A Story of Significant Progress Continues at Cherokee Bluff Middle School

Cherokee Bluff Middle School has an interesting origin story—one in which redistricting led to a significant change in demographics. But the far more interesting part of Cherokee Bluff’s origin story is the way in which Principal Robert Wilson and his team used the Thoughtful Classroom “Four Cornerstones” framework to establish the learning culture of the school. With the Cornerstones in place, Cherokee Bluff realized significant gains across much of the student population. Over the course of its first three years, Cherokee Bluff became one of the highest-achieving schools in Hall County.

How a Diverse Elementary School Built a Culture of Success and Raised Achievement

Wagoner Elementary School serves young learners from the diverse community of Sauk Village, Illinois, just outside of Chicago in southern Cook County. The student population of Wagoner is 76.1% Black, 27.2% Hispanic, and 2.5% white, with a 20% mobility rate (nearly triple the Illinois state average). Of all of Wagoner’s students, roughly 59% come from low-income families and 74% receive free or reduced lunch assistance. 

A Newly Established School Achieves High Levels of Success with a “Four Cornerstones” Approach

Perhaps most impressive of all is how significantly test scores have risen since Cherokee Bluff Middle School was founded. Test scores even went up during the height of the pandemic—bucking the national trend.

A Culture of Success in a California Farming Community

Arvin Union School District serves a farming community in rural California. 67 percent of Arvin’s students are English learners, and over 93 percent qualify for free or reduced lunch. Using a Thoughtful Classroom learning-cycle approach of training and coaching, Arvin has been able to make significant gains.

The Highest Increase in Graduation in New York

According to Kathy Southwell, Director of Curriculum, Learning, & Assessment, “Thoughtful Classroom tools give our teachers more strategies to engage students and increase their critical thinking—factors that we believe have played an important role in our increased graduation rates.”

A Ten-District Case Study in Kentucky

In one of the largest implementations of the Thoughtful Classroom, Green River Regional Educational Cooperative  (GRREC) chose the Thoughtful Classroom as the primary professional development initiative for ten districts with over 2,000 teachers. During this three-year partnership, all ten districts saw gains on the state accountability index, with nine of the ten exceeding the state average. Two districts more than doubled the state average. Gene Wilhoit, Kentucky’s Commissioner of Education at the time of the initiative, stated, “Dr. Silver and the Thoughtful Classroom team have done a masterful job in guiding Kentucky educators to tie academic standards to the key elements of an effective classroom.”