'No Child,' No Problem: School In Ocean City Nails Its Target

The school's administration, faculty and parents attributed the success to a campuswide approach that is unusually structured, relentless and consistent. Here, more than at most schools, classrooms look and sound very alive, and very alike.

Kordick, the principal, emigrated from Munich with her grandmother, mother and sister at age 6 and was raised in the slums of Cleveland.

She was seldom called on in class and almost never spoke, yet she managed to reach the fifth grade as an A student without having learned to read or write English.

"I never wanted what happened to me to happen to anyone," Kordick said. "I think kids don't talk enough in school. In fact, I think they're told not to talk."

When she became principal of Ocean City Elementary 11 years ago, Kordick initiated a policy called Ask and Answer. The school abolished the practice of teachers asking questions, students raising hands and the teacher picking one to provide the answer. Instead, students pair off and answer the question between themselves.

In a kindergarten class on a recent morning, students recited the plan for a morning activity: "We will construct caterpillars and butterflies." Teacher Chris Lieb then said, "Think about what 'construct' might mean. Pair with your partner and tell your partner." Chatter filled the classroom.

In an adjoining class, kindergarten student Hunter Wolf peered through a framed sheet of transparent plastic held against a window, the better to gauge the day's weather. He turned to the class: "According to my picture, it is cloudy and rainy today." Another schoolwide rule dictates that students speak in complete sentences.

Teachers and students at Ocean City work according to an ever-expanding list of norms, a document that now runs to five pages. Conceived by Kordick and padded with contributions from staff members, the norms include broad directives about perseverance and choice as well as specific rules: Never stop working until the time is up. Greet others with "Good Morning" or "Good Afternoon."

It is an approach so distinctive, said parent Kim Holloway, that when students from Ocean City go on to other schools in the Worcester County system, "you can pick them out, one by one. They're attentive, they're respectful."

The school boasts unusually small classes, most with fewer than 20 students, and a county-funded pre-kindergarten program. Assignments often mirror the structure of the statewide test, and students are assessed regularly on different areas of the statewide curriculum.

But Kordick and her instructional leaders said the focus on getting children to speak is key to Ocean City's singular success on the MSA. In addition to attaining 100 percent proficiency last year, the school ranked first in Maryland for the percentage of students rated "advanced" -- the highest of three performance levels, a step above proficient. Seventy-two percent of Ocean City students rated "advanced."

"There isn't anything magical about the things that we do," said Karen Spangler, a resource teacher who has worked at the school for 37 years. "Over the years, they've been honed, they've been made better, and then they've been shared across the grades."

Ocean City has one other slight advantage in statewide testing, which begins in Maryland at third grade. The school serves pre-kindergartners up to fourth grade; most elementary schools go to fifth grade. With only two grade levels tested, Ocean City faces less pressure compared with most elementary schools.

Having attained 100 percent proficiency, the school will face inevitable pressure to repeat the feat every year till 2014. The results of this year's test, taken last month, are due in the summer.

"And yes, of course," Kordick wrote in an e-mail, "we are anxiously awaiting our scores."