In Their Own Words

Fred Williams, Principal at Susie Dasher Elementary School (K-1) in Dublin, Ga.

Last year (2006-07) was the first year for Classworks, and Principal Fred Williams’ students responded, passing the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test (CRCT) at 92 percent in both Reading/English/Language Arts and Math. Mr. Williams was interviewed by Curriculum Advantage on Jan. 23, 2008.

Susie Dasher has a challenging demographic - 84 percent economically disadvantaged students and 94 percent African American. We are trying to focus on these students to bring up their scores, and Classworks is one thing that has really captured their attention, letting us really focus in on certain skills that they need.

Still, we have made AYP for nine years straight and we’re working very hard to make it 10 years in a row.

There are so many ways we use Classworks in our school:

  • In our computer labs, we have a rotation where the first-graders go in twice a week. On one of those days they’ll get a formative assessment, the rest of the time they’ll get Classworks. This alternates weekly between reading and math.
  • We discovered that the kids who came into kindergarten last year were scoring lower than ever before. We feel that the intervention – the way that we use Classworks – really helped us to get them to the performance level of our expectations; the 90th percentile.
  • While all students use Classworks during the school day, we bring groups of at-risk kids in on Saturdays where they get 30 minutes of direct instruction and 30 minutes of Classworks.
  • We’re also doing our SOS (Save Our Students) time – where we use Classworks in the classroom as well as in the computer labs.
  • In the mornings, we also open our two computer labs for our homework study groups to use Classworks. We have 30 to 35 students on Classworks each morning. One of the study group students just made his first 100 of the year on a test in class. When we announced his accomplishment over the intercom the whole study group gave him applause.
  • We host CRCT Tuesday nights, providing Classworks for students and parents who don’t have computer access at home. When the parents come in with their children, we give them both earphones so the parents can hear what the kids hear. When they first started coming, the parents were thinking “I know they didn’t bring us here for the kids to play games.” But when they listened to the instruction, we could hear the “aha moments” when they understood what Classworks can do.

It’s so important that Classworks addresses the Georgia Performance Standards and is hitting what’s going to be tested on that CRCT. The kids have a notion that they are having fun; but they are learning and that’s what makes the difference.