Alice Coachman Elementary School
Dougherty County School District
Albany, Georgia
The approach to the Alice Coachman Elementary school is a sweeping circular driveway that leads to the front of the school. Each school morning the driveway is crowded with parents delivering their children to school. Each car and every child is met by a member of the school staff who greets the child and the parents and welcomes them to another day of “teaching and learning.”
The school was named for Alice Coachman, a native of Albany and the first black women to win an Olympic gold medal. Principal Pat Victor’s philosophy of education is modeled on teaching and leadership practices she has experienced and drawn from previous assignments in high-performing schools in low poverty areas. Those practices, she feels, are just as applicable to a school in a high poverty area. With all but 5% of its student body eligible for free or reduced-price lunches, Alice Coachman Elementary School displays a fierce commitment to teaching and learning, consistently high expectations and student support, and the kind of outreach that binds parents and community leaders to the school.
Aspects of School Culture
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The school’s mission is to provide students an opportunity to learn in a safe, orderly, and structured environment, with a strong emphasis on a firm foundation of knowledge, high academic achievement, and a variety of educational experiences that will lead to personal success. Students recite the mission statement each morning during student-led morning announcements over the school’s closed-circuit TV system. Faculty and staff are interviewed and hired based on their commitment to this mission and are attracted to working at Coachman Elementary because of the educational power of this shared vision. Parents choose the school for its strong academic climate, emphasis on skills development, and its caring environment, while community members contribute time, funds, and expertise to reinforce this positive, structured environment, and keep the school successful.
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Distributed Leadership
(4 minutes 8 seconds -
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Based on her years of experience as a successful administrator in a high-functioning school and her study of the research, Principal Victor has strong opinions about what makes a school good for teaching and learning. Faculty members understand and support her vision, generating very low turnover rates over the years and a stable, dedicated teaching staff. Teachers describe Principal Victor’s distributed leadership model, which gives them numerous opportunities to make their voices heard in discussions about instruction and classroom and school management. This distributed model also permits faculty members to develop their own leadership skills by proposing and implementing new practices.
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Parent Involvement
(4 minutes 35 seconds -
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Staff and administrators at Alice Coachman recognize parents as their child’s “first teacher” and worked diligently from the very opening of the school in 1999 to “get parents on board” to complement the work of the teachers. Principal Victor feels that the school’s strong emphasis on involving parents in their children’s school lives at school has helped students, and Alice Coachman Elementary School, to be successful. Parents take part in school assemblies and performances and attend workshops designed to introduce parents to the school’s curriculum. The “I Care” program, an online tool, allows parents to follow their children’s academic and behavioral progress in real time. Parents remark that the program “teaches them how to work one-on-one with their children and how to create home assignments with them to complement their school work.”
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Alice Coachman Elementary is fortunate in having a strong group of individual, community-based, and corporate volunteers who see their involvement in the life of the school as a “civic duty” and an opportunity to assist “our neighborhood school”. Many volunteers have a loyalty to the school that spans many years. They live in the same community as the students and parents and feel strongly that “strong schools make strong communities.” Volunteers work in individual classrooms tutoring children, assist in the library, raise funds, and sponsor programs with a strong emphasis on literacy such as Reading Across America and Books Are Fun. Most important, they feel welcome in the school and appreciated for their efforts.
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School Information
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Alice Coachman Elementary School
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1425 West Oakridge Drive
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Albany, GA 31707-5306
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(229) 431-3488 FAX: (229) 431-3490
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http://www.dougherty.k12.ga.us/schools/alicecoachman.htm
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Student Demographics
347 Students, K - 5
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African American
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95%
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Hispanic
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1%
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White
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4%
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Asian
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0%
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Native American
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0%
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Students eligible for free/reduced-price meals
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96%
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Students with Limited English Proficiency
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0%
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Special Education Students
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12%
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Average Teacher Turnover rate, past 5 years
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2%
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Student/Teacher Ratio
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14:1
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