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(Salt Lake City-AP) -- A once-failing Uinta County elementary school has made a U-turn by teaching spelling and arithmetic to the beat of music.
The 300-student Russell Todd Elementary School serves the Ute Indian tribe and was listed three years ago as failing under the federal No Child Left Behind education program.
Now it's listed as achieving the tough standards of the federal law.
School officials say they did it by rethinking education -- and cross-training art and music instructors to teach the three Rs.
The school's success shows that even a school serving minority and at-risk students can achieve tough academic standards. Ute Indians make up 80 percent of the school's population. Hispanics and Polynesians make up six percent and white children 14 percent.
(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
