Vaughn Road Elementary School opened in east Montgomery, Alabama, in September 1974. The contemporary school's design was conducive to the open-education concept of the mid 70's, including folding interior walls between classrooms. The physical plant consists of a large main building and two portable classrooms. the outside area has a nature center, a concrete sports pad, and an outdoor playground.

Vaughn Road Elementary has experinced many changes over the past five years. The greatest factor to impact the school has been the redistricting of the school population enabling us to become a 'neighborhood' school. this rezoning has reduced the size of our student body from 511 students in 1997 to 430 students in 2001. Currently, Vaughn Road Elementary serves 318 students in kindergarten through grade six.

Other factors that are noteable include:

• The school enrollment consists of 73% non-white, 25% white, and 2% other ethnic groups.

• Volunteer tutors from the Retired Senior Volunteer Program, PTA, and other community organizations serve students in grades one through three with remediation in various areas. A community based project called Rolling Readers solicits local business leaders to read to the children on a monthly basis.

• The student body actively participates in many outrreach projects such as United Way, Relief Fund for the Children of Afghanistan, and Make-A-Difference Foundation.

• The school Media Center utilizes flexible scheduling for research and/or large group instruction in conjunction with a fixed schedule for print circulation. The school is in the process of building its Accelerated Reader Program. The library has Internet accessibility for research and Athena for book search and cataloguing procedures. Each student is provided with a Virtual Library Card.

• Special services for VRES students include: two Hearing Impaired trained teachers and two interpreters; one Speech Pathologist; two teachers in the Practical Academics and Life Skills Program; and two teachers of students with Learning Disabilities.

• In addition to the special education program, gifted education is served one day weekly through the QUEST program of MPS.

• Changes are continuously being made in the field of technology at Vaughn Road Elementary. The school was networked in the spring of 1999. Each classroom, the Media Center, and the computer Lab have access to the Internet. All grade levels excluding kindergarten use STI Classroom Module to generate report cards and progress reports. Kindergarten uses a program called DAISY. We have Accelerated Reader, STAR, and Accelerated Math for grades 3 through 5. All faculty, staff, students, and parents have email accounts.