• Category 2

    Selected in 2019

  • Grades: pre k - 3
    School Setting: suburban
    Town Population: 15,568
    Student Enrollment: 600
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 6%
    White/Caucasian: 83%
    Hispanic: 4%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0%
    Asian: 0.5%
    Native American: 0.5%
    Other: 6%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:16
    % Reduced Lunch: 77%
    % ELL Learners: 3%
    Founded: 1888
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Anne Cox
  • CONTACT:
    5741 Benton Rd
    Paducah, KY 42003
    270-538-4180
    anne.cox@mccracken.kyschools.us
Reidland Elementary School
Paducah, KY
We do what's best for students.
Describe specific programs in place to ensure that families are involved in the success of your school and students.
- We offer Parent/Teacher Conferences in a location that is closer to the heart of our economically disadvantaged, so that those parents that might not have a vehicle or money for gas, have less distance to travel to still participate in their child's eduction.
- We offer free transportation to Parent/Teacher Conference nights and the evening musical performances of grade levels, so that families have every opportunity to support their children.
- We offer a variety of family nights through our Family Resource Center and 21st Century Community Learning Center to educate families on best practices.
- We offer the Born Learning Academy for preschool families, so they can better prepare their preschool children to be successful in school.
- Our Parent/Teacher Organization offer a variety of events that allow our parents to participate without it causing economic hardship. PTO also pays for all grade levels to take multiple field trips throughout the school year.
Describe the most successful activity your school has initiated to strengthen ties to your community.
Every fall, the schools in the Reidland community come together to offer a bonfire on the middle school football field. Local businesses and churches either donate items, money or volunteers for the event. The schools offer food, music, inflatables and family games – all at no cost. Our goal is to encourage families to spend time together, while also welcoming them to attend a school function with no strings attached.
Describe your philosophy of school change or improvement.
At Reidland Elementary School, we do what's best for students. We provide the best academic experience for our preschool through 3rd graders. We utilize our 21st Century Community Learning Center and Family Resource Center to provide wrap around services, that might not otherwise be addressed. We try to encourage all of our parents to participate in their child's school experience, knowing that students benefit from this connection. We invite our community to participate in school events and to be active participants in the lives of the young children that will, one day, grow up to be adults in the same community.
What are your school’s top two goals for the next year?
Reidland Elementary will continue to focus on improving math and reading proficiency, ensuring that all students are on grade level by the end of the school year. We will also continue our pursuit in implementing trauma informed care to more fully support the needs of our students.
What is the single most important factor in the success of your school that others could replicate?
Love your students, believe they can achieve greatness, and support each other in that pursuit.
Describe the program or initiative that has had the greatest positive effect on student achievement, including closing achievement or opportunity gaps, if applicable.
Reducing the student-to-teacher ratio by increasing the number of classroom teachers has made the largest impact on our student achievement and closing gaps with our students. This allows our teachers to give more attention to their students and more easily differentiate instruction based on the needs of the students.
Explain how ESEA federal funds are used to support your improvement efforts.
ESEA funds are used to provide additional teachers to reduce class sizes and provide additional staff members to target students both academically and behaviorally. ESEA funds are also used to provide instructional materials that our school would not, otherwise, be able to purchase; these materials are used to enrich learning activities and help students better visualize concepts taught in the classroom.
Identify the critical professional development activities you use to improve teaching and student learning.
Our professional development focuses on three areas:
1) We focus on managing disruptive behaviors in the classroom, so our instructional time is not interrupted.
2) We focus on the standards. Specifically, we focus on teaching the standards correctly, to the depth needed, and appropriately assessing all parts of the standard.
3) We focus on those techniques/strategies that are most impactful to instruction.
Describe how data is used to improve student achievement and inform decision making.
Data is used at our school in a variety of ways. The classroom teachers use student data to determine if lessons were successful, concepts understood, and standards met. We use student written responses to determine if students can successfully explain their understanding of a concept. As a school, we also use universal screeners to evaluate our students. Looking at all data points, we determine which students need additional academic instruction in a small group setting and focus on those skills where they are lacking. We also have a group that analyzes student behavior data to either target individual students to improve their behavior, or we look at areas of our school where we are weak and implement school-wide strategies to improve those behaviors.
Describe your school culture and explain changes you’ve taken to improve it.
We focus on having school pride so that our community of stakeholders in all three Reidland schools are unified. We also focus on supporting teachers and students in their pursuit of excellence in the classroom. Having a defined system for those students needing additional academic and/or behavioral supports is key to having clear expectations on the procedures used when additional resources are needed.
Stats
  • Category 2

    Selected in 2019

  • Grades: pre k - 3
    School Setting: suburban
    Town Population: 15,568
    Student Enrollment: 600
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 6%
    White/Caucasian: 83%
    Hispanic: 4%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0%
    Asian: 0.5%
    Native American: 0.5%
    Other: 6%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:16
    % Reduced Lunch: 77%
    % ELL Learners: 3%
    Founded: 1888
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Anne Cox
  • CONTACT:
    5741 Benton Rd
    Paducah, KY 42003
    270-538-4180
    anne.cox@mccracken.kyschools.us