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	Reading Test
	Mathematics Test

Sneads students score high on FCAT

By DEBORAH BUCKHALTER / Floridan Staff Writer
May 12, 2005

Logan Neel, left, teacher Melanie Chason and Lindsey Locke pose for a photograph in the Sneads Elementary School Library Friday.- Mark Skinner/Floridan

In some ways, Logan Neel and Lindsey Locke are two very different youngsters. Logan is nine years old, and in the third grade, while Lindsey is 10 and a year ahead in school. Logan is tall and dark, and she enjoys playing basketball. Lindsey is short and fair, and she likes softball. Logan plays piano and sings. Lindsey is a visual artist - she won the children's division in a recent local art show. Logan wants to be a pharmacist or a minister when she grows up. Lindsey wants to be a veterinarian or an artist. Logan's favorite books are the Little House On the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder, about the lives of a real-life family in early America. Lindsey's literary tastes run toward fantasy; her favorite book is Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, where things are seen through the looking-glass of high fiction. But the girls have a few major things in common, too. In third grade, both earned perfect scores on the reading section of the state's all-important FCAT exam. Logan has only recently heard the good news, along with the fact that she only missed one question on the math section. Lindsey has known since the end of last school year that she, too, was perfect on reading and only missed one question in math. Both go to Sneads Elementary School. Both had the same teacher - Melanie Chason - when they made their perfect and near-perfect scores. And both are described by their school leader as "a principal's dream." SES Principal Cheryl McDaniel said the girls are well-mannered, sweet-natured children as well as being academic superlatives. The educator who taught them in their respective years of glory had similar things to say. Chason said she wasn't surprised that they'd done so well - it's an expectation she has for all the children she teaches. McDaniel said Chason has a special way of bringing out the best in her students. "Some people have it as a job and some are called. She had a calling," McDaniel said. "She is a gifted teacher. When you have that, when you have students who want to excel, and when you have the parental support that we have here, your school and your kids as individuals are going to succeed." SES has consistently earned an 'A' since the state started grading its schools a few years ago. McDaniel said the credit for that achievement lies with teachers like Chason, students like Lindsey and Logan, and parents like Cindy and Jeffery Neel, and Angela and Chad Locke, and many others who take an active role in their children's education.