National Blue Ribbon - Star Hill Elementary

Star Hill Elementary The National Blue Ribbon Schools Program recognizes public and non-public elementary, middle, and high schools where students achieve at very high levels and/or where the achievement gap is narrowing. The Program sets a standard of excellence for all schools striving for the highest level of achievement. The National Blue Ribbon Schools Program is part of a larger U. S. Department of Education effort to identify and disseminate knowledge about best school leadership and teaching practices. Each year since 1982, the U.S. Department of Education has sought out schools where students attain and maintain high academic goals, including those that beat the odds.
- More about this award
National Blue Ribbon Program: http://www2.ed.gov/programs/nclbbrs/index.html

National Blue Ribbon - Stokes Elementary

2013 Lt. Governor’s Award for Excellence in Parental Involvement – Frear’s Frequent Flyer Cards - Allen Frear Elementary School

Frear Elementary School

Frear’s motto is “One Team, One Goal, No Limits”. Not only is this motto evident in the school with teachers, staff members, and students, but also with Allen Frear’s parents as well. Frear recognizes that parents are an integral part of the school community and it is the schools belief that it takes a “team” to educate the whole child. One way Frear strives to include parents is through the “Frear’s Frequent Flyers” card. The “Frear Frequent Flyer” card was developed to encourage and reward parents for taking an active role in the school community. Each parent receives a card for each of their children in the school. Parents earn stamps by being an active participant in his or her child’s education. Stamps can accumulate by parents attending monthly school events, conferences, PTA (Parent Teacher Association) meetings, emailing/writing notes to their child’s teacher, eating lunch with the child, viewing the website and commenting on various topics and volunteering. Once a parent earns five stamps on his or her “Frear Frequent Flyers” card, the card is turned in and the parent is entered into a raffle to win various prizes such as movie tickets, gift certificates to dinner, and other items donated by our local businesses and community members.

2013 Superstars In Education – Fluency Stations – Star Hill Elementary School -

Star Hill Elementary

Star Hill’s Fluency Stations is a program that is implemented during the English Language Arts (ELA) block in grades 1 through 5. The program’s emphasis on reading fluency, which directly correlates to comprehension, helps to provide a solid foundation for the students. The fluency stations facilitate teacher to student; student to student; and parent to student interaction. Students receive direct instruction from a teacher or parent while student peers help with monitoring student progress in reading fluency. These stations are also differentiated, and students who perform above District expectations are challenged in such activities as Readers Theatre where they can practice inflection and intonation.

National Title I Distinguished school - Stokes

Stokes Elementary

The National Title I Association has been selecting examples of superior Title I school programs for national recognition through the National Title I Distinguished Schools program since 1996. Selected schools must qualify for one of the following categories:

Category 1: Exceptional student performance for two or more consecutive years
Category 2: Closing the achievement gap between student groups

Sixty-eight schools were selected by their individual states based on a combination of academic achievement of their students and the creative and innovative programs that contribute to their success. They join hundreds of other distinguished schools making a difference for our nation's Title I children. These schools demonstrate a wide array of strengths, including team approaches to teaching and learning, focused professional development opportunities for staff, individualized programs for student success and strong partnerships between the school, parents and the community. What makes these schools' stories especially powerful are the documented student achievement gains that have resulted from their innovations.
- More Information on Title I Distinguished schools
http://www.nationaltitleiassociation.org/?CurrentDS

State Title I Distinguished Tools -

Star Hill Elementary In addition to the National Title I Distinguished Schools program and using the same criteria, the State of Delaware also recognizes three additional high achieving schools.  Star Hill elementary is one of the three schools recognized for this prestigious award for making great strides in “Exceptional Student Performance” and “Closing the Achievement Gap”.   

Title I Distinguished School Honorees - ALL Elementary Schools

Brown Elementary
Frear Elementary
Simpson Elementary
Star Hill Elementary
McIlvaine Early Childhood Center
We are also pleased to announce that out of the thirty remaining State Title I distinguished honorees, five of these schools are in the CR school district. All of these schools have demonstrated gains in student achievement as evidenced through adequate yearly progress.

What are Superstars in Education?
Funded by the business community, Superstars in Education is a statewide awards program that seeks to promote and share programs and best practices in education that show measurable results and raise student achievement. This is what takes the ho hum out of the classroom, inspires students, and sparks a true desire to learn. Since its inception in 1989, Superstars in Education has awarded hundreds of Delaware schools for their programs and best practices.
- More information on the Superstars in Education program. http://www.dscc.com/chamber/superstars_in_education.aspx

Superstars In Education - CRSD Acheivement Liasion Program

The Achievement Liaison Program is composed of eleven teachers (ALT's), one at each of our school sites, whose primary focus is on teacher quality, student achievement, and parent involvement. These teacher leaders work with classroom teachers, through a multitude of venues, to support effective teachers in becoming exemplary teachers. Additionally, the Achievement Liaison teachers help to identify the most "at-risk" students to target for additional intervention services through direct teaching. They organize and/or facilitate interventions with these students to ensure support in reading and math, both during and after the school day. Finally, the Achievement Liaison Teachers focus on efforts to increase resources available both to our parents and community to increase parent involvement/engagement.
The Achievement Liaison Teachers were integral in maintaining and increasing our School Accountability Ratings, being recognized for both National and State Title I Awards, and receiving the Lieutenant Governor's Parent Involvement Award for the past two years.

Superstars In Education - Early Bird Program - Stokes Elementary

Stokes Elementary

The Early Bird program is designed to support Stokes' most at risk learners by delivering small group accelerated instruction during the first twenty-five minutes of the school day. The Early Bird program has helped to raise student achievement at Stokes Elementary as measured by the DCAS, the Dynamic Indicator of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) and classroom assessments. The growth their students have made can best be seen when comparing the 2010-2011 fall, winter and spring reading DCAS scores. Over the course of that school year, 47.3% of third graders met the standard in reading in the fall. By the spring, that number grew by forty-three percentage points to over 90.0% of students in that grade level meeting or exceeding the standard. Similarly, fourth grade demonstrated growth by gaining forty-one percentage points so that by the spring, 91.9% of students met the standard. Fifth grade grew from only having 44.3% of students meeting the standard in the fall to 91.5% of those same students meeting the standard in the spring. That is a growth of over forty-seven percentage points in just one school year.

Caesar Rodney School District has been selected as one of the Third Annual AP District Honor Roll winners.

AP District Honor Roll

A total of 367 school districts across the U.S. and Canada are being honored by the College Board by being placed on the Third Annual AP Honor Roll for simultaneously increasing access to Advanced Placement® course work while maintaining or increasing the percentage of students earning scores of 3 or higher on AP Exams. Achieving both of these goals is the ideal scenario for a district’s AP program because it indicates that the district is successfully identifying motivated, academically prepared students who are likely to benefit most from AP course work. The majority of U.S. colleges and universities grant college credit or advanced placement for a score of 3 or above on AP Exams.

Many school districts in the U.S. and Canada have focused on expanding access to AP courses as part of a strategy to improve college readiness. While these efforts have resulted in more students earning scores of 3 or better, these efforts have also resulted in more students earning scores of 1 or 2. Accordingly, there has been a slight decline since 2001 in the percentage of AP students scoring a 3 or better, a decline that can be expected in any program attracting a broader cross section of students.

Helping more students learn at a higher level and earn higher AP scores is an objective of all members of the AP community, from AP teachers to district and school administrators to college professors. Many are experimenting with a variety of initiatives and strategies to determine how to expand access and improve student performance simultaneously.

About the Advanced Placement Program

The College Board’s Advanced Placement Program® (AP®) enables students to pursue college-level studies while still in high school. Through more than 30 college-level courses, each culminating in a rigorous exam, AP provides willing and academically prepared students with the opportunity to earn college credit, advanced placement or both. Taking AP courses also demonstrates to college admission officers that students have sought the most rigorous curriculum available to them. Each AP teacher’s syllabus is evaluated and approved by college faculty from some of the nation’s leading institutions, and AP Exams are developed and scored by college faculty and experienced AP teachers. AP is accepted by more than 3,800 colleges and universities worldwide for college credit, advanced placement or both on the basis of successful AP Exam scores. This includes over 90 percent of four-year institutions in the United States. In 2010, 1.8 million students representing more than 17,000 schools around the world, both public and nonpublic, took 3.2 million AP Exams.

W. R. Brown is the recipient of the FIRST Excellence in Parent Involvement Award Presented by Delaware’s Lt. Gov. Matthew Denn 2010-2011.

WR Brown Elementary

W. R. Brown Elementary School believes that parental involvement is vital to the success of our children and integral to strengthening our student achievement. At W.R. Brown, we strive to help parents create a home environment that encourages learning, communicate high expectations for student achievement and become involved in their children’s education. In 2011, W. R. Brown opened the first full service parent resource center in Kent County Delaware. This center offers many free resources for our entire diverse population of families. Our school defines parent involvement as an all-encompassing term that includes everything from the parent’s child-rearing practices at home to the parent’s participation in proceedings held at school and off campus. We not only bring the community in, but we hold events outside of our school to accommodate all family needs. Our sights are set high as we continue to take our Delaware public school to a higher standard while providing world class educational opportunities that include strong parenting partnerships.

Lt. Governor’s Award for Excellence in Parental Involvement - McIlvaine Early Childhood Center

McIlvaine Early Childhood Center

Lieutenant Governor Matt Denn awarded McIlvaine Early Childhood Center with the 2nd Annual Lt. Governor's Excellence in Parental Involvement Award in 2011.

"I created the award in 2010 in as a way to enhance parental engagement in our schools," said Lt. Governor Denn. "What I keep hearing from teachers and parents from all over the state is that having parents involved is key to a student's success. This award is a simple way to recognize schools that are doing a good job of involving parents - both because it encourages schools to excel and because it highlights schools that have come up with successful programs that other schools can replicate."

McIlvaine Early Childhood Center serves almost all of the kindergarten students in the Caesar Rodney School District in Dover and their work begins before school even starts. Over the summer, a group of teachers form a "phone call brigade" and call every single student's family, establishing relationships with the parents immediately, and also allows the school to identify students with special needs before they arrive at school. This is complemented by a more traditional "sneak peek" session for parents where they come to school before school starts to meet teachers, tour the building, and get acclimated. McIlvaine has programs throughout the year called Parent Parties that have separate themes and are designed to draw parents into the school.

"The faculty at McIlvaine Early Childhood Center has worked diligently and creatively to engage our school families as a part of the educational process," said Sherry Kijowski, Principal at McIlvaine. "We strongly believe that the home and school must work together as a team to benefit the child. Kindergarten is the start of a very important educational journey and we want families to be an integral part of that process."