Adairville School

“The assistance given to us by the Collaborative for Teaching and Learning opened our eyes to what was there all along. We needed to teach smart.”

– Janet Hurt, Former Principal
Adairville School

Teachers at Adairville School in rural southwest Kentucky were concerned about their ability to increase test scores. The state's high stakes assessment would determine if the school was meeting instructional goals. Meeting these goals would place the school in rewards; failing to meet these goals would place the school in sanctions.

In 1996, CTL began working with Adairville School's elementary grades to implement the Different Ways of Knowing (DWoK) whole-school reform initiative. Later, the middle grades were added, and results became evident. After one year of CTL's work with the Adairville middle school, test scores as indicated by the Commonwealth Accountability Testing System (CATS) showed the following increases over two years:

• Reading scores increased 28.4 points
• Writing portfolio scores increased 17.4 points
• Science scores increased 12 points
• Arts and Humanities scores increased 26.7 points
• Social Studies scores increased 28.7 points

Other evidence of lasting change in the school culture included the following:

• Improved integration of curriculum
• Improved discipline, from 110 discipline referrals to fewer than 5 over two years
• Higher levels of professional conversation among teachers and administrators
• Higher levels of student engagement
• In 2001, Adairville School was named a National Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education
• In 2004 Adairville School was named a "School to Watch" by the Kentucky Department of Education