THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 16, 1994 TAG: 9409160556
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
For 50 second grade students at Kitty Hawk Elementary School, the beginning of school this year meant returning to a familiar face in the classroom - their first-grade teacher - under a program known as the Family Plan.
And all second-grade students at Kitty Hawk Elementary get individual help with reading through a series of Learning Clubs.
Both programs and the seven teachers and principal who helped develop and implement them at Kitty Hawk Elementary will be honored tonight in Raleigh by Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. as part of a statewide effort to spotlight education excellence.
Kitty Hawk Elementary will be one of 30 schools and two school systems statewide cited as ``Entrepreneurial Schools'' because they have given teachers and school administrators the freedom to do what works in their classrooms.
``Our schools need teachers, principals and parents who are willing to take leadership roles to improve our kids' education,'' Hunt said. ``Encouraging this kind of educational leadership in the classroom encourages education excellence and encourages our students to achieve.''
``And our students are the winners,'' Hunt said.
At Kitty Hawk Elementary, students who were in first-grade class together last year continued with the same students, teacher and classroom aide this year, in the second grade.
``It's kind of like an old one-room school house,'' said Becky Strickland, one of two teachers participating in Family Plan. ``It's really comfortable being with the same group another year . . . and it gives the students another stable person in their lives.''
Spending two years with the same teacher helps more advanced students because the teacher has worked with them before and knows what skills they have developed. The program also benefits less advanced students because the teacher is also familiar with them and can spend more time workingwith individual weaknesses.
The program may be continued into the third grade, she said.
Meanwhile, all second-grade students, including those in the Family Plan, get individual attention in one of five Learning Clubs, a project developed by Maureen King and three other second-grade teachers.
For 45 minutes each day, the Learning Clubs meet to attack different reading skills - sight reading, oral reading, comprehension, phonics or advanced work.
Strickland credits school principal Everett Waterhouse for much of the success of the two programs.
``It's a wonderful place to teach,'' she said. ``Our principal is very kind in allowing us to do innovative things.''
The Entrepreneurial Schools were chosen by Hunt's Teacher Advisory Committee, a group of 15 classroom teachers appointed last year to link the governor's office with the state's classroom teachers. by CNB