For the Children - Henderson County Public Schools

Instruction For the Children
Instructional Focus
The school district’s instructional focus continues to be aligned to the latest research
on effective schools and effective instructional practices. Five instructional strategies
– extending and refining (higher order thinking skills), student summarizing
techniques, teaching vocabulary in context, using advanced organizers to scaffold
student learning, and using graphic organizers – are used by teachers.
The common language of Learning-Focused® instructional strategies and
collaborative planning allows teachers to communicate better with each other,
with support staff, and specialists. Elementary principals work to provide
larger blocks of interrupted instructional time in the classrooms. Some of the
elementary schools arrange the school day so that teachers on the same grade
level have common planning each day in order to share best practices and
collaborate on planning instructional lessons.
School-wide walkthroughs have become a tool used to ensure that essential
questions, summarizers, content area vocabulary word walls, and research-based
teaching strategies are consistent and pervasive in all classrooms. Teams of
principals and teachers periodically visit classrooms to look for these practices
and to gain ideas from other teachers. There continues to be a focus in writing
across the curriculum to emphasize higher level thinking skills in all content
areas. Many schools have multimedia carts for each grade level containing
a document camera, a data projector, and a laptop that assist with the use of
integrated technology across the curriculum.
All schools select a professional learning focus for the school year that is within
our framework for improvement. Our instructional coaches and other teacherleaders
facilitate the professional learning sessions which is an ongoing process
throughout the school year. Many of our schools conduct book studies on a
variety of instructional and educational topics throughout the year. For example,
many schools completed a book study on Ruby Payne’s book, A Framework
for Understanding Poverty, and used the information to bridge the gap between
school and home for students.
English Language Learners (ELL)
The 2008-2009 school year was another transition year for the Henderson
County Public Schools English as a Second Language (ESL)/Migrant Education
program. Statewide, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (DPI)
became part of the WIDA, or World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment,
consortium. WIDA provides research-based English language development
assessments and a framework for effective ESL instruction.
ESL collaborated with Title I and Exceptional Children programs to provide
Co-Teaching training for eight ESL staff. ESL also collaborated with the Boys
and Girls Club to provide a summer “Jump Start” Reading program for Migrant
students (a program that was showcased by DPI at a fall Title I conference).
Due to federal authorities imposing a new stipulation late in the school year,
86 North Carolina Local Education Agencies (LEA), representing 72% of the
state’s public school systems (of which HCPS was one), were cited for failing
to exit a sufficient percentage of ELLs from ESL status for two consecutive
years. The District’s current plan will be revision in Spring 2010 to increase the
percentage of students exiting the program.
New for 2009-2010 in ELL
Several goals for 2009-2010 have been established for the program. They
include: raising ESL sub-group test scores to proficiency levels comparable to
Henderson County Public Schools -4- For the Children