• Category 1

    Selected in 2018

  • Grades: pre k - 4
    School Setting: urban
    Town Population: 17,000
    Student Enrollment: 464
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 25%
    White/Caucasian: 23%
    Hispanic: 1%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0%
    Asian: 1%
    Native American: 0%
    Other: 0%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:18.5
    % Reduced Lunch: 99%
    % ELL Learners: 0%
    Founded: 1927
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Lynnett Gorman
  • CONTACT:
    435 John Scott Hwy Connector
    Steubenville, OH 43952
    740-264-1590
    Lgorman@rollred.org
Pugliese West Elementary School
Steubenville, OH
School success begins at the earliest levels with our preschool and kindergarten programs.
Describe specific programs in place to ensure that families are involved in the success of your school and students.
We schedule a series of quarterly parent meetings we call "A Second Cup of Coffee". The meetings are scheduled by grade level & include topics chosen by parents through a survey they have previously completed. This year we started a YouTube channel to film meetings for parents who cannot attend meetings. We are also proud of a literacy initiative that gets our families reading together. Through this program every family & staff member in the building is given the same book and a schedule for reading. During the month the book is being read, students, staff & families participate in a number of activities and events relating to the book's theme. At the conclusion of the story we have a themed "Literacy Night" event based on the book. Students at West are also required to read for 20 minutes per night & to have an adult sign a "read & respond" form. Students are rewarded for their participation and parents are involved daily in the reading process.
What is the single most important factor in the success of your school that others could replicate?
School success begins at the earliest levels with our preschool and kindergarten programs. Pugliese West offers full-day, five day-a-week preschool and kindergarten. Each program offers a strong focus on oral language, cooperative learning and vocabulary development. Students participate in daily learning labs that are self selected by the child and cover all subject areas and modalities. Expectations are high as students are exposed and encouraged to work in teams, to participate in partner discussions and to memorize grade level sight word lists. Students in these early learning programs are able to use rubrics to evaluate sentence quality and provide feedback to peers. These skills continue throughout all grade levels in the building.
Describe the program or initiative that has had the greatest positive effect on student achievement, including closing achievement or opportunity gaps, if applicable.
Success for All (SFA) Reading Reform model was adopted by Steubenville City Schools and Pugliese West Elementary School in 2000 and the math in 2001. The main components of the program include: 90 minutes uninterrupted reading block, 75 minutes uninterrupted math block, co-operative learning, one-on-one tutoring in grades 1-3, distributed leadership teams among teachers, system for collecting and analyzing data, Getting-Along-Together Curriculum for social emotional learning, continuous professional development for educators, and a full-time teacher "coach" who supports teachers.
Identify the critical professional development activities you use to improve teaching and student learning.
Professional development is goal focused, progress monitored and on-going. Quarterly, the school principal & teachers work with the Success for All Consultants and/or our on-site coach to refine reading and math implementation in the classroom. Regularly, component meetings are scheduled for teachers to review data, share ideas and reflect collaboratively on teaching methodologies and strategies.
Describe how data is used to improve student achievement and inform decision making.
Our teachers collect & use data to guide instructional planning for the purpose of accelerating learning in all students. Monitoring student performance requires that data be collected every day & reviewed frequently throughout each grading period. The focus for data collection & use centers primarily on the subjects of reading and math. These subjects are critical to student achievement in the other core subject areas. Our most recent school wide data for Kindergarten through fourth grades shows that 95% of students are reading at or above grade level. Teachers’ careful analysis of all data points, including information provided from analysis of norm-referenced assessments, provides guidance for planning appropriate instruction necessary to accelerate learning for students who are struggling as well as students who are achieving above grade level.


Describe your school culture and explain changes you’ve taken to improve it.
Empowering teachers by distributing building leadership has been an essential part to raising student achievement and creating a culture of learning. Teachers serve on one of five teams: Attendance, Intervention, Parent & Family Involvement, Community Connections & Cooperative Culture. Targets are established for student achievement within the building and each team is responsible for identifying strategies to achieve those targets. In this way, all teachers take responsibility for all students in the school, not just the students in their classrooms. This method of distributive leadership has empowered teachers to come up with ideas and strategies to improve student achievement. Teachers are excited to implement new initiatives and follow through on students who are assigned to them. By doing this we have created a culture that takes teachers out of isolation and creates a collegial atmosphere. #TeamWest
Stats
  • Category 1

    Selected in 2018

  • Grades: pre k - 4
    School Setting: urban
    Town Population: 17,000
    Student Enrollment: 464
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 25%
    White/Caucasian: 23%
    Hispanic: 1%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0%
    Asian: 1%
    Native American: 0%
    Other: 0%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:18.5
    % Reduced Lunch: 99%
    % ELL Learners: 0%
    Founded: 1927
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Lynnett Gorman
  • CONTACT:
    435 John Scott Hwy Connector
    Steubenville, OH 43952
    740-264-1590
    Lgorman@rollred.org