Maine news, sports, weather from Waterville Morning Sentinel

Carrabec High

Better school is goal

Efforts to improve prompts visit from education official

By Erin Rhoda erhoda@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

ANSON -- Carrabec High School is generating national attention for its efforts to improve the education of its students after it was named to a list of Maine's 10 persistently lowest achieving schools two years ago.

On Wednesday the spotlight will shine directly on Carrabec with a visit from a senior official within the U.S. Department of Education.

Although the low-achiever designation in March 2010 was discouraging, school officials and teachers decided to turn it into an opportunity, said Superintendent Ken Coville. Eligible because of the designation, they applied for federal funding and won $727,000 to help improve the school during a three-year period.

The last year has been a busy one in School Administrative District 74, which serves Anson, Embden, Solon and New Portland. In addition to beginning the education overhaul to improve students' standardized test scores in math and reading, the district also developed a system with the help of the federal Teacher Incentive Fund to pay teachers based in part on students' academic performance.

In addition, Carrabec is the first school in Maine to roll out a program called Advancement Via Individual Determination, or AVID, to target "students in the middle," who have the smarts but haven't yet demonstrated the drive to do well academically. The program started this fall with sophomores and is slated to reach all grades at the high school after three years.

And, as part of the National Education Association's Priority Schools Campaign, the local teachers' union is taking the lead on initiatives to increase community involvement and provide more opportunities for professional development.

The efforts line up with policies supported by the federal government, and they are prompting a visit from Jo Anderson, a senior adviser to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who will spend Wednesday at Carrabec to learn how educators, union leaders and administrators are improving academics.

Anderson will visit classrooms, talk with support staff, hold a press conference, talk with students and teachers at an assembly and speak with members of the Carrabec Education Association.

Coville said Anderson's visit will be the district's first by a senior federal education official.

The noon press conference and the 1:45 p.m. student assembly are open to the public.

Dave Ela, president of the local teachers' union and a sixth-grade teacher at Carrabec Community School, said he is excited about the visit.

"Sensing that things are going in a better direction is good for the morale of everybody," he said.

Coville likened Carrabec's trajectory to a metaphor about an eagle that is flying when a storm erupts. Instead of turning away, the eagle uses the wind of the storm to fly higher.

He said the district used the low-achieving designation to lift "students' educational opportunity higher by taking that storm cloud and wind of change and using it instead of fleeing from it."

As part of the turn-around plan, the school has started tutorial services for students during the day, after school and during vacations and summers. It has increased the amount of time students spend per week in the classroom and provided teacher training on how to weave SAT preparation into the regular curriculum.

There is a new school-wide anti-bullying approach in addition to SAT preparation classes, financial support for teachers to pursue advanced degrees and more organized activities for families. There is a greater emphasis on reading and writing skills in all classes.

Other changes include a credit-recovery program, a revised curriculum, college-level course offerings, more clubs, a peer mentoring program, a summer-transition program for eighth graders and a boys' book club to promote literacy and raise aspirations.

Erin Rhoda -- 612-2368

erhoda@centralmaine.com