• Category 1

    Selected in 2021

  • Grades: k - 5
    School Setting: urban
    Town Population: 23
    Student Enrollment: 765
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 45%
    White/Caucasian: 1%
    Hispanic: 50%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 1%
    Asian: 1%
    Native American: 1%
    Other: 1%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:19
    % Reduced Lunch: 95%
    % ELL Learners: 41%
    Founded: 1966
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Trena Wilson
  • CONTACT:
    6060 Springhill Drive
    Greenbelt , MD 20770
    301-513-5996
    trena.wilson@pgcps.org
Springhill Lake Elementary School
Greenbelt , MD
We “SOAR” because we live to be—Safe, On time, Achieve, Respect, and Responsible!"
1. Tell us about your school’s success.
We took a "teachers teaching teachers" approach to build capacity and share knowledge at Springhill Lake. Throughout this time, we implemented "Twisted Thursday" - a vertical planning experience in which educators engaged in the "plan, do, study, act" model.

Twisted Thursday occurred on a weekly basis. We implemented a vertical planning session facilitated by our instructional leadership team for our intermediate grade levels. Our reading and math teams selected standards, relevant articles, and research-based methods of instruction to discuss and plan; oftentimes, backward mapping strategies and graphic organizers were utilized to scaffold instruction. As educators from multiple grade levels were able to collaborate and insights were shared that supported student learning. Teachers were better able to bridge the standards from the grade levels below and above and provide the needed remediation and extension.
2. Talk about the greatest contributing factor(s) that promoted positive change in your school.
The growth seen at Springhill Lake over the years can be attributed to many factors. One of the key factors to our success with our ESOL students is a targeted instructional model. Our ESOL team is comprised of 7 certified ESOL teachers. Our ESOL teachers use the small group pull-out and co-teaching methods to address the needs of our students. This practice yielded growth in our ELL population on state assessments with triple percentage increases from 2018 to 2019. We exceeded our Annual Measuareable Growth target on the 2020 WIda Access language assessment by nearly 20 percentage points. This year we have an ESOL coach who works with the ESOL team and classroom teachers providing them strategies, resources, feedback, and professional development. We also utilized Title 1 funding to provide workshops for parents, tutoring for ELL students, and professional development for teachers.
3. How has ESEA funding supported the school's success?
Extended day programs for math, reading, and ESOL
Summer School - K- 4
Purchasing additional classroom and paraprofessional positions to reduce class sizes, specifically grades k-2.
Intervention and enrichment software
Student supplies and resources
Parent workshops
Professional Development of staff
Funding substitute teachers to engage in full-day quarterly data analysis and long-range planning.
4. What professional development activities were used to improve teaching and learning?
One of our greatest professional development experiences has been "Springhill Lake University." Teacher leaders reflected upon their best practices that led to success in their classrooms and facilitated monthly meetings based on their strengths. The staff selected their topic of interest from this bank of options to learn more about and enhance their instruction. Examples of these topics included implicit bias, guided reading strategies, ESOL-related book studies, classroom management strategies, arts integration, and growth mindset.

Each quarter, Data Utilization meetings were held, which focused on analyzing benchmark data for Reading, Mathematics, and Science at the grade and class level. After the data was analyzed, teachers created goals based on their student's needs and planned for review and reteaching of standards as they worked towards mastery. Providing half-day sessions allowed teachers an extended time to plan with their team and have collaborative conversations.
5. Talk about the cultural shift leading up to your school's success.
There were major cultural shifts that led to our school’s success through several schoolwide initiatives to support the well-being of our students.
One of our programs is Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports (PBIS): A set of schoolwide expectations were developed for our students in four of our school settings: Classroom, Hallway, Bathroom, and Cafeteria. These expectations follow the “SOAR” acronym of Safe, On time, Achievement, and Respect and Responsibility. Students are recognized for their efforts by all teachers and staff in following our school-wide expectations both as classes and individual students with our SOAR bucks, to trade in for celebrations or prizes for individual students. Classroom teachers are provided with weekly and monthly lessons to help teach and reinforce the expectations as they are related to the Six Pillars of Character (Respect, Responsibility, Trustworthiness, Caring, Citizenship, and Fairness), as well as Bully Prevention.
6. How has community involvement strengthened your success?
Springhill Lake has taken steps to keep families informed and engaged by using multiple forms of communication and organizing school-wide events.

Teachers use ClassDojo as a platform for sharing classroom experiences through photos and messages.

We host school-wide events that include Back to School Night, Winter and Spring Carnivals, Paint Nights, Career Day, Walk to School Day, monthly parent meetings focused on specific topics like math, testing, and reading. The monthly parent meetings are led by staff members and are curriculum-related.

Some other ways to strengthen the community involvement were:
Monthly school and grade level newsletters
Open doors policy
Liaison to facilitate communication with parents
Using other community resources, like the local Foodbank, and donations from local businesses.
Stats
  • Category 1

    Selected in 2021

  • Grades: k - 5
    School Setting: urban
    Town Population: 23
    Student Enrollment: 765
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 45%
    White/Caucasian: 1%
    Hispanic: 50%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 1%
    Asian: 1%
    Native American: 1%
    Other: 1%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:19
    % Reduced Lunch: 95%
    % ELL Learners: 41%
    Founded: 1966
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Trena Wilson
  • CONTACT:
    6060 Springhill Drive
    Greenbelt , MD 20770
    301-513-5996
    trena.wilson@pgcps.org