FARMINGTON – The principal of Cascade Brook School told school board members the success of an anti-bullying program in his school is a highlight of his career.

Principal Tom Taylor shared with SAD 9 board members Tuesday night the successes and shortcomings of the grade-four-to-six school, which has more than 300 students, in the bi-monthly report card series.

A survey done in 1998 at the Farmington school concluded that students thought it was “matter of fact” that they would get teased, Taylor said. And if teachers didn’t see it, he said, the attitude was that it didn’t happen.

After the bullying and teaching prevention program, a collaboration between SAD 9 and the Franklin County Children’s Task Force, was introduced at Cascade Brook in the 2001-02 school year, things have changed.

Student reports to school staff and parents about being bullied or teased have increased. At Cascade Brook, 73 percent of students reported that staff had intervened when students told them they had been bullied, according to a 2003 survey, Taylor said.

In 2003, only 15 percent of students at Cascade Brook reported they had been bulled more than twice in the past few months.

Taylor said the change is because staff have indicated to students that when they tell a teacher someone is bullying them, it wasn’t tattling.

While that program is going well, Taylor said the school was not where he wanted it to be when it comes to Maine Educational Assessment results in writing and math.

Nearly 30 percent of last year’s fourth-graders did not meet the MEA writing test standards and 60 percent only partially met standards.

But, Taylor said he was pleased that for the first time last year, there was a percentage of students that exceeded standards and the largest percentage in the past three years of data shown when students meet standards.

In order to improve these writing test results, the school has introduced a writing prompt for students in the fall and the spring. “Students need to practice what they’ve learned,” he said.

For math, it was the same thing. Taylor said he was pleased with the more than 20 percent of students who met or exceeded the standards on last year’s MEA math test, but worried about the nearly 80 percent who didn’t meet standards or only partially met standards.

Students have a difficult time on multi-step problems, he told the board, showing examples of test pages released by the state. So, the school plans to do more instruction with those type of problems.

This year’s fourth-grade class at Cascade Brook will sharpen pencils and plunge into the MEAs starting on Monday. Students will spend two hours of seven of the 10 school days between March 1 and March 12 taking the tests.

“The stakes are pretty high,” said Taylor.

sdepoy@sunjournal.com

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