It's a typical day at Oil City Elementary Magnet School in Oil City, Louisiana. The 4th graders are creating a presentation based on a story about a forest shrew, after which they'll study decomposition by examining a log at one of three outdoor classrooms. The 3rd grade students are measuring water samples they collected from other schools and agencies around Louisiana and creating charts to depict their findings. Kindergartners are learning the fundamentals of reading through activities that follow the theme “Being a Friend to the Earth.”
Both inside and outside the school, Oil City's approximately 385 students and 28 teachers are engaged in hands-on, environmentally focused learning that has boosted test scores, increased attendance, and spurred parent and community involvement—all in a Title I school whose dwindling enrollment targeted it for closure just five years ago.
A Vulnerable School Rallies
Oil City Elementary is a K–6 school 20 miles north of Shreveport in a rural community on Caddo Lake, the largest freshwater lake in the South. The school was built in 1925 and served as the local high school until the 1950s. In the 1980s, an academic magnet school opened about six miles away, drawing students from the Oil City district. Most of the remaining students did not qualify for the magnet school, and many had a history of poor achievement and behavior problems. The community perception was that students who were not “good enough” attended Oil City. Almost one-third of the teachers transferred to other schools in the district, and further redistricting left a student population of fewer than 200 kids by the late 1990s. With a negative community image and dwindling enrollment, Oil City School was targeted for closure by the district.
In the 2006–07 school year, the school's student population was 58 percent white and 40 percent black, with 2 percent representing other ethnic groups; 18 percent of students received special education services. Almost three-quarters of the student body lived at or below the poverty level. These demographics have been characteristic of the school for the last 10 years. In 1999, when the state began assigning school performance scores, Oil City's score was 40.4 out of 100, 26 points below the state average.
In spite of such obstacles, the community still valued Oil City Elementary and did not want the school to close. At the time, Oil City had a population of approximately 1,500 people, many of whom had attended the school themselves; it was point of honor not to lose the school that bore the town's name. That sentiment spurred the 15 teachers, the assistant principal, and me, the principal, to come up with some way to keep it in operation. The superintendent at the time suggested that we choose a distinct focus, such as environmental science, to distinguish the school. In our part of Louisiana, oil, forestry, and other natural resources play an important role in the economy and community life. Little did this administrator realize how his almost offhand comment would affect the school and its students.
We drew on a model from the bookClosing the Achievement Gap called Environment as an Integrating Concept, which supports using environmental education to integrate subject areas. The more our teachers learned about this approach, the more excited we became. We believed that we could make academic content relevant in a way that would attract new students to the school. When we delivered a presentation to the school board, board members agreed to make Oil City Elementary an environmental magnet school for the 2001–02 school year. The board approved transportation for any student in the parish who wanted to attend, as well as an additional 20 school days of instruction, but provided no extra funds for staff development or class resources and materials. The school relied on our Title I allocation and on grants to pay for teacher training and materials.
Going WET and Wild
Our faculty received training in three nationally recognized environmental education programs: Project Learning Tree, Project Wild, and Project WET. These programs all provide professional development, curriculums, lesson plans, and materials that draw on the natural environment to teach across the curriculum, as well as to foster students' critical-thinking, collaboration, and problem-solving abilities.
These programs appealed to us because their curriculums are well organized, with clear explanations of how to apply activities at different grade levels and with students of different abilities. State-level coordinators for each program align content and curriculum to Louisiana's state standards and make teaching relevant to local needs. The programs provide their materials through professional development workshops that focus as much on effective teaching methods as on the activities themselves.
But if we built it, would they come? Or would our school languish with dismal enrollment and close a year or two down the line? To help ensure a yesto the first question, we invited every family within 50 miles of Oil City with an elementary-age student to attend an open house, at which we shared our concept for the school and demonstrated minilessons. We contacted businesses and government agencies to become our partners and share their expertise.
Despite the fact that we had a filled auditorium at this open house, no one at the district level seemed to think much would change when Oil City opened as a magnet in fall 2001. We enrolled 75 more kids than the district had projected, however, and by October, I was scrambling to hire new teachers.
Dramatic Changes
Classroom instruction has dramatically changed since we incorporated the environmental focus throughout the school's curriculum. Gone is reliance on textbooks, as they have been replaced with hands-on activities and inquiry learning. At the beginning of each school year, grade-level teams choose a schoolwide environmental theme that can be addressed in all subject areas, such as animal habitats, meteorology, or horticulture. Teacher teams plan projects and activities that will reinforce this theme. Language arts teachers choose books with environmental themes and take students on the school's nature trail as inspiration for creative writing and other projects. Many lessons in an outdoor math lab address an identified schoolwide weakness in geometry and measurement skills. Students regularly learn and apply math skills in everything from planning a garden to charting tree growth. As part of social studies, students learn how interest groups participate in the political process and pass environmental laws.
For example, when Oil City chose horticulture as its schoolwide theme, 4th graders incorporated math, reading, and science skills into designing and building a butterfly garden for the pediatric ward at the North Caddo Medical Center. Students did a soil analysis, calculated the total amount of cubic yards of topsoil and fertilizer they would need, researched what plants and flowers would attract particular species of butterflies, and wrote and published activity booklets that hospitalized children could use when visiting the garden.
Our students are outdoors and moving while participating in learning activities practically every day. But we haven't abandoned the schoolhouse for the tree house. We've expanded technology use with classroom and mobile computer carts and through teaching all students in a 30-minute daily computer lab, where they use software that teaches reading and math skills correlated with skills they will be assessed on in standardized tests.
Building Community Partnerships
An important element in Oil City's success has been partnerships with businesses and civic organizations. For example, the Oil City Rotary Club funded a greenhouse that students use year-round. A number of organizations helped fund a pavilion at a park on Caddo Lake, which now features interpretative signage, designed by our 4th graders, about native wildlife and the aquatic food chain. We've taught community responsibility through such activities as developing the butterfly garden created for the hospital.
Even field trips strengthen students' ability to probe all sides of an issue. For example, our 6th graders visit a lignite mining operation and a Civil War battlefield within a week or so of each other. There is controversy about the mining operation's encroachment onto the battlefield; we guide students to view all sides of this issue. We have learned along the way to teach kids how to think—not what to think—about environmental issues and to lay aside our own biases about contentious topics.
Positive Numbers and Pride
Oil City is a changed school. That dismal school performance score of 40.4 that we received in 1999 increased to 89 by 2006, which surpasses the state average. Enrollment is now at 385 students. Staff retention has increased and in 2005, 43 educators in the district requested transfers to Oil City Elementary. Colleges routinely ask to assign student teachers here. We often host visits from principals, teachers, legislators, and others. In 2006, the school was one of six recognized with a National School Change Award from the American Association of School Administrators, Fordham University Graduate School of Education, and Pearson Education.
Behind positive numbers and public recognition, we sense strong commitment and pride from our teachers. It is not unusual to see teachers' cars in the parking lot as early as 6:30 a.m. or as late as 7:00 p.m. Each year, the entire faculty attends a state environmental science symposium and uses the information gained with their students.
Parental involvement has blossomed, and school functions are now standing room only. Staff and students have developed a sense of school pride not seen for many years, as shown by wearing school attire and representing the school in parades and other events.
Pursuing an environmental focus saved our school from closing. More important, it gives our students an excellent foundation in authentic learning and critical thinking as they progress to middle school and beyond.
