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The classrooms at Allenbrook Elementary School were full Thursday evening, but not with children.
The school welcomed parents to learn some tips for helping their kids improve their literacy. More than 250 people attended the "Got Skills?" event, leaving school officials and planners ecstatic about its potential to help raise Allenbrook's test scores.
Only 32.3 percent of Allenbrook's students perform at their grade level or higher in reading, and about 55.6 percent perform at their grade level or higher in math, according to recent end-of-grade test scores. The school also has a high number of at-risk students, with 93 percent of the student body qualifying for the free and reduced lunch program, which is determined by the income of the student's family.
Principal Celeste Spears-Ellis said she and her staff decided to do something different this year to speed their efforts toward improving test scores.
"We're hoping that by having the parents come in and gain skills, they can better support their kids at home," Spears-Ellis said. "We don't believe we can make the progress we want alone."
Spears-Ellis said the school has lofty goals for future test scores. The staff wants 45 percent reading at or above grade level and 78 percent performing math at or above their grade level by the end of the year.
"Our hope is that every child will make more than a year's growth in just a year's time," she said. "If we equip our parents to support us at home, we'll make our goals faster," she said.
Kindergarten parents sat in short chairs listening to literacy teacher Jenny Holden read a book about sheep driving a jeep and explained ways to help kindergartners improve their reading comprehension.
"You can say, 'If this was your story, what would you make happen in the end,' " kindergarten teacher Angie Godbout said.
Allenbrook Elementary School also used its Title I funding - federal funding for schools with a large number of low-income students - to buy books for parents who participated Thursday to take home and use with their children.
In another class, Leslie Brown listened to tips that would help her fifth-grader improve her reading skills. "My daughter has been struggling for the last few years," Brown said.
Brown said learning ways to help her daughter work on her reading skills is helping her child's confidence. It also helps to know what the teachers are working on so she can reinforce that work at home, she said.
Cindy Joensen, a fifth-grade teacher at Allenbrook, recommended books like Shell Silverstein's "A Light in the Attic" to parents. She also suggested parents help feed their children's excitement about learning by taking trips to the library.
"If there's something they come home and they're just crazy about, if you can, get them to the library and get them some books on the subject," she suggested.
Allenbrook plans to focus its next parent skills and student activity night on Jan. 7, focusing the entire evening on improving math skills.
