West Hartsville Elementary Wins National Award
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday, March 22, 2010
West Hartsville Elementary earns national award for leadership in TAP school reform
WASHINGTON, DC - West Hartsville Elementary School in Darlington County has been honored for leadership in a school reform program that aims to attract, retain, develop and motivate talented people to the teaching profession.
The school is one of four national winners of the new TAP Ambassador Award that comes with a financial prize of $5,000. TAP is the System for Teacher and Student Advancement - formerly known as the Teacher Advancement Program - launched by the Milken Family Foundation in 1999.
TAP is one of America’s leading comprehensive school reforms, providing educators with powerful opportunities of multiple career paths, ongoing applied professional growth, instructionally focused accountability and performance-based compensation. Its goal is improved teacher
effectiveness and achievement growth for all students.
The Ambassador Award was created this year to honor a school that has gone beyond its campus to represent principles of the TAP system and assist others in the state and region. There are 43 South Carolina school partners in the program; West Hartsville is one of four in Darlington County.
“Attitude and achievement make West Hartsville Elementary deserving of the TAP Ambassador Award,” said Gary Stark, president of the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching, the organization that runs TAP and funds the award. “For six years, West Hartsville has been a model TAP site under the inspired leadership of Principal Kay Howell and the
entire faculty.”
In the face of deep state and district budget cuts, Dr. Howell has been a strong vocal advocate - along with veteran master teacher Shannon Fraser - for TAP’s potential to transform the education status quo, Stark said. The school’s rigorous implementation of TAP focused on effective strategies to move all students forward has consistently produced at least one year of student achievement growth.
Stark said West Hartsville opens its doors to policymakers at the district, state and federal levels, who then depart with a better understanding and appreciation of TAP in action. The school is also a learning lab for practitioners, with constant visits from other TAP teachers and principals as well as other educators interested in investigating the program’s use for their schools.
Videos of West Hartsville “cluster group” professional development meetings have been studied by the state-level TAP team and distributed to participating schools across the country. Recently, West Hartsville submitted over 30 strategies to the national TAP database, complete with lesson plans, critical attributes and long-range cluster plans.
“We are extremely proud of the job our teachers and staff are doing at West Hartsville Elementary School,” said Dr. Rainey Knight, Darlington’s superintendent. “They are not only dedicated to improving the lives of our students, they are committed to improving thelevel of teaching in our classrooms, schools and district.”
In addition to West Hartsville, other recipients of the new Ambassador Award include elementary schools in Louisiana and North Carolina and a middle school in Tennessee. TAP now impacts more than 7,500 teachers and 85,000 students across America, according to the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching.
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