THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, April 17, 1995 TAG: 9504170123
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY VANEE VINES, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: Long : 169 lines
Nancy Massenburg, 7, zips through a subtraction worksheet in her first-grade class at Southwestern Elementary School.
After glancing at one of the final math problems, she grabs a handful of tiny plastic teddy bears and positions them on the ``bus,'' an empty egg carton. Her challenge: 13 minus seven. Thirteen bears take their seats. Seven get the boot.
``See, six are left,'' she says, jotting down the answer. ``It's not hard.''
Classmate Dameon Parrish uses another method to help subtraction skills sink in. Sitting on the floor, he rolls two oversized cubes. He lands a four and a one. He records the numbers and then subtracts ``the little one out of the big one'' on his paper. His pencil barely hits the floor before he begins the next round.
``In Mrs. Galloway's class,'' 7-year-old Richard Edwards explains, ``stuff is just more funner.''
Last fall, in a portable unit outside the school, Paula Galloway debuted a ``hands-on'' alternative program for a dozen Southwestern first-graders who were falling behind their peers in traditional classrooms or were in danger of failing. One student had flunked kindergarten twice and was close to failing a third time. Another barely recognized letters.
But, judging by parental support and the students' achievement on proficiency tests, Galloway's efforts have helped remove some of the risk for these at-risk children. Her initiative is crucial in Suffolk, which ranks among the top 10 Virginia districts in the percentage of children who are held back a year or more before reaching fourth grade.
Not surprisingly, such students are more likely to drop out later or disrupt class because they feel left out. The issue has taken on renewed importance as educators seek better and often more basic ways to instill a desire to learn in children before bad attitudes and failure set in.
``I have very high expectations,'' said Galloway, a 16-year veteran. ``I know, everybody can say, `I have high expectations for my students.' But not everybody believes their kids can do the work. If that were the case, we wouldn't have some of the problems we have now.''
Galloway has created an environment where success is practically guaranteed.
The class is small enough for her to know the students well and provide extra help when they need it. At the beginning of the school year, she set aside half a day to meet parents at their homes. She also received permission to restructure the day so students would get more of what they lacked. Instead of studying social studies, science and health, for instance, students spend about an extra 95 minutes each day working on math, reading and language-development skills.
In a national study released last week, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching said elementary schools must, among other things, abandon flavor-of-the-month approaches and emphasize reading and language skills in all classes if schools are to improve more rapidly.
If kids don't have those basics, Galloway said, they won't do well in other subjects, anyway.
Last school year, 10 percent of Suffolk's fourth-graders had failed at least one grade. At Southwestern, that figure was 16 percent. Typically, about 25 percent of at-risk children fail at least one grade before reaching fourth grade, federal Education Department statistics show.
Suffolk hopes to further reduce the number of students who are failing before fourth grade.
Thanks to extra state dollars, about 80 at-risk 4-year-olds will get a preschool education beginning next school year - a drop in the bucket for a city in which 50 percent of the students are needy enough to qualify for free- or reduced-price lunches. Currently, the district has no preschool programs.
Superintendent Beverly B. Cox III sees the new program as the first rung on a ladder to help children climb up to kindergarten and beyond. Extra state aid also has allowed Suffolk to hire more teachers, thus reducing class size in the primary grades.
For the 1994-95 and 1995-96 school years, the state earmarked $2.2 million to help Suffolk reduce class size in kindergarten through third grade, set up a preschool program for at-risk 4-year-olds and expand technology in schools.
Suffolk's preschool program alone will cost $432,342, with about 67 percent of that money coming from the state and the district pitching in the rest.
To help more kids succeed, city schools need more money to make differences earlier, Cox said.
Kindergarten teacher Bonnie Duplissey said several of the students she steered to Galloway's ``High Success'' program were ``kids on the fence.''
``I had to steal time with them to help them get on the right track,'' Duplissey says. ``It's hard, though, because bringing them up to where they need to be isn't something that can be done in nine months or in the six hours of a regular day in a traditional setting.''
The students get intensive care for two years before they return to a typical third-grade class. They can exit the program early if they do well, Galloway said. Back in the mainstream, their progress will be monitored by a support team of several teachers and a guidance counselor.
The school plans to free up another teacher next school year to expand the program to a new group of first-graders, while Galloway stays with her current students.
Liane Edwards, 24, said her son, Richard, is no longer the ``frustrated'' child who disliked school.
``He's really excited about school now,'' she said. ``He's always ready to tell me the new words he learned, or he'll say, `Mama, I have to read a book to you tonight.' I don't think I could read that much at his age.
``Last year, I guess he was just more frustrated, and I had a harder time keeping up with his work because I couldn't figure out what he was supposed to be on. Now, Mrs. Galloway has parents sign all of the homework. I have something I can follow each night that tells me what he's supposed to be doing and learning and how I can help him.''
The idea for the special class originated from Galloway's experience as a former second-grade teacher. She grew tired of seeing students with multiple retentions so early in life.
``We have to give differently abled learners and slow starters the time to be successful. The traditional classroom does not give that type of student the time they need,'' she said.
Moreover, the standard fare of busy work, memorization and reliance on textbooks require that students sit at desks or tables for long periods of time - regardless of how they're personally turned on to learning.
``You just can't put these kids in a traditional classroom with traditional books and do things the traditional way without ever understanding how they really learn, what works best for them,'' Galloway said.
She's not a sit-down-shut-up-and-count-to-10 type of teacher.
Her room is awash with student artwork and essays on the walls. There are activity areas where students can do things such as read story books silently or in groups, review a class experiment, or figure out which pickle-shaped word goes on the ``long vowel'' or ``short vowel'' side of a colorful bulletin board.
From the minute they arrive until the time they scramble for buses headed home, students are repeatedly told that words are friends who won't bite.
While students still get pressure-free drills, worksheets and assignments centered on readings from a standard text, most of what they do is aimed at helping them experience the joy of learning long before it's time to break out paper and pencils.
When they studied the concept of numerical place values, for instance, they taped 10 kidney beans to a wide Popsicle stick and then used those sticks as a reference for math lessons.
And there are all of those squishy plastic baggies filled with paint. When Galloway tosses out a math problem or asks the class what letter makes the ``B'' sound, students mark answers by pressing down on one of the bags to form the right letter or number in a sea of color.
Many lessons have multiple parts. To warm students up to writing, she once brought tomatoes to school. The kids sampled one, drew pictures of them, talked about their color, learned to spell ``tomato'' and wrote sentences showing off their new vocabulary word.
Through it all, the teacher watches and guides - suggesting to one youngster that he might have less trouble with his math problems if he takes the smallest number and adds upward; listening to another as she crafts sentences; offering others words of encouragement.
There really aren't any complicated techniques, just principles that have proved successful for years. Some of the strategies also are found in Suffolk's Education for Success Program. Duplicating such efforts on a scale large enough to make a districtwide impact is always the real challenge.
Galloway is confident the program will pay off, despite its size.
``I have 12 students who are successful and feel good about themselves and will serve as role models to their peers,'' she said.
And all of her students, she added, have met the district's academic standards for promotion to the second grade. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
MICHAEL KESTNER
Staff
"In Mrs. Galloway's class, stuff is just funner," says Richard
Edwards, 7. Paula Galloway works with Amy Brinkley at Southwestern
Elementary School in Suffolk.
MICHAEL KESTNER
Staff
Paula Galloway uses a back-to-basics approach to help give
first-graders a solid basis and keep them out of danger of having to
repeat a grade.
by CNB