Journal profiles Maplesville High School

Focus on adolescent literacy renews enthusiasm for teaching and learning

Maplesville High School in rural Chilton County has long been known for its athletic programs, but not necessarily for its academics. But all that is changing, thanks to a new principal, a committed faculty and the Alabama Reading Initiative’s Project for Adolescent Literacy (ARI-PAL).

The school’s journey is profiled in the most recent edition of the Working Toward Excellence journal. It’s a story of a rural high school committed to improving the reading comprehension skills of its adolescent students. It’s also the story of the ups and downs encountered when a school begins a multi-year transition to a new way of teaching.

"Through hard work and determination, Maplesville High School is beginning to reap impressive results," said Cathy Gassenheimer, president of the Alabama Best Practices Center. "The school is an excellent example of what can happen when a strong instructional leader encourages a faculty to teach strategically, focus on student achievement data and continue their own learning through job-embedded professional development.”

Working Toward Excellence, the journal of the Alabama Best Practices Center, is published to help professional educators adopt the best ways to teach. The fall 2007 edition, "Bridging the Learning Gap," focuses on three successful Alabama schools that prove every day that all children can learn at high levels when taught at high levels.

Maplesville High School, which serves nearly 500 students in grades K-12, is the center of its small community. When Maggie Hicks took the reins as principal two years ago, she looked at student test scores and realized that she and the rest of the faculty would have to change classroom practices so students could learn more.

At the same time, the state was launching ARI-PAL to bring the nationally acclaimed Alabama Reading Initiative to grades four through 9. Hicks seized the opportunity to bring this program to her school, and Maplesville High School became one of 14 pilot sites for ARI-PAL.

Gone are the straight rows of students dutifully listening to a teacher delivering a textbook lecture from the podium. Classrooms at Maplesville High School are dynamic, with students grouped in fours, working together on well-planned activities and projects. Every lesson must allow students to do five things: read, write, listen, talk and investigate. ARI-PAL provided the training and structure that enabled Maplesville teachers to use the five practices in ways that promote greater student engagement and learning.

One of the ARI-PAL components is using assessments to monitor student progress. Results are reviewed in monthly data meetings to determine the strengths and weaknesses in instruction. Teachers also look at daily homework grades, and because the school is so small, Maplesville teachers emphasize observation of colleagues.

Maplesville’s first year of ARI-PAL challenged the faculty members to try new things and shake up their approach to teaching. During the second year, teachers are pressing ahead to fully integrate the strategies every day, in every lesson. The responses from students have been phenomenal. “They want to work together,” explains one veteran teacher. “Many times they try to rush me through my lecture so they can get into their groups. They are anxious to learn.”

The A+ Education Foundation in Montgomery is home of the Alabama Best Practices Center, which receives major support from Microsoft Corp. and the Wachovia Foundation. Since 1991, A+ has advanced policies, programs and initiatives that result in high achievement by every child in Alabama's K-12 education system. A+ believes Alabama's economic future depends on strong public schools.

KEY LINK
PDF (449 Kb) of the Working Toward Excellence journal's 16-page print edition, www.bestpracticescenter.org

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