• Category 1

    Selected in 2020

  • Grades: k - 6
    School Setting: rural
    Town Population: 1
    Student Enrollment: 0
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 1%
    White/Caucasian: 68%
    Hispanic: 14%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0%
    Asian: 1%
    Native American: 2%
    Other: 14%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:19
    % Reduced Lunch: 53%
    % ELL Learners: 6%
    Founded: 1979
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Amelia Baldwin
  • CONTACT:
    430 Box Elder Ave
    Paonia, CO 81428
    970-527-3639
    amelia.baldwin@deltaschools.com
Paonia Elementary School
Paonia, CO
Trust is the glue that holds all of us together.
Describe specific programs in place to ensure that families are involved in the success of your school and students.
We could not achieve what we do without our families. Our families work hand-in-hand with us as we grow our students’ hearts and minds. Our parent organization works closely with our staff to celebrate successes and support classrooms. The enthusiasm is contagious.
Our communication with families is beyond compare. Weekly teacher letters, hand-written notes, letters from our principal, and family emails make their way to students’ homes every week. School and classroom websites welcome parents into seeing what is happening in our school lives. Each connection is written with the heart-felt intent of not only simply informing families about school happenings but to encourage them to share in the excitement of learning with their children.
Living in a small town, we also have a lot of one on one contact with parents, both officially and casually. We have almost perfect attendance at parent-teacher conferences, and we invite parents to participate in school as much as possible.
Describe the most successful activity your school has initiated to strengthen ties to your community.
We have an incredibly dedicated and talented group of volunteers from our community. For years, many of our neighbors, local artists, musicians, parents, grandparents, retired nurses, architects, teachers, and coal miners have shared their strengths with our school. They guide them, cheer them on, and most importantly, listen to them. Our volunteers tell us how impressed they are by our students’ hard work. They revel in their growth and successes. Our students feel the care and pride our community holds for each and every one of them. Many of our volunteers have been in our school community for 15 to 20 years.
Along with our committed volunteers, we have a very active parent organization and proactive student council. Paonia Elementary School students initiate events and activities that benefit the town as a whole. Additionally, we have close relationships with town service organizations like the Lions Club, the Rotary, the council of churches, and the American Legion.
Describe your philosophy of school change or improvement.
School change must be rooted in the needs of our student/community population and be driven from within the building. For this reason, teachers and administrators must have strong connections to our students and their families. We also feel it is critical that all staff embrace that every student belongs to all of us. We are here to provide support to all students throughout the building, not only those who are in our classroom.
We think we (teachers, administration, and students) are always learning and changing. We can always improve at our craft and become more effective. Each year we get a new classroom of students in each grade. Each year, we have to change, modify, and differentiate our lessons and approach to meet the needs of these new students.
We firmly believe every student can and should grow. If they don’t, we believe we are not doing everything we can to support them, and, therefore, we have to make adjustments based on student data.
What are your school’s top two goals for the next year?
One of our prioritized areas of focus is supporting the whole-person through the balance and well-being of our staff as well as providing the necessary support for our students and families, particularly relating to the effects of COVID. We have to build trust and have students feel safe before they can truly focus on learning. We build relationships by understanding who each other and who our students are as individuals.
Our other prioritized area of focus is on student growth. It is essential that we provide learning opportunities for all students to grow academically, socially and emotionally. In the current climate, we also must be prepared to support and maintain students in a distance learning environment, so increasing our capabilities in that area is critical. We must notice growth academically, socially and emotionally, intentionally point it out to our students and staff, and then celebrate it!
What is the single most important factor in the success of your school that others could replicate?
Trust is the glue that holds all of us together. Growth in ourselves and our students is our focus. Teacher to teacher, teacher to principal, teacher to child, and school to family: we trust each other and we encourage growth in one another. Each day we honor the strengths, individual talents, and commitment that we generously share to create this amazing place we call “school”. It’s the trust of knowing that each one of us is putting all the love, time, energy, hope, and expertise into our shared goal: our students.
We work well together as a team with a sense of community and an immense genuine care for each other and for our students. We ask each other for help, and we support each other at school and in our personal lives. We understand our role and responsibilities and rely on each other to do their part. We have school leadership that works with us and asks for our input. We support one another in whatever we are trying to accomplish, and we value each other’s time.
Describe the program or initiative that has had the greatest positive effect on student achievement, including closing achievement or opportunity gaps, if applicable.
We feel that the greatest positive effect that our school has on our students’ achievement is our teachers and school staff. We do not feel that any program is the answer. We have had high growth and success for many years through many program, curriculum and initiative changes. What is a constant through this is the dedication and knowledge that our teachers have that makes the difference. We take a program, make it our own and mold it to what works best for our students. There is not one program or initiative, but instead our unwavering belief that every student can and should grow.
We consistently reflect on ourselves as educators and the areas in which we are effective or can grow in order to improve our positive effect on students. We prioritize inspiring the desire to learn, developing a love for reading, and the ability to persevere when faced with a challenge. Providing students with guided choice in different aspects of their learning develops ownership of their learning.
Explain how ESEA federal funds are used to support your improvement efforts.
We use Title I funds to pay for a summer program and an after-school program. Our summer program offers our students a jump start into the school year. Our homework club encourages students to stay at school and get their work done with the appropriate support before they go home.
Improvement efforts are supported through the allocation of funds to individual and whole group professional development as well as activities for parent involvement events and child care for parent-focused activities such as parent education classes and our parent organization meetings.
Identify the critical professional development activities you use to improve teaching and student learning.
Some of our highly successful PD activities are those that involve our teachers and administrators sharing their strengths. As we implement new strategies, ideas, techniques, etc., we utilize the strengths from within our school community in order to build upon and develop one another.
Additionally, our whole group professional development focuses on a collaborative desire for our building’s growth. Individually, our teachers never stop learning. We continue to refine our craft and are continually improving our understanding of how children learn. Teachers are given the opportunity to focus on their specified areas of desired personal growth in which they can drive their own learning in a manner that is more effective for their success. Areas of focus have included but are not limited to growth mindset, reading and writing, trauma-informed methods, brain science, math movement, joint book studies, and effective uses of technology.
Describe how data is used to improve student achievement and inform decision making.
We focus on student growth, and achievement takes care of itself. We constantly look at many different forms of formative and summative data and a classroom body of evidence in order to see where students are succeeding, in which areas they need more support, and to inform our process of how to provide this for them.
If a student shows discrepancies in their data, then we try to figure out why. If they are showing some great strengths, we aim to challenge them in their classroom work and provide additional enrichment activities for them. If a student is continually struggling, then we ensure that they are receiving the individualized support that they need. By keeping track of student growth and progress we can figure out what is working and what is not.
Our weekly Professional Learning Communities provide a safe, informative atmosphere for team discussion of data, strategic planning, and a whole child focused decision-making process.
Describe your school culture and explain changes you’ve taken to improve it.
Walking to the front doors of Paonia Elementary School, you are greeted with student artwork displayed on our exterior walls. Upon entering, you can feel the warmth of our close-knit staff and students. As you walk into classrooms and join in the momentum of the day, you will find smiling children who are engaged in discovery, creativity, and meaningful learning. The energy of the workings within each room do not happen by accident. The environment has been purposefully and carefully designed by the most dedicated group of teachers and staff members.
Our school culture values service to the growth of each student as an individual. We value teaching children to be responsible for their behavior and accountable for their learning. The culture of our school has been built with a shared vision of excellence, commitment to trusting one another, a personal love of learning, recognized effort and hard work, and an unwavering ability to never stop believing in our students.
Stats
  • Category 1

    Selected in 2020

  • Grades: k - 6
    School Setting: rural
    Town Population: 1
    Student Enrollment: 0
    Student Demographics:

    Black/African American: 1%
    White/Caucasian: 68%
    Hispanic: 14%
    Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0%
    Asian: 1%
    Native American: 2%
    Other: 14%

    Teacher/Student Ratio: 1:19
    % Reduced Lunch: 53%
    % ELL Learners: 6%
    Founded: 1979
  • PRINCIPAL:
    Amelia Baldwin
  • CONTACT:
    430 Box Elder Ave
    Paonia, CO 81428
    970-527-3639
    amelia.baldwin@deltaschools.com