Schools involved in the partnership:

• Baptist Hill High School
  The Center for Partnerships has been in partnership with Baptist Hill High School, located in rural Hollywood, South Carolina, since Fall 2007. Baptist Hill, a small school with a student population of 450, has steadily been improving its student outcomes under the leadership of principal Dr. James Winbush. The Center provides the school with support and resources in the form of classroom libraries for English classrooms, materials for a literacy magazine, student tutoring assitance, parental involvement activities, and tours of local colleges.

• Burke High School
• James Island Middle School
• Memminger Elementary School
  Memminger Elementary School is located in downtown Charleston. Current enrollment is 333 students in Pre-K through sixth grade. Ninety three percent of Memminger’s students are eligible for free or reduced lunch.

  The Center for Partnerships to Improve Education is involved in the following four programs at Memminger this year:

  • Interactive Homework is a program that is modeled on TIPS (Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork), which was developed by the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships at Johns Hopkins University. Homework assignments in math are based on a skill that students have learned in the classroom and are distributed to students in Pre-K through sixth grade every two weeks.
  • The Career Mentors team is planning a Career Job Fair at Memminger this spring. Local businesses will participate, and a trip to some of their facilities is planned as a follow-up for the students and families who have participated in the Career Job Fair.
  • The Family History Project’s focus this year will be to link grade level content with state standards. The second grade, for example, is studying Communities Here and Across the World, so this will be their area of inquiry with their family. The project will culminate with a school-wide presentation and celebration this spring.
  • The Teaching/Learning Teams are comprised of a Memminger student, a Memminger teacher, a College of Charleston teaching fellow, a Burke High School teacher cadet, and a Diverse Pathways grant participant. Together the team plans lessons that are then used in the classroom. The team members also engage in fun activities on the College of Charleston campus. For instance, team members share a meal at the Hungry Cougar where CofC students eat their meals (this is a lot of fun for elementary school students!). Other fun activities include watching some of the college's athletic teams practice, and hanging out together in the garden behind the Stern Center.
  
  

School Improvement Grant Initiative

The School Improvement Grant Initiative was designed to provide the faculty and staff at the Collge of Charleston (CofC) with the opportunity to collaborate with K-12 school personnel to improve the condition of schools. Faculty members from various departments across campus were offered the opportunity to apply for a maximum award of $50,000 to support a project that focused on school improvement. In December 2006, the Center for Partnerships to Improve Education (CPIE) made five grant awards totaling $175,916. The projects will conclude in January 2008. Below is a brief description of each project.

1. COOL CATS (Cougars and Tigers) Read Together!

Anne Gutshall (CofC)
Kathleen Newsome (Cainhoy Elementary School)

The fourth-grade students at Cainhoy Elementary School (CEM) need opportunities for guided oral reading practice to improve their oral reading fluency and academic performance. Cool Cats Read Together! addresses the following goals: a) to increase Oral Reading Fluency as measured a diagnostic reading test DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) for fourth-grade students at CEM from January 2007 through April 2007, and September 2007 through December 2007, and b) to increase the likelihood that preservice CofC teachers will seek employment in low-performing and/or rural schools.

This program is a collaborative partnership between the College of Charleston and Berkeley County Public Schools in which 20 preservice teachers are participating in a reading buddy intervention program with approximately 50 fourth-grade students from CEM. This buddy program consists of 30 minutes of weekly guided oral reading. DIBELS Oral Reading Fluency measures are taken pre- and post-intervention. Preservice teachers' attitudes toward low-performing and rural schools are also taken before and after the program.

2. FAR-Ahead

Debbie Jeter (CofC)
Elaine Rafferty (CofC)

Many of the schools within the Charleston County School District have over 40% of the students scoring below Basic on the mathematics portion of the PACT test. The FAR-Ahead project is targeting Haut Gap and Morningside Middle Schols (Military Magnet), providing tutoring/mentoring services and a summer enrichment program for students, as well as professional development for the teachers. FAR-Ahead has been implemented to address the following goals: a) to increase the interest of middle school students in mathematics, b) to improve academic achievement and to create aspirations for higher education, c) to improve mathematics content and teaching techniques in the middle grades, and d) to recruit College of Charleston students to become mathematics teachers.

This program is a collaborative partnership between the Charleston County School District and the College of Charleston Mathematics and Education Departments. Tutors/mentors are provided for instructional support for the two middle schools: Haut Gap and Military Magnet. A one-week summer program, which integrates a morning camp for middle school students and a professional development program for middle school math teachers, is implemented.

3. CCSD/CofC Newcomer Program

mutindi ndunda (CofC)
Angela Cozart (CofC)
Rachel Amey (CCSD)

In the last decade, the Hispanic population iin South Carolina has grown tremendously. This same population has the fastest growing number of students dropping out as a result of school dissatisfaction and failure. The CCSD/CofC Newcomer Program has been implemented to help newly arrived English language learners address the following goals: a) to learn content through various strategies and methods, b) to learn basic English skills and enough English to make a successful transition into a regular classroom, c) to begiin their journey towards acculturation, and d) to help the parents of newly arrived English language learners understand American culture and schools and how they can help their children academically. A certified ESOL teacher is teaching at a Newcomer Program at Birney Middle School.

During the summer of 2007, the existing Charleston County School District curriculum was modified to fit the needs of newly-arrived middle school students. In September adult classes started, designed to help parents learn about American culture and schools. In October the classes enjoyed going on historical and community field trips. Data gathering and evaluation is continual, starting in May 2007 and continuing through May 2008. A summative evaluation report will be ready by July 2008.

4. Memminger Parental Involvement Program

Virgina Bartel (CofC)

Given that there is a strong need for increased parental involvement at Memminger Elementary School, a school improvement project has been implemented to address the following goals: a) to increase parental involvement in children's education by 30% through reduction of parental facets that hinder their involvement in the education of their children, and b) to increase school practices by 30% that substantively involve parents in their children's learning at home and school.

Community center activities occurred in the summer and contained an adult and child component. The adult component included adult education, parent education, community education classes, as well as parent-to-parent mentoring activities. The child component involved children in academic and recreational activities. Factors impeding parental involvement were assessed at the beginning of the project and will be assessed again at the end to determine the benefits derived. Quality of school practices by teachers, administrators, and staff related to parental involvement are assessed with measures provided by the National Network of Partnership Tools. School staff plans to focus on more substantive parental involvement. Major activities are an interactive homework component for parents and their children and the addition of parent leaders on new committees that involve volunteering, decision-making, and changing the home learning environment.

5. Burke Roundtable Writers

Faye Hicks-Townes (CofC)

For the past several years low test scores, faculty and administrative turnovers, low graduation rates, and low student and faculty morale have affected Burke High School. The Burke Roundtable Writers workshops are designed to improve ninth-grade students' attitudes towards writing and, ultimately, enhance their writing skills.

The project was launched in the spring of 2006. During this project every ninth-grade Burke student wrote several poems. Classes were divided into small workshop groups of 10 or 11 students, each of which met with a professional writer in a roundtable setting. Half of the workshops were held on the Burke campus; the other half were held on the CofC campus.

Teachers selected fun and engaging writing prompts at appropriate levels for high school students that also correlated with the South Carolina state standards for English 1. Each student produced a new poem from every workshop. The program expanded in the fall semester to include the ninth and tenth grades, and a magazine featuring the students' work was published in both semesters. In-service faculty training was held in both the fall and the spring in the area of creative writing for the faculty to attend. Last fall the tenth-grade members, now seasoned poets themselves, mentored the new ninth-graders to help them with their writing.