• Category 2

    Selected in 2021

  • Grades: pre k - 4
    School Setting: rural
    Town Population: 32,591
    Student Enrollment: 593
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 0.5%
    White/Caucasian: 89.2%
    Hispanic: 6.6%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0.1%
    Asian: 0.8%
    Native American: 0.5%
    Other: 2.1%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:20
    % Reduced Lunch: 47.8%
    % ELL Learners: 1.2%
    Founded: 2002
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Jennifer Halko
  • CONTACT:
    600 Hill Circle
    Jasper, GA 30143
    706-253-1880
    jenniferhalko@pickencountyschools.org
Hill City Elementary School
Jasper, GA
Hill City Elementary is keenly aware that active student and family engagement is the foundation of improved achievement."
1. Tell us about your school’s success.
Hill City Elementary serves a rural community in Jasper, Georgia. Jasper is nestled in the north Georgia mountains about an hour north of Atlanta. Currently, Hill City Elementary serves a diverse economic student body in PreK through fourth grade with a poverty population of approximately 53%. Our challenge is to meet the diverse needs of our economically disadvantaged students as well as the children of professionals within the community. Hill City Elementary is keenly aware that active student and family engagement is the foundation of improved achievement. With a clear and unified school vision, intentional initiatives were developed that brought about higher achievement of special populations in both ELA and Math. The academic advancements made by Hill City Elementary’s ED and SWD subgroups resulted in a 66 point increase on the Closing Gaps indicator on 2019 CCRPI increasing from 33 points to 100. Our overall CCRPI increase was from 70.7 (2018) to 88 in (2019).
2. Talk about the greatest contributing factor(s) that promoted positive change in your school.
After a careful study of student performance data and conducting a comprehensive needs assessment, it was evident we had gaps in addressing our student populations. After much research, visiting highly effective schools, and many building leadership and stakeholder discussions on how to best serve our students the following data-driven initiatives were developed:
-Incorporated special education teachers into grade-level teams
-Ensured daily common planning as a grade level, with regular and special education teachers to develop engaging and personalized standards-based lessons
-Enacted common standards-based assessment and grading to the intended rigor of the standard
-Ensured a school-wide, systematic approach to a balanced literacy program with a 135-minute reading block
-Provided weekly professional learning to build staff capacity to teach to the intended rigor of all standards.
-Facilitated an environment to meet the social and emotional needs of our students and their families
3. How has ESEA funding supported the school's success?
ESEA funds help implement our school initiatives to fidelity. ESEA funds our Instustructional Coach who provides job-embedded professional learning for all teachers. She meets with all regular and special education teachers in collaborative sessions to provide guidance on instructional planning and conferencing strategies with students. She also provides professional learning that drives our school based initiatives, consistently building staff capacity in all subject areas and guiding the development of common, standards-based assessments reflecting the rigor of the standards and ensuring equity among classrooms.

Additionally, we have purchased instructional materials to enhance our balanced literacy initiative which includes classroom libraries in order to promote independent reading and text sets for small group instruction. We have also been able to hire additional human resources to provide more small group instruction to meet the individual needs of our most at-risk students.
4. What professional development activities were used to improve teaching and learning?
In order to support our culture of high academic expectations, our staff participates in weekly PLC meetings. Our instructional coach and other consultants provide training through job-embedded professional learning for all teachers through modeling, co-teaching, collaboration, and observation/feedback. Training is provided in ELA and Math on topics such as Jennifer Serravallo’s book Understanding Texts & Readers: Fountas and Pinnell Literacy Continuum, and strategies to address higher-order questioning, math progressions, Three-Act Tasks, and Number Talks.

Additionally, maintaining a healthy culture requires a variety of professional learning in preventive and positive programming. Hill City staff participates in ongoing job-embedded professional learning in positive programming such as Love & Logic, Mindset strategies, and utilizing social stories focusing on character education.
5. Talk about the cultural shift leading up to your school's success.
An urgent need to address academic success emerged based on low and stagnant student performance. The leadership team began to research and visit GOSA’s “Schools Like Mine.” We visited schools that were performing at a much higher level. We began by asking fundamental questions about our instructional practices. We discovered that teachers did not have a clear understanding of the intent of rigor of the standards nor were we teaching consistently across all classrooms and grade levels. Once these questions were addressed, a culture of high expectations was established and a shared common vision developed across all grade levels and staff members. We implemented a balanced literacy framework and hired additional human resources to work with the most at-risk learners. Independent reading became paramount. All students were held to the same rigorous grade-level standards, with common assessments based on grade-level standards being the expected indicator of mastery and achievement.
6. How has community involvement strengthened your success?
We are very proud of our strong community partnerships and pilot programs that allow us to provide mental health services, weekend snack packs, and other support for our families with limited resources. Our full-time nurse is able to meet with parents providing medical resources and education on acute and chronic illnesses. Hill City receives many grants from community organizations that allow us to implement innovative initiatives. The community thrift store and local library donate gently used items when needed to enhance our student celebrations.

Hill City enjoys giving back to the community by providing farm-fresh products from our agriculture garden to local organizations. We also provide and stock a little free library that serves the entire Hill City community. Along with a thriving partnership with local community PreK organizations, we open our library for community storytime where every family that attends leaves with a book to build their at-home library.
Stats
  • Category 2

    Selected in 2021

  • Grades: pre k - 4
    School Setting: rural
    Town Population: 32,591
    Student Enrollment: 593
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 0.5%
    White/Caucasian: 89.2%
    Hispanic: 6.6%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0.1%
    Asian: 0.8%
    Native American: 0.5%
    Other: 2.1%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:20
    % Reduced Lunch: 47.8%
    % ELL Learners: 1.2%
    Founded: 2002
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Jennifer Halko
  • CONTACT:
    600 Hill Circle
    Jasper, GA 30143
    706-253-1880
    jenniferhalko@pickencountyschools.org