• Category 1

    Selected in 2018

  • Grades: k - 8
    School Setting: rural
    Town Population: 873
    Student Enrollment: 123
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 2.4%
    White/Caucasian: 97.6%
    Hispanic: 0%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0%
    Asian: 0%
    Native American: 0%
    Other: 0%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:12
    % Reduced Lunch: 85%
    % ELL Learners: 0%
    Founded: 1962
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Dr. Judy Webb
  • CONTACT:
    4120 Big Creek Rd
    NEWPORT, TN 37821
    423-623-9446
    jwebb32@hotmail.com
Grassy Fork Elementary School
NEWPORT, TN
Grassy Fork School works to meet the needs of every child.
Describe specific programs in place to ensure that families are involved in the success of your school and students.

Grassy Fork School has a PreK program 2 days a week for 3 and 4 year old students.Parents are given material for a better knowledge of early child development.Grassy Fork host at least one family engagement each month of student performance or family activity.
Grassy Fork parents, families, and community help raise money for the school to be able to have things.The school added an outdoor classroom, an extended lunch area outside, and many needed supplies such as owl pellets, electrical boards, fetal pigs for dissection, trips to the zoo, aquarium and much more. These funds came from the community helping with and attending the Grassy Fork Bluegrass Jam, the Grassy Fork Thanksgiving Dinner, attending the dinner theater where the students perform, make, and serve at the annual Spaghetti Dinner and Delights. The response to all Grassy Fork events is always well attended.
Grassy Fork invites parents, family, and community to award presentations every 9 weeks.

Describe the most successful activity your school has initiated to strengthen ties to your community.
Grassy Fork School was the first onsite food distribution center for Second Harvest. This program has enabled our school parents and community members to become more food secure. This program also supplements food for our After-School Program. Our After-School Program averages ¾ of our student population for homework help and enrichment activities.
Grassy Fork had never had a Pre-School class, but through the Save the Children Program Grassy Fork School was able to offer a Pre-K class 2 days a week. This opened the door for 3 and 4 year old students to get some basic foundations of learning and it strengthened parent knowledge of early education and goals for their child.
Describe your philosophy of school change or improvement.
Allow students to set short attainable goals and then celebrate the achievement.This can be done daily with the teacher.It means winning a basketball after you write your numbers to 100 in Kindergarten. It means going on trips if you have a C or above.It means extra recess if you have all your homework on time and your books read.We go outside for 45 minutes and we have 60 bicycles, and a wonderful playground.Students that missed work may use this time to get caught up.This outside lunch time allows teachers to sit at the table,watch the students play and discuss instruction and student needs.Student improvement also involves coming to the gym every 9 weeks where there are 2 tables of prizes to celebrate high academic performances.Students making honor roll are introduced from each grade level.Top 2 performing students are named from each of the 4 areas for each grade.Parents are invited each 9 weeks to celebrate the achievements.Then the drawing for the prizes for books read.
What are your school’s top two goals for the next year?
Grassy Fork would like to increase ELA and math scores.
What is the single most important factor in the success of your school that others could replicate?
All students K-3rd must know math facts in appropriate time.
All students in grades 3rd and 4th must know times tables in 3 minutes.
All students in grades 5th-8th must know times tables in 2 minutes or less.
All grades K-8th begin the day 8:15 with 2 DOL sentences on the board when students come in. As the grade level increases the recognition of sentence identification increases. Correct the sentence K-2nd, Capital letter and punctuation, all words spelled correctly.
Third grade add to the above sentence learning with underline subject once verb twice and is the sentence declarative, interrogative, imperative, or exclamatory. Fourth increase above with put prepositional phrases in parenthesis. Fifth grade add identify if the sentence is simple, compound, complex, compound complex. Identify the subject and verb of the clause if there. By the 8th grade every word is identified as noun, all parts of speech, gerunds, infinitives are identified. This helps the student in writing. The students see how by strengthening the sentence it adds flavor and clarity to the sentence and thus the story.
Students must write 4 essays each 9 weeks, 2 for ELA can be expository, narrative, biography, or compare contrast. One for science and one for Social Studies as we must lay material in long term by writing across the curriculum. These papers must be graded and given back to the student hopefully within 3 days, and the student must have multiple opportunities to rewrite the paper achieving a grade of C or above. As teachers learn their students they can learn to expect a quality of writing expected of the student and bring them forward. This allows differential learning to take place at a higher level.
Students must read 6 books every 9 weeks. In grades 4th-8th the reading level can be 4.0 or above.
Describe the program or initiative that has had the greatest positive effect on student achievement, including closing achievement or opportunity gaps, if applicable.
Grassy Fork is fortunate to have several excellent instructors that act as teacher leaders and mentors. Every Monday 3:15-4:00 teachers will meet with his/her mentor teacher and go over the week’s state standards and instruction for the week. Teachers will improve his/her content knowledge in ELA by discussing the DOL for the week. Teachers will discuss math computation skills and discuss ways to teach the material. Teachers will discuss the 4 required essays and share ways to improve student writing. Teachers will discuss books for class group reading, discussion, and writing.
Explain how ESEA federal funds are used to support your improvement efforts.
Grassy Fork School host at least one Family Engagement each month. Two teachers each month plan and prepare for a family engagement where parents, family, and community members can come to the school and enjoy a student performance or activity. Federal funds allow the school to host these events with refreshments. Federal Funds allow Grassy Fork School students to eat free breakfast and lunch every day. This allows the student to be well fed and ready to learn.
Federal Funds for Grassy Fork School this year allowed the school to have new dry erase boards, Study Island, ABC student workbooks, and an ipad for our new Kindergarten teacher.
Identify the critical professional development activities you use to improve teaching and student learning.
Every Monday 3:15-4:00 teachers report to his/her mentor teacher. Grassy Fork is fortunate to have several high performing teachers with great content knowledge and proven academic excellence in teaching. These teachers look over state standards with up and coming great teachers and help with any content questions and class management concerns. Every 9 weeks the staff meet with me for ½ day professional development for teacher content knowledge, class concerns, and discussion of state standard goals to be covered for the coming 9 weeks. These standards will be reflected in the teachers’ lesson plans for the coming 9 weeks of instruction.
The Central Office host professional learning days during the year on district expectations.
Describe how data is used to improve student achievement and inform decision making.
All year the instructors and I are in close communication on the teaching of state standards.Teachers early in the year will meet with every student and share his/her data and allow that student to set goals for himself/herself.Before testing teachers will project how many students they believe they will have in each area: Mastered,On Track, Approaching, and Below. As soon as we get our quick scores back in the spring from the TCAP we take to the board in a faculty meeting and in columns write Mastered,OnTrack, Approaching and Below for the 3-8th grade. Every student’s name is written in the appropriate grade level and in the level the student attained.We then celebrate the success of each grade.In the fall we look at the same data but with a different agenda.This time we look at who we need to focus on(Below),who we need to bring farther(Approaching),and who we need to maintain and improve(On Track and Mastered)We then look at standards we met and standards that need attention.
Describe your school culture and explain changes you’ve taken to improve it.
Grassy Fork School tries to meet the needs of every child. Every staff member from janitor, bus driver, cook, teacher, secretary, and administrator is involved in the welfare of each child at Grassy Fork. Some of the children have been from the mountain all their life, some have moved in and we get to know and care about them immediately. This means getting to know your students and all students. The Grassy Fork School staff is challenged to know every child’ s name by Christmas. Sometimes it means buying shoes, underwear, or socks. Sometimes it means going to the home and asking tough questions about sleeping. Whatever it takes we want the students healthy, happy, and ready to learn.
Stats
  • Category 1

    Selected in 2018

  • Grades: k - 8
    School Setting: rural
    Town Population: 873
    Student Enrollment: 123
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 2.4%
    White/Caucasian: 97.6%
    Hispanic: 0%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0%
    Asian: 0%
    Native American: 0%
    Other: 0%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:12
    % Reduced Lunch: 85%
    % ELL Learners: 0%
    Founded: 1962
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Dr. Judy Webb
  • CONTACT:
    4120 Big Creek Rd
    NEWPORT, TN 37821
    423-623-9446
    jwebb32@hotmail.com