Excellence Happens When Schools Find the Right Tools

Discovering what truly works in education is invaluable for educators seeking to improve student outcomes. In this enlightening conversation with Tiffany Harris, Title I Coordinator at Scarborough Model Middle School in Mobile County, Alabama, we uncover a remarkable success story of educational transformation through strategic resource implementation.

Website: spotlight4success.com

Transcript

Welcome to Spotlight for Success

Speaker 1 0:06

Welcome to Spotlight for Success by American Book Company. I'm Devin Pintosa, your host. We are here at the Alabama Educational Technology Conference in sunny Mobile Alabama. We are here with Tiffany Harris, with Scarborough Middle School, mobile County Schools yes, tiffany, welcome. Thank you for having me. Thank you, tell us a bit about your recent decision to come here to the Alabama ETC.

Speaker 2 0:35

Actually, we're always looking for ways to improve our technology in our schools for our students and I always stop by your booth because we use the books Okay, we have seen proven success. Your booth because we use the books and I was thinking we have seen proven success with using your books for ACAP.

Speaker 1 0:49

Oh, that is awesome, tiffany. Tiffany, can you tell me a bit about what kind of you saw some score increases associated with using our materials?

About American Book Company

Speaker 2 0:57

Yes, we have and we're looking to make gains for this year as well. For the 2025 school year, we don't have those scores as of yet. Okay, but from 2023 to 2024, in our ELA scores, or reading, we did a gain of 3% and for our math from 2023 to 2024, we did a gain of 2%. Wonderful. And we did see improvement where all of our kids did make progress or gains on the ACAP test for all grade levels.

Speaker 1 1:21

Oh, that is fantastic. Well, congratulations, yes, thank you, that is awesome. Congratulations, that is awesome. It's a community effort. You know, we love seeing hearing that our materials are effective in the classroom and, at the same time, that you know y'all are working so well as a team working with those materials in the schools. That's great. Have you used our? You'll be using our online coming up next year?

Speaker 2 1:41

Yes, we're going to incorporate the online component this school year. Okay, that's awesome In our independent classes yes, Fantastic.

Tiffany's Journey as Title Coordinator

Speaker 3 1:47

Thank you for watching Spotlight for Success. I am Devin Pintosi, chief Operating Officer of American Book Company. We are located here in our headquarters in Woodstock, georgia. All of our materials are printed in USA. We have course books, e-books and online testing In grades K-12, in mathematics, ela, science and social studies. These materials are all designed to help students achieve higher scores on their state-specific high-stakes assessments. We guarantee score improvement. You can get free samples of our materials either in print or in electronic formats at abck12.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

Speaker 1 2:39

Tiffany, tell me a bit about your journey as far as getting into your role as a Title I coordinator.

Speaker 2 2:45

Actually, initially I was afraid to do it, but I was asked by one of my principals would I be interested in taking on the role? And I was like I'm not sure. But once I took on the role, it's been very beneficial to me because I get access to or insight on, data to help our students improve. So it's a continuous improvement for us to always see where our kids are and where we want our kids to go.

Alabama ETC Conference Benefits

Speaker 1 3:10

Wow, yes, that is wonderful. And I understand Scarborough Middle School has won awards. Is that right? Yes, we have.

Speaker 2 3:16

Yes.

Speaker 1 3:16

So can you tell me about that?

Speaker 2 3:18

Well, actually it was in 2016. We became what we call the Modern Middle School. Prior to that, we were just Scarborough Middle School, but we did a transformation and became Scarborough Modern Middle School, which also gave us more teachers, more electives at the time.

Speaker 1 3:33

Oh, look at that.

Speaker 2 3:33

And we came off the list of report card and we've been moving in the upward direction ever since.

Speaker 1 3:40

That is fantastic. Love hearing that, tiffany. That is great, great success story there. Is there anything you'd like to share with the Alabama ETC community as a takeaway from this conference?

Speaker 2 3:53

Well, I would say this is one of the best conferences I think we have, along with the mega conference that's also within the state of Alabama, because you get a lot of personalized instruction. When you go to professional development sessions and small sessions, small group, which is very beneficial, you're able to see things that are beneficial for your state.

Speaker 1 4:13

So that is awesome. Yes, wow. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. Again, this is Tiffany Harris with Scarborough Model Middle School in Mobile County Schools.

Speaker 2 4:25

Thank, you for joining us. Thank you for having me.