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JAMES THORNERDespite a high poverty rate, Anclote Elementary has a low failure rate on the third-grade FCAT reading test.
As Anclote Elementary School principal B.J. Smith scanned the FCAT reading scores that rolled off her fax machine two weeks ago, the 35-year education veteran let decorum slip.
She and assistant principal Sara Walker reached across Smith's desk and gave each other a palm-smacking high five.
"We whooped. We were in here screaming and hollering. We like to celebrate at this school," Smith said.
You'll forgive Smith her enthusiasm.
Despite having one of the school district's highest poverty rates, Anclote boasted one of the lowest failure rates on the state's third-grade reading test.
The test, part of a battery of standardized exams called FCAT, looms large because it largely determines which third graders will not be promoted to the fourth grade.
What that means is that the school's Ambers, Travises, Kaylas and Tylers outperformed - in some cases by huge margins - Pasco County schools with similar numbers of low-income children.
As if that weren't enough, Anclote fifth-graders learned last week they outscored the same age group among the school district's 34 elementaries in math.
Administrators agree Anclote's success is worth studying. Much of the credit goes to Smith's leadership, transmitted down the line to her 75 staffers.
A workaholic who usually burns her office lamp into the evening, Smith's passion, mother-hen-like, is infectious. For three years running, based on FCAT scores, the school has earned an "A" grade from the state.
"They are our clients. We want them to be happy," Smith said in a welcoming southern drawl. "If mommies and daddies are happy, kids are happy."
Happiness certainly seems rampant. The school's nautical theme - students are called the "sailors" - accounts for the cheerful stenciled anchors painted all over the place.
Flags flutter out front on a pole resembling like a ship's rigging. The school's website includes the jingle: "Anchors a-weigh, we've got another "A"'
As Smith tours some open classrooms at Anclote, a small girl lunges forward and hugs her principal's legs.
Across the way, a learning disabled kindergartener behind on his reading gets personal coaching from a teacher who holds up a flash card to practice the "Sh" sound.
About 25 fifth graders click keyboards in Anclote's computer lab. The machines come courtesy of Title One, federal grants directed to schools in which more than half the kids qualify for free and reduced price lunches.
"As a whole this faculty is just plain hard working," said teacher Jenny Shorter, pacing the computer banks to answer fifth graders questions about math, reading and writing.
Computerization works to Anclote's advantage in other ways.
The school has one of the most thorough and easy-to-use student tracking systems. Many other schools' records are paper-bound and stuffed in filing cabinets.
With a bleep of her laptop computer, Smith pulls profiles of any student's academic record, including FCAT scores in every grade down to the smallest digit.
If the kid grew up speaking a foreign language, failed a grade or gets special help, it's flagged in the computerized file.
"We'd be lost without it," Smith said as her bejeweled fingers dance on the keyboard. "Each teacher has it at her finger tips."
Also vital is the school's experienced and relatively stable staff, no small matter in a district of 53,000 students that hires about 100 new teachers a year.
Smith singles out school reading special Margaret Flanders. After Smith took over at Anclote in 1997 - her previous position was assistant principal at Sanders Elementary - she plucked Flanders from the classroom ranks.
Flanders has brought a uniformity of purpose to reading instruction, ensuring, through classroom training, that every teacher is on the same page, so to speak.
Anclote's got the feel of a neighborhood school. As school begins about 9:30 a.m., parents loop in and out of the parking lot on Madison Street, about a quarter-mile south of State Road 54.
Tidy rows of one-story stucco houses, the edge of the Colonial Hills subdivision, line Madison Street opposite the school.
Most of those homes were built for retirees, but younger families, most low- to middle-income, are gradually taking the seniors' place.
Almost half of Anclote's 625 students qualify for free lunch. A family of four has to make less than $23,530 for kids to get lunch for free.
Another 18 percent at Anclote qualify for reduced lunch, which federal guidelines specify goes to families of four making less than $33,485 a year.
Despite the high poverty numbers, Anclote benefits from having solid families, Smith said. That could account for part of the massive difference in reading test failure rates between Anclote and a group of similar lower-income schools in west Pasco.
Eleven percent of Anclote third graders failed the reading test, the third best performance among Pasco's 34 elementaries. Only Trinity and Sand Pine elementaries, statistically containing the county's wealthiest students, performed better.
Chasco, Marlowe and Mary Giella elementaries have poverty rates almost equal to Anclote's, but recorded three times Anclote's reading failure rate: 40 percent for Chasco, 38 percent for Giella and 36 percent for Marlowe.
School officials say Chasco is plagued by its high mobility rate: the percentage of kids, who, largely because of family instability, don't spend the whole year at one school.
Chasco serves Park Richey Apartments, 200 rental units that attract many lower income tenants.
"When you look at schools that do all the right things and still struggle, look at the mobility rates," Smith said. "Thank the Lord I don't deal with the apartment buildings."
But mobility rates can't account for all the scoring discrepancies.
If Smith has a pet peeve, it's parents who slack off on sending their kids to school. The list of absent and tardy students is daily reading for Smith, who calls herself a "control freak."
An oft repeated motto around the school grounds: "We expect you to be in school every day, on time, all day."
If attendance drops too badly, Smith and her staff take action. Lawyers occasionally get involved.
"We go for persecution and prosecution," she said. "I just can't imagine why a parent wouldn't want their children in school."
With that Smith darts down the Anclote corridors again. She's got a family to care for.