In the past year, Mountain View Elementary School has managed to rise to fourth in the state in top SOL scores.

“The kids worked really hard,” said fourth grade teacher, Gail Clark. “I think if you show children that you have high expectations, but you show them how good it feels to be successful, and you love them along the way as you’re pushing them along, they really want to do well and work hard.”

Clark’s students had an overall score of 96 percent on their history exam and a score of 100 percent on their reading exam. She said she is proud of all of her pupils and their performances on the tests.

Mountain View Elementary System rose to fourth in the state in SOL scores. Photo by Mckelvey Collins

The teachers at Mountain View normally use repetition of what they instruct as a method to help their students learn and retain important information, and teach through hands-on projects, according to Clark.

“The younger grades, I read to them, and sometimes I read books that I choose, and other times I read things to them that support what the classroom teachers are teaching,” said, Mountain View librarian Drusie Milford. Milford helps to train students to use research and reference skills and to hopefully become lifelong lovers of reading.

Another factor that Milford cites that may have led to Mountain View’s high academic rating is their participation in Response To Intervention, or RTI, where the teachers work with the students to make sure they are not falling behind in any of their classes.

“All the teachers at Mountain View– the PE teacher, the librarian and the music teacher and the art teacher, even–all of us help with RTI, so I help with fourth and fifth grade math and also fifth grade reading for RTI,” said Milford. “And the other thing is, all the teachers at Mountain View, because we’re a smaller faculty, we all work as a team.”

The teachers at Mountain View make sure their students have a chance at scoring well on their SOLs before they reach the third grade.

“Most of the time, when they leave me, they’re either reading really well on grade level or they’re even reading above grade level,” said, first grade teacher Becky Fleshman.

Mountain View is continually trying to improve their teaching methods as well as their test scores.

“We’re constantly evaluating what we’re doing and trying to do a better job at meeting our students,” said Milford. “Of course we want to do well on our SOLs, that goes without saying. But, I mean, part of teaching is making sure that your students are understanding and learning and feeling comfortable and all of that. I think we’re just always constantly working and evaluating and trying to prove ourselves and prove our teaching skills