Atkinson Elementary School

Location
Atkinson Elementary School
5800 S.E. Division St.
Portland, OR 97206

Contact
Deborah Peterson, Principal
Phone: 503/916-6333
E-mail: atkinson@pps.k12.or.us
Web site: www.pps.k12.or.us/schools-c/pages/atkinson/atkinson.html School Profile Page: www.pps.k12.or.us/schools-c/profiles/?id=234

Description

Atkinson Elementary is a Title I school located in the urban, outer-east side of Portland. The student body is a diverse mix of ethnic groups and cultures; more than 40 percent are English language learners. This diversity defines the student and staff spirit and experience at the school and makes it a positive, welcoming environment for all students. The warm atmosphere is demonstrated with welcoming posters in five languages—Chinese, Russian, Spanish, Vietnamese, and English—on the wall. Staff members are in the hallways to greet parents every morning as they drop off their children.

For the 2002–2003 school year, Atkinson Elementary offers four options for kindergarten:

• Full-day Monday, Wednesday, Friday with 30 minutes Spanish instruction. In-school childcare is available on non-school days.
• Full-day Tuesday, Thursday, Friday with 30 minutes Mandarin Chinese instruction. In-school childcare is available on non-school days.
• Full-day, Monday–Friday K–1 mixed age and looped, with Spanish instruction four days a week, 30 minutes per day. Students stay with the same teacher for two years.
• Full-day, Monday-Friday, Spanish immersion. Children are taught in Spanish for 90 percent of the day, in English for the remaining 10 percent.

Children enrolled in the free- and reduced-price meal program do not have to pay an enrollment fee for the full-day programs. For other students, tuition is $2,080 per year ($215 per month, except for June which is only $145) for the first child in a family, half price for second child. The 2002 year is the first year the school has had to charge tuition for full-day due to budget shortfalls.

Neighborhood families receive first preference for kindergarten programs. Then, a waiting list is established and children are randomly selected from the list to build classes balanced by gender, native language, ethnicity, and special needs. The full-day immersion program is extremely popular. Last year the program received 95 applications for only 28 openings. Approximately 40 percent of the students are native speakers of Spanish, 8 percent are of Hispanic heritage, 40 percent are from the neighborhood, and 8 percent are from other schools.

Second language instruction begins in kindergarten for both native English speakers and English language learners. All kindergarten students receive language instruction in either Spanish or Mandarin Chinese for at least 30 minutes a day, four times a week. Last year the school applied for Title I schoolwide funding which allowed the school to refocus its instructional strategies for English language learners. Rather than pulling ELL children out of class, Atkinson started a "push-in" immersion program, with ELL specialist teachers now working with ELL students in the regular classroom.

In the immersion program, teachers and children speak Spanish for 90 percent of the time, and English 10 percent of the time. The goal for this program is for students to be at or above third-grade benchmarks by the end of the year. After one year, many students in the two-way immersion classes were above grade level and all but four students were at grade level. Says Peterson, "We use best practices in second language acquisition to teach our subject in Spanish. Over time, the Spanish speakers become fluent in English and complete their academic assignments at benchmark in English. The English speakers become fluent in Spanish and are capable of completing their academic assignments at benchmark in Spanish."

The full-day schedule is a mix of open-ended and scheduled lessons, grouped by ability, with a mix of active versus calm activities. One kindergarten teacher has definitely noticed the change in kindergarten goals of the last several years, "I feel like I’m teaching more of a first-grade curriculum now," she says. According to the principal and staff, this is necessary because Portland Public Schools benchmarks ask children to be reading at a particular level by second grade. Because of these increased standards, they say, teachers can no longer focus purely on social-emotional developmental needs in kindergarten as they once did—now they incorporate more emergent literacy and numeracy skills. Teachers look for children’s progress to continue at a certain pace throughout the year. Says Peterson "We believe in a balance here at Atkinson and want lessons that reflect the needs of the children. We’ll keep our benchmarks at level 2 for reading at the end of kindergarten, but the reality will be that some children are not developmentally prepared to read at that level, so we’ll do the pre-reading work with them to help them in the coming years to reach benchmarks."

Full-day kindergarten and immersion programs are not for all students, says Principal Deborah Peterson, which is one reason why a variety of options are offered. Peterson says she wants parents to have a clear understanding of the goals of an immersion program, and that an immersion program may not work well for some children.

The staff listen to the community’s needs and concerns when designing the programs. Last year the principal mailed a survey to parents of incoming kindergartners to receive their input on planning the kindergarten programs for the following year. Many parents indicated that they would want to send their children to an alternating three-day program rather than five days. So, these options continue to be offered. Says Peterson, "We’re constantly evaluating what our incoming customers want and adjusting based on the research and our families’ needs." A recent family survey indicated that 97 percent of families believe the school is a good one, and 96 percent believe the school has a positive climate. Focus groups had similar responses.

The teachers and principal have made some observations on the full-day schedule:

Observed Outcomes/Benefits of Full-Day

• Fewer transitions for children who transfer from school to daycare.
• The principal and teachers notice a difference in readiness for first grade.

Challenges of a Full-Day Schedule

• More balance is needed between the structured part of the day and the "noisy, open" day
• Children need time to put their heads down and rest
• More academic work is required of the students
• Alternating day schedules can be confusing for both students and teachers

Tips for Success

• Full-day kindergarten programs need full district support.
• Use an application process to obtain a good match between class type and each child.
• Schedule goal-setting sessions with parents at the beginning of the year.
• Consider that parent involvement is much more than getting volunteers in the classroom. Parents feel invested in the school when the staff is there first thing in the mornings to greet them, when teachers visit children’s homes, and parents feel free to contact teachers at their homes. Parents and teachers meet several times a year in conferences.

All Atkinson teachers have the same goal—to meet their students’ social, developmental, and academic needs by providing developmentally appropriate activities focusing on children attaining benchmarks. These teachers realize that kindergarten is the foundation for the next years of schooling. High expectations in kindergarten help all students throughout their school career.