A visit at Holt Elementary School in December 2005 found staff and parents busy implementing a variety of strategies that reasearch shows improves student achievement. See the pictures and comments below.

Library aides Theresa Garnsey and Laua Friesen have both completed the Linn-Benton ESD library para-professional training in order to be able to offer a full service library at Holt. They are also on the curriculum adoption team.	The elementary school maintains close ties with Holt International, and sponsors adoptees from other countries (here are pictured children from Romania and Thailand). They also did a "garage sale" of their toys and sent money to victims of Hurricane Katrina. They know they are members of a world wide community.	Parent involvement is actively encouraged at Holt - these moms volunteer to run the workroom. "We couldn't do without them!" says principal Kevin Boling. 35% of Holt students live in poverty, and building resources for them is vital.
Special needs students receive a wide range of assistance to help them excell - here, a vision impaired student is doing multiplication on an abacus.	Principal Boling mobilizes the assistance of a student who is chronically anxious about unexpected fire drills - here he helps the principal schedule the next drill and takes on the job of office fire drill reminder.	Hearing impaired students receive sign language assistance as they study flash cards to help them learn how to read.
Using an Alphasmart keyboard assists students in expressing themselves in written language when writing is a struggle.	Students are widely praised for positive behavior across grade levels - here the "thumbs up" board in the main hallway displays student pictures for praise-worthy events.	Retired elementary teacher Joy Ewell substitutes for teacher Katrina Dilger, who is visiting at Chavez Elementary today to view their programs and strategies.
Even first graders get a time in the Computer Lab to learn basic skills. The school has 75 mobile computers for use, too.	Teachers also use non-tech devices, such as these "flip boards" to monitor each invidual student's achievement during class time - "show me your answer!" Then she adjusts the lesson.	Fourth and fifth graders have Math scheduled at the same time to allow for various groupings as student needs are identified.
Here teacher Colleen Ramme explains "The Concentration Game" which she has taught to her students, and then to other teachers to teach to theirs. The goal is to increase focused attention to learning. Here they started from a baseline of 56 seconds before the group lost learning attention.	The class demonstrates how the game works - the teacher (with stop watch in hand) gives the signal, the students get to work, and designated others try to distract their attention by making noises and moving around the class.	Principal Boling even got into the game (I think he had fun being "naughty") asking questions, and even standing on a chair, but these students couldn't be budged away from their work. What great attention!
Mrs. Ramme is delighted with this test of student attention (one student shared that their best time so far is seven minutes). This training has a far reaching effect on student learning.	Meanwhile, all first grade students, as well as selected students, have their progress in reading continuosly assessed on a weekly basis using the DIBELS system.	DIBELS reading scores are entered in the data system on the computer, and individual student scores are printed out for teacher use. These are then integrated with the Reading First Program and Read Well curriculum.