Jefferson Elementary becomes ABC Today School

The next generation of Big Brothers Big Sisters' ABC Education Initiative is taking shape at Jefferson Elementary School.

Jefferson has become an ABC Today School, Becky James-Hatter, president and CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Eastern Missouri, said during an editorial board meeting at the Southeast Missourian on Wednesday. "ABC" stands for Attendance, Behavior and Classroom success in reading and math.

Software collects data that produces an ABC index, so the school can track whether children are attending school, behaving while there and showing success in reading and math. Big Brothers Big Sisters representatives said federal privacy laws are followed while collecting the information.

Ashley Beggs, executive director for the southern region of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Eastern Missouri, said the agency offers the ABC program to the group's participating children, but has been asked whether it could take ABC to a whole school.

Beggs said Big Brothers Big Sisters has worked with Jefferson since the inception of the ABC initiative and "knew it would be a really great place" to start. The decision also was run past Cape Girardeau public school officials.

"We totally had their buy-in. We made that collective decision together of where we wanted to start this," Beggs added.

The first meeting was Monday at Jefferson. Principal Christa Turner and other school staff, representatives from LaCroix Church, the United Way Read to Succeed program, Bank of Missouri, and Big Brothers Big Sisters representatives participated.

The goal is to help the school to be more successful while increasing collaboration and decreasing complexity. The program is offered at no cost to the school, James-Hatter said.

"It's set up to define success by quarter," James-Hatter said. "We get all the grades from Jefferson [except prekindergarten]. The [ABC] index is based on predetermined thresholds of success. In the first semester, you can't miss more than two days of school. If you got a D or an F in reading, that's not succeeding. You have to get an A, B or C ..."

Turner said the school gets a lot of data from test scores and other avenues, but "this is a tool that has simplified and streamlined some of our data for us" letting the campus look at the "whole big picture of a student very easily."

The school has an enrollment of about 375 students, but data is pulled for the roughly 300 in kindergarten through fourth grade, Turner said.

" ... We do have a lot of interventions in place at Jefferson, but we also have a lot of data. This is a quick snapshot of our data and it's easy to understand," Turner said.

James-Hatter, president and CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Eastern Missouri, said this is "very much a school-community engagement model."

"There's also an ABC cycle. We collect the data, and the first thing you do is celebrate," James-Hatter said. The next step is to clarify problems and customize a response. "A quarter later, you get new data, so you're able to see three months later what moved around."

Beggs said school representatives, Big Brothers Big Sisters and community partners will meet once a quarter after ABC data is released. In the interim, they will check in by phone conference and may hold in-person meetings with pertinent people.

Jefferson will host reward lunches Tuesday and Wednesday for about 85 students who succeed in each of the ABC areas. Because students have differing lunch hours, the fete will be spread over two days, Beggs said. LaCroix Church, Bank of Missouri, Dairy Queen and Big Brothers Big Sisters will participate in the luncheons.

With ABC, Beggs said, Big Brothers Big Sisters wants to work with children to make sure "they're successful in life when they're students. This is one way of measuring how they're being successful."

rcampbell@semissourian.com

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