Passing a Math Program from Principal to Principal: Happy Numbers at Roosevelt-Wilson Elementary
Roosevelt-Wilson Elementary is a public K–4 school of about 400 students in Texas City, Texas, part of Texas City ISD.
"I have gifted and talented, bilingual, special education, and general education students, and they are all in different places. Putting everyone together doesn't always fit," says principal Barrett Cobb.
Teachers work with that range in small groups after Tier 1 instruction, the lesson the whole class gets, Cobb says.
"If you want a child to work independently while you're pulling small groups, you want them to be engaged and enjoy it," he says. Before Happy Numbers, the first hurdle was finding math practice students would want to do.
Adopting a program another principal recommended
"There is another campus in my district that scores really high, and you should listen to others and ask what they are doing," Cobb says. The principal of that campus introduced him to Happy Numbers, which he hadn't tried before.
Roosevelt-Wilson was already performing well, Cobb says, but he likes to try things out and listen to his staff. His teachers put the program in place with very little effort. They tell him students enjoy working in it, and he sees less pushback.
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Building small groups from report data
Roosevelt-Wilson started with fluency practice. "You get fluency, which students lack a lot these days," Cobb says. As teachers got to know Happy Numbers, the work moved to skills and to finding where each student could grow.
The Skills Report tells a teacher what an individual student needs, he says. A class-level report shows which students need similar things, and teachers use it to adjust their small groups. They also occasionally create separate assignments based on the TEKS, the Texas state standards they are covering.
"We don't use anything without going back to look at how students are doing," Cobb says.
An example of the skills report. Each skill has a color for each student (mastered, developing, or help needed), and an icon marks the skill they’re working on now.
Reviewing skills data with individual students
Teachers at Roosevelt-Wilson keep binders with all their student data, Happy Numbers included. When students feel the adults are looking at their data and talking with them about it, Cobb says, the work becomes even more important to them.
"Looking at skill usage, we might see a student who is 'all green' except for one red area," he says. "A data-driven campus will go in and say, 'Come talk to me, let's look at this.'"
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Sharing a year of reports with
the faculty
"At my end-of-year faculty meeting, I pulled up Happy Numbers reports to show how good it looked from the beginning of the year to the end and how little red there was across campus," Cobb says.
Roosevelt-Wilson is still learning all the parts of the program and getting better at them, he says. Teachers who are newer and haven't gotten the hang of the reports yet learn them by talking with colleagues, and as a leader he makes sure they have time for those conversations.
Cobb, now in his 37th year in education, has seen programs come and go. "I'm a very data-driven principal; all my decisions are based on performance," he says. "My data is actual data I've collected, not a marketing tool." Happy Numbers is part of the packets he puts together for his teachers to show its impact.
In 2025–26, Roosevelt-Wilson students who used Happy Numbers regularly gained 1.1 to 1.9 grade levels on average.
Recommending the program
to other campuses
Roosevelt-Wilson is continuing with Happy Numbers in 2026–27. "I've already emailed my superintendent to say I would like to get three other campuses involved," Cobb says. He would also like the new principals he'll be mentoring to make Happy Numbers part of their routine.
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