{"id":156362,"date":"2023-12-07T11:14:31","date_gmt":"2023-12-07T16:14:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/districtadministration.com\/?p=156362"},"modified":"2023-12-07T11:14:31","modified_gmt":"2023-12-07T16:14:31","slug":"principal-shares-keys-3-big-achievements-lyman-hall-angel-rodriguez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/districtadministration.com\/principal-shares-keys-3-big-achievements-lyman-hall-angel-rodriguez\/","title":{"rendered":"ELs excelling: Principal shares the keys to 3 big achievements"},"content":{"rendered":"

Answer<\/strong>: Record numbers of EL students graduating from language programs and being identified as gifted. Question<\/strong>: Why was Angel M. Rodriguez, leader of Lyman Hall Elementary School in Georgia, named Principal of the Year by the Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents<\/a>?<\/p>\n

The high-poverty elementary recently recorded the highest number of students completing their ESOL classes in the history of the Hall County School District northeast of the Atlanta metro area, Rodriguez says. That has a direct correlation to high school graduation. “In middle school and high school, they don’t teach reading,” he adds. “[Students] getting into middle and high school without finishing their ESOL, it’s just very hard on them to stay engaged, to stay connected.”<\/p>\n

Lyman Hall’s test scores are the highest in the school’s history while Rodriguez and his team also have ensured that dozens more English learners and other students are being identified as gifted. When he became Lyman Hall’s principal, only three English learners in a school of 700 students were identified as such. “I thought this can’t be right,” he recalls. “We need to work harder to provide these kids with the educational opportunities they deserve.”<\/p>\n

After his first year, he and his team increased the number of gifted EL students to 13 and several years later, there are now around 115, giving Lyman Hall one of the highest EL gifted percentages in Georgia and, potentially, in the nation, he notes.<\/p>\n

‘SWIRLing all day’<\/h2>\n

Lyman Hall’s ESOL and gifted achievements have everything to do with expanding the capacity of teachers, explains Rodriguez, who is also a former elementary school teacher. Rather than taking a traditional approach of putting the school’s best teachers in the “testing” grades (such as third grade), he placed his “rock star” educators in literacy, K2 and ESOL.<\/p>\n

About 80% of his current team of ESOL educators are former teachers of the year and grade chairs. “It was an area of need and I needed the people with the capacity to do this type of work,” he notes. Instruction is encapsulated by the acronym “SWiRL”\u2014which stands for speaking, writing, reading and listening.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n