Frazier Elementary

Frazier Principal Tony Fields knew a super effort was required to make a change and pull the school out of its F rating.

For the new administrator and avid Superman fan, that effort came rallied around all things Man of Steel.

Superman logos, T-shirts and red and white memorabilia graced the halls and classrooms of West in an effort to rally the entire school around one common theme.

“I thought the theme of super would bring us all together to have one common goal, one focus,” Fields said. “I felt like that was something that everybody could really believe, and I think it really caught on, and it’s become a part of the culture here every day.

“When the students tell people where they go to school, they’ll say, ‘We go to Frazier, and we’re super.’”

Fields said school leaders immediately began looking at some teaching strategies that were in need of change to make sure that individualized instruction based on each student’s performance was occurring in each classroom.

One of the first changes made at the school came in the third grade, where students previously visited one teacher for half of the school day and switched to another during the second half.

“Through research and our experiences looking at other classrooms at our school and in the district, we found that having the students self-contained in one class with one teacher is the best practice for us,” Fields said. “Some students just aren’t ready for two teachers or two different personalities, so it’s more settling for them to have one person giving them quality instruction throughout the day.”

Other changes came with a reorganization of teachers Fields felt would be better positioned to teach students who were preparing to take the state test.

Lisa Lewis, who taught first grade for 21 years with the district, was moved for the first time to fourth grade last year.

Lewis specializes in English in her classroom and said the shift was one that actually helped her bring some basics back to a group of fourth-grade students who were initially struggling with basic reading concepts.

“What I noticed from the data was that the students were able to read the materials, but not understand or make sense of what they were reading,” Lewis said. “With me being a first-grade teacher, that’s the sort of basic foundational things that I was helping my students master before, so we started going over those things in the classroom.”

Once the students were able to improve their reading comprehension, Lewis said they were able to grasp new reading concepts with less difficulty.

“The ones that were struggling at the beginning we found was just because they didn’t have that basic foundation that they needed,” Lewis said. “After they had that, it all worked out fine.”

At Frazier, 45 percent of students showed growth in reading, while 34 percent scored proficient and above.

Those scores along with high growth in math brought the school up from an F rating to a D.

But that D rating is still considered kryptonite for Fields and everyone else at Frazier.

“I wasn’t surprised to see the score, because I knew all the work the students, teachers and parents were doing throughout the year,” Frazier said. “But for me, I still wasn’t satisfied because I still believe we can be even better, and that’s what we’re going to do this year.”