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OCS <br />K - 3"d Grade <br />Most elementary schools link an assistant position to every teacher position, K -3. In <br />grades 4 and 5 there is often only one assistant for the entire grade. Provision of <br />assistants varies with each school. In one school, funding for assistants has been foregone <br />in order to provide another regular elementary teaching position. We can compare Cameron <br />Park Elementary School in Orange County and Estes Hills Elementary School in Chapel Hill - <br />Carrboro, for in 2003 -2004 they both had 42 classes. Cameron Park had 14 classroom <br />assistants and 1 media specialist; Estes Hills had 18.5 classroom assistants and 1 media <br />specialist. <br />4"d 5m Grade <br />In the 4th and 5th grades of CHCCS each classroom can count on the support of a <br />half time assistant. The 4th and 5th grades of each OCS school share two full time <br />assistants, but the numbers of the classrooms at the 4th and 5th grade levels vary such that <br />assistants are available to classrooms on a quarter or a third time basis. Some assistants <br />are assigned to work with learning or physically disabled students who require extra support <br />in the classroom. <br />Because classroom management is complex, the presence of assistants is important <br />to provide support for individual students, where appropriate, but also to take care of <br />administrative tasks and to free the teacher to spend more of her time with students. A <br />closer examination of the ways that assistants are used would be interesting. While the <br />instructional support assistants provide is helpful, it is also important that their instruction <br />to individual students does not separate underachieving students from classroom instruction <br />in core subjects when it is provided by the certified classroom teachers. <br />Reading Specialists <br />There is tremendous pressure on school districts around the country to ensure that <br />all students are reading at grade level. While many reading specialists may supply special <br />assistance to students who need it in one -on -one sessions, most work in classrooms with the <br />regular teachers, both supporting clusters of children through flexible grouping and <br />demonstrating special approaches that may be instructive for the general classroom <br />teacher. <br />Report card data show excellent reading scores for both districts. All but one OCS <br />school raised its scores beyond 2002 -2003 marks, and in CHCCS all schools raised the <br />scores of children in the elementary schools reading at or above grade level. <br />• OCS. Students at [X School) have 1 hour daily reading. Students <br />are grouped with three adults (teacher, assistant, reading specialist) <br />working in each class with different level book groups. <br />CHCCS /OCS Final Report 48 <br />