All Enterprise schools make AYP requirements

According to Milner, the Enterprise City School system has had at least one school not make AYP requirements for the last five years.

“Last year College Street Elementary, Hillcrest Elementary and Enterprise High School didn’t make their AYP requirements,” Milner said. “As a superintendent I can’t put into words how pleased I am with everyone’s efforts.”

Milner said the system made achieving AYP a priority for administrators, teachers and students.

“We received training, conducted walkthrough observations and made specific plans to address certain areas,” he said. “All of our administrators do a good job of dissecting data and identifying children at risk.”

Milner said the board put a real emphasis on NCLB required testing.

“We identify those children that are at risk of not performing well on either the Alabama High School Graduation Exam or the Alabama Reading Math Test,” Milner said. “In order for them to graduate from remediation during their flex block they have to pass the graduation exam or pass their end of course tests.”

Milner said the hardest place to make AYP is at a high school.

“More than 5 percent of our students have been identified as having a learning disability,” Milner said. “Mr. Rodgers and his faculty and staff are to be commended for their accomplishment.”

Milner went on to call the system’s junior high schools a “vision on consistency” noting that Coppinville Junior High School has performed above 90 percent proficiency for the second year in a row.

“One thing that helps, is that we have such greater resources now,” said Dauphin Junior High School Principal Trent Trawick. “All the technology programs and online programs play a big part in this.”

The system’s elementary schools made the most improvements, and Elementary Supervisor Zel Thomas said he hopes that will continue.

“We anticipate scores going up but we’d like to stay on the steady progression that we’re making,” Thomas said. “That pace is more sustainable than large jumps.”

College Street Elementary Principal Twyla Pipkin said her school was able to make improvements because of a team effort from students, teachers, administrators, parents and support from the central office.

“We had physical education teachers, music teachers and librarians working students in math to help make our groups smaller,” Pipkin said. “Everybody on our staff was focused on this challenge and we were all working as a team.”

Enterprise High School principal Matt Rodgers said that drop out prevention and emphasis on testing helped his students achieve success.

“Assistant principal Danny Long developed a dropout prevention plan to address the needs of some of our students and to make it more difficult to drop out,” Rodgers said. “We’ve also tried to implement new programs such as our upcoming avionics program and the Health Science program.”

Rodgers said adding new and interesting electives could only increase a student’s interest in school.

“Let’s say a student wants to go into aviation and work at Fort Rucker, we’ve given them the opportunity to pursue that while they’re still on our campus,” Rodgers said. “We think that’s going to pay huge dividends down the road.”

Milner praised the students of Enterprise City Schools for the accomplishment saying that when “emphasis is put on testing, our children in Enterprise respond.”

“The biggest thing to take out of this is that we have statistical evidence that there’s not a school in Enterprise you should feel uncomfortable sending your child to,” he said. “They are going to receive quality instruction at every single school in our system.”