Madison Park also rated at five stars on gap closing, a complex measure of whether specific subgroups of students (by race, income, disability, etc.) met a variety of goals, combined with the school’s chronic absenteeism stats. About 37% of schools statewide got five stars.
Madison Park Principal Tamara Rizzo-Sterner says the building has a strong team of teachers, low turnover, a strong curriculum consistently implemented, and a group of staff that builds strong relationships.
“It starts with the positive relationships among the adults and trickles down to the positive relationships between the adults and the kids because like Ms. Sterner said before, if the kids aren’t okay socially, emotionally, then they’re not ready to learn,” said Lisa Welton, instructional coach for the school building.
The Trotwood-Madison district as a whole got two stars on the most recent report card, a designation suggesting it needs state support to meet expectations. State report card grades correlate with wealth/poverty statistics, and the Trotwood district ranks in the bottom five percent of the state in median income, according to state data.
The district has a team focused on students’ social and emotional health, funded by federal COVID-19 dollars that are set to expire in September 2024.
The school is still working on improving the curriculum and has areas that both Rizzo-Sterner and Welton say need to be improved. For example, the state rated the elementary school at one star out of five in early literacy on the 2022-23 report card.
Welton said the district has recently adopted a reading curriculum based on the science-based practices in teaching kids to read. The building has been faithful in implementation, she said, and there’s been some improvement.
Rizzo-Sterner said between 60% and 70% of the students need more support, and they are identified so staff devoted to intervention can pull them out and work with them one on one. Art, music and physical education teachers have also started working with students on skills like counting or reading in those classes.
Welton said data gathering helps them to identify which students in particular need help.
“That way, kids are getting targeted instruction on where they are at, and then we do flexible grouping so that the kids are not just stuck in,” she said.
But Welton said it’s not just the behavioral health piece, or the relationship piece, or the academic piece that stands out. Students who fall behind are less engaged. If they are less engaged, they can act out. If they don’t feel cared for, they won’t want to learn.
“All that has played into helping,” Welton said. “I only see our academics improving. All of this, it’s hard to really say what is the most important piece because I think it’s all of that together.”
Welton works with teachers one-on-one but also observes them in the classroom and does professional development training. She and Rizzo-Sterner are in and out of classrooms all day, have a meeting every week with each building grade and work closely together on building the climate of the school, which Welton described as “positive.”
The climate also helps with getting kids to school. Last year, Trotwood’s district attendance was about 89%, while Madison Park’s was 92%. Rizzo-Sterner said the school’s attendance rate has improved this year to 95% in the first quarter.
Rizzo-Sterner says there has been low turnover at the building, allowing the teachers and staff who have stayed to hit the ground running each year without catching up to new building procedures. The few staff who have come into the building this year are recently retired teachers who came back, she said, and some substitute staff are also retired and willing to come back.
“Now, hopefully, we can continue to build on what they’re able to do,” said Rizzo-Sterner, who has worked in the building for about 12 years. “We’ve learned what’s working. I think right now, we’re at that point where we’re trying to really understand the expectations and what needs to be accomplished by the end of the year.”
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