PERRY PRIMARY SCHOOL provides a safe, challenging, and child friendly learning environment for its school family. The first primary school in Houston County, the school welcomed children for the ?rst time in August 1999. Perry Primary serves as home to all Pre-K, Kindergarten, and First grade students who live in the city of Perry and unincorporated south Houston County. Approximately 677 children are enrolled.

Perry Primary has been named a Title 1 Distinguished School by the Georgia Department of Education in 2004 and 2005, most recently for making Adequate Yearly Progress for five consecutive years. When Principal Harold Sapp was asked for the formula to the school’s success, he replied, “Perry Primary is a literacy collaborative school. We strive to make sure that every student who leaves Perry Primary is performing on a first grade level or above in math, reading, and writing. We work to give our youngest children a good foundation that will serve them well as they continue their education.”

In May 2002, Perry Primary was selected by the Georgia Board of Education as an award recipient of a $1 million Reading Excellence Grant. The school went through a rigorous, competitive grant application process. Of the 207 schools that applied for the REA grant, 54 schools statewide were selected to receive funds to use for reading instruction, professional development, and family literacy. This grant has allowed the Perry Primary faculty and staff to receive on-going researched-based professional learning in literacy. This professional learning has prepared the school to be one of 54 literacy demonstration sites in the state to provide and demonstrate researched-based reading and writing strategies. Sapp commented, “We were very excited about receiving the reading grant which is still working for us today. The faculty and sta? worked many hours writing the grant proposal. The grant allows us a greater opportunity to work with community agencies, business partners, and families to further ensure that all children in our community receive the skills they need to learn to read.”

Another reason for Perry Primary’s success is that the school offers PACT Parent and Child Together (PACT) Time on a monthly basis to parents in all Pre-K and Kindergarten classes. Parents are invited into the classroom to work with their child and to learn teaching techniques that can be used in the home to reinforce teaching methods seen in the classroom.

Our belief statement reads: 1) All students are provided the opportunity to learn in a safe and physically comfortable environment. 2) All students are valued individuals with unique, social, emotional, physical, and intellectual needs. 3) Teachers, administrators, parents, and the community share the responsibility for making learning the chief priority of the school. 4) Students learn in different ways and learn best when they are actively engaged in the learning process.

Perry Primary takes pride in the accomplishments of its students, faculty, staff, and parents. “The school’s primary reason for success is because of the dedicated faculty, staff and parents who have a common goal of doing what is best for students and always looking for ways to achieve that goal,” said Principal Sapp. “We keep three questions in the forefront of our thoughts as a professional learning community: What do we want our children to know and be able to do? How will we know if they can? And what will we do if they don’t?”

He continued, “Our school community knows that we must concentrate and have a commitment to continuous improvement. We understand that to answer these questions we must evaluate our program, determine what we can do to improve student achievement, and identify what we need to make those improvements in achievement. The Perry Primary School Community knows that we must not leave any Child Behind!”