WILSONA RECEIVES FEDERAL GRANTS FOR ACADEMIC REFORM.

Byline: John Sanders Staff Writer

Two Wilsona School District Elementary schools were awarded with federal grants worth approximately $100,000 each geared toward improving their students' academic achievement.

Both Wilsona Elementary and Vista San Gabriel will receive the money over the next three years.

``We're very, very pleased that we were chosen for the implementation grant,'' Wilsona School District Superintendent Mary Gerard said. ``The fact that we're chosen means that the state reviewers felt that our plan was strong enough to be worthy of this three years' worth of money.''

Schools that scored below average on their Stanford 9 test scores over the last two years were the only schools eligible to apply for the grants. Out of the 1,400 schools that applied, only 77 were awarded grants.

The district will employ the Ventures Educational Systems Corp. to train teachers in new techniques to get across to their pupils. The company will spend 8-1/2 days at each school conducting staff workshops. Gerard said that parents are also welcome to attend the workshops.

Company employees will spend an additional 15 days in classrooms at each school evaluating teachers and helping them with different styles of teaching.

``It's going to give us an opportunity for our school to receive specific instruction in areas that will develop a better reading and math program,'' said Vista San Gabriel Principal Tom Jay. ``Our teachers at Vista are very, very good teachers and they've been working very hard. They feel somewhat frustrated because no matter how hard they teach, it's frustrating when the scores don't indicate how hard they teach.''

Gerard said a new technique might include kids getting into small groups and working out a word problem. For example, one student might explain a word problem to another student, then the other student would have to repeat how the first student explained it.

``We think it will be just marvelous. We're excited about it,'' Gerard said. ``We're thinking that it will make students take more responsibility for their learning.''