Phoenix Principal Soars through the Sky
to Celebrate Students
Reaching Lofty Reading Goals

PHOENIX — May 15, 2008 –Look up in the skies!  It’s a bird…It’s a plane….It’s a principal!

Leslie Beauchamp, the principal from Phoenix’s Longview School, earlier this month had the opportunity to soar through the heavens above Eloy, Ariz. after taking a wager with a teacher from her school.

Needless to say, Beauchamp lost.  But by losing the bet, the students in Kathryn Lee’s second grade class may have all ended up the winners in terms of increased reading speed and comprehension.

Lee, an avid skydiver, was looking for a way to motivate students in her Sheltered English Immersion class to reach their classroom SMART (Specific and strategic, Measurable, Attainable, Results oriented, Time bound) reading goal of increasing each student’s reading speed and comprehension by an additional 35 words-per-minute (wpm). For example, a student beginning the school year at 60 wpm would need to increase to 95 wpm by year’s end to reach the goal.

Lee’s original goal was to have 80-percent of her class meet the 35 wpm improvement.  But apparently there’s something about having your principal plummet from the heavens that is quite the motivator for second graders.  After watching a video of Lee skydiving, the students were determined to ensure their principal experienced firsthand what it was like to jump out of a perfectly good airplane.

Lee’s class didn’t just beat their goal – they annihilated it!  Instead of a “mere” 80-percent improvement, she said 100-percent of her students achieved 35 wpm improvement. She added that approximately 15-percent of her students went “above and beyond” the goal by achieving 65 wpm improvement.

The result of this success?  A skydiving principal who reportedly had “…a wonderful time” but was glad to get back down to earth “…safe and sound!”

A total of 28 Longview teachers established SMART reading goals over the school year, and there were multiple success stories.  First grade teacher Aimee Graefe’s class celebrated one of them.

Graefe sought to improve her student’s recognition of 127 high frequency words by forming the “100 Club” – a club for students who could recognize 100 words or more.  Once a student achieved the goal, they could sign their name to the “100 Club” poster.

“At the beginning of the year,” Graefe explained, “I had a lot of students below 50 words, and several students in the 20-30 word range.  After the second trimester, the students were really excited because more of their classmates were able to sign the “100 Club” poster.”

Slowly, through hard work both at home and through extra class time at school, more and more of the students reached the 100-word benchmark. By year end, 20 of Graefe’s 22 students could recognize 120 words or more, and all 22 students could recognize 100 words or more!