Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
MYTON, Duchesne County — The assembly that kicks off every week at Myton Elementary School has one purpose: to reinforce positive behaviors inside and outside the classroom.
"Helps others with their math papers," Myton Principal Jennifer Wall says, calling a second-grader up to the front of the gym. "Thank you for being such a great helper."
It's one part of the ongoing effort that school administrators say helped Myton earn a C on the annual state SAGE tests in the spring of 2015, an accomplishment the students and staff are celebrating.
"Sure a C is average, but for us to go from an F to a C was fabulous," Wall said. "We were excited."
At the end of the 2014 academic year, Myton was one of the 20 worst-performing schools in Utah, earning a dismal overall score of 27 percent on the SAGE test.
One year later, that number was 48 percent. That's solid progress, Wall said, for a K-5 school that serves 158 kids in a small rural community where almost 50 percent of the population under the age of 18 lives below the poverty line.
"It's a struggle for the kids. It's a struggle for the parents," she said, referring to the socio-economic conditions in the community. "The parents are in survival mode. They're working two, three jobs to put food on the table. They don't have the time to really engage with their kids. They're trying to get them fed, get them to bed so they can be up the next day to do it again."
158 students K-5
50% of the population under the age of 18 lives below the poverty line
2014: 27% score on SAGE test
2015: 48% score on SAGE test
The school has built a schedule that allows students who are struggling to get one-on-one help, while students who have grasped the concepts that have been taught can move on to more challenging material, Wall said.
Students who need extra help with their reading get it thanks to volunteers with the Read Today program.
"I've had students go and they build a bond with (the volunteers)," said third-grade teacher Melissa Brinkerhoff. "That mentor encourages them, so they get that bond and they get that one-on-one time where some of them might not get that at home."
Brinkerhoff and other teachers have also changed the way they teach, actively engaging their students in each lesson through the combined use of speech and physical gestures.
"They have to do the gesture and they have to show us," Brinkerhoff said, demonstrating the gestures used to explain compound words. "They're all moving, they're all saying it, so it really does help to connect (the concepts) for them."
The school's students and staff track their SAGE scores closely to immediately identify areas where improvement is needed, Wall said. Grades and test scores aren't their sole focus though.
"The end goal is turning out productive members of society," Wall said. "An A is an A — it's just a letter — but the kids, that's the end goal, making their lives better."
