is to make 80 percent of the students skilled in the five components of reading according to the Anniston School System’s strategic plan and the Alabama Literacy Act, Hall said.
“We wanted to ensure that our children had ongoing constant assessment — you have to do a lot of constant assessment if you want to know where your children are really going,” Hall said.
Hall said some of the objectives to help kids read include flexible grouping and collaboration, incorporating grammar and vocabulary study in the context of writing and literature and incorporating a litany of educational programs such as Heggerty, I-Ready, Reading Horizons and Epiphany Academic Vocabulary.
The efforts are paying off, she said.
In mathematics, Hall said there are six organized strands that must be focused on in kindergarten, namely, counting and cardinality, operations and algebraic thinking, numbers and operations in base 10, using fractions, measurement and data and geometry.
“That’s quite a bit for a kindergarten student but when you expose them early they can do it,” Hall said.
Hall said that the school used I-Ready to gauge students’ proficiency. I-Ready is a program that allows parents and teachers to benchmark a child’s skill level in reading and math that provides personalized lessons based on diagnostic scores.
The data is in
Hall said the 2023 I-Ready reading data indicates that 77 students are reading above grade level, 51 students are reading on grade level and 22 students are reading below grade level with no students reading at two grade levels below. Hall was proud of the fact that 78 percent of the students are reading at or above grade level.
Hall said the students in the top tier of reading scores are reading at the first- to third-grade level.
“We’re sending some strong children to you,” Hall said, referring to the students who graduate from Cobb entering the first grade.
In mathematics the I-Ready results were not as stellar as they were in reading, Hall said.
“We did fall short. In mathematics we only had 41 percent of our students near or above grade level which is 66 students,” she said. A total of 27 students were “early on grade level,” and 69 students were one grade level below, she said.
“That’s attainable,” Hall said about the students behind in math.
Hall identified adding and subtracting as something the students need more practice in.
School board president Robert Houston said part of the problem for some kids not being able to learn math arises from self-perception, influenced by comments from others.
“When you’re told that you can’t do something you believe it, that becomes ingrained in your mind,” Houston said.
“Our children have been done a great disservice by the general public by telling them they can’t do,” Houston said, “They can do anything that we put before them.”
Board member Joan Frazier said that being told at an early age that a student can’t do something or they are not good at something can follow them all the way through their academic career.
Anniston High School
Posey said that high school students take the I-Ready assessment three times each school year.
“That informs us their strengths and weaknesses and then we come up with some type of individual plan or intervention to be able to address those things,” he said.
Posey said the scores from the English Language Arts (ELA) component of the ACT have improved this school year compared to the previous two years.
“Something is happening, there’s a change, we are moving in the right direction,” Posey said.
Posey credited the great work that Hall is doing at Cobb for the uptick in the ELA ACT scores.
Posey then moved on the math ACT scores that were less than favorable.
“Math has been a struggle at the high school and there’s various factors that contributed to that,” he said.
Posey said there is a nationwide shortage of certified and qualified math teachers.
“We’re trying to get the best candidates we can to teach our students math but we’re also trying to support them with some training that’s going to help make a difference,” Posey said.
Posey said that in the last school year the high school had four math teachers but only one was fully certified. When the school bell rings in August the high school will have two certified math teachers along with two “very close to being certified,” Posey said.
Dr. D. Ray Hill, Anniston school superintendent, said one challenge that must be overcome is bringing up to grade level a student who is three grade levels behind.
“The challenge is phenomenal,” Hill said.
Hill said that the school system is looking at federal funding to hire a math interventionist to help bring up the students’ math scores.
“We’re expecting some growth, you can already see in this short period of time that we’re making some gains,” Posey said.
Posey then addressed a problem that he perceives as a hindrance for the school system; Apathy and motivation.
“When they take I-Ready they don’t try their best on it, they don’t realize that’s for us to be able to help you and that’s what we’ve been communicating the entire school year,” Posey said.
Posey said that the message is getting through as the numbers on the I-Ready assessment are getting better and grades are improving.
“We have smart children, we’ve just got to motivate them to do the best they can and do what we can to support them,” Posey said.
Posey said the newly hired math teachers for the high school are in training and getting ready for the new school year.
Putting it all together
After the meeting Houston was impressed with the improvements at Cobb.
“You heard two presentations today, Mr. Posey and Ms. Hall, Ms. Hall gave a great foundational presentation about the progress being made at Cobb preparatory, she was saying reading progress has been made, math progress has been made,” Houston said.
Houston said the Cobb kids will “trickle down” into the elementary schools.
Mr. Posey gave a presentation that wasn’t quite as sharp on progress but it’s going to take the things that Ms. Hall is doing at pre-K to eventually get up to what he’s doing,” Houston said.
Houston then looked at the big picture of the Anniston city school system that at one time was in financial stress.
“It clearly shows that we’ve got our finances together now and we’re making progress towards getting our academics together,” he said.