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In January, 2001, William Winchester Elementary was given the opportunity from Central Office to apply for a school reform grant through the Maryland State Department of Education. In order to receive the grant, we had to partner ourselves with a school reform model. After examining several models, we chose the Coalition of Essential Schools because it emphasized professional development using the curriculum we already had in place. The CES Ten Common Principles correlated with the Carroll County Public Schools benchmarks and our school philosophy.

Our school was awarded the grant for three years. Since beginning our association with the CES, we kept a portfolio documenting various examples of our school community exhibiting the
Ten Common Principles and 5 Coalition Benchmarks. Our portfolio is available in the school lobby and was presented to the Affirmation Team on May 11, 2005. We hope that many people will have the opportunity to visit our portfolio and share in the excitement of our school reform.