Posted on Aug 17 2010 @ 8:45 PM

BARROW COUNTY SCHOOLS: Auburn Elementary School under the leadership of Principal Shawn Williams demonstrated very strong results in student achievement on the 2009-10 Criterion Referenced Competency Test (CRCT). School wide scores reflected a 5% gain in reading, 4% gain in language arts and 7% gain in math. This is the first full year of school-wide ArtsNOW implementation.

In addition, as a part of our work with the Music-In-Education National Consortium we engaged in intensive program design, delivery and documentation of our professional development of all 1st grade teachers. We intentionally focused on music integration and reading in all 1st grade classrooms where teachers have documented tremendous gains on pre and post assessments in reading fluency through the year. In fact, 5 of 5 classrooms received 90% student gains on the reading portion of the 2010 CRCT, with the 3 classrooms seeing a 100% gain.

Auburn Elementary also experienced a significant decline in discipline referrals with 105 students sent to the office last year as opposed to 206 office referrals for 2008-09. They attribute this decline in discipline referrals to engaging instruction as a result of implementing ArtsNOW teaching strategies.  Auburn was selected as one of The Georgia Association of Elementary School Principals 2010 "School Bell" awards for implementation of innovative  instructional programs. Auburn was honored for the success and vision of ArtsNOW implementation and will receive its award in November at the GAESP Fall Conference.