Teacher of the Year

A New Day

As I continue to share my journey, I realize I have had very few positive things to say about my first year at Brighton. To be honest, I felt there was not much to smile about during the first semester. In fact right before Christmas, one of our teachers told me I had lost my smile and they needed it back. This truly broke my heart. To add to this pain, my principal told me that the teachers did not want me at Brighton. As harsh as this seemed at the time, I needed to understand that much of the attention I brought to the school was more hurtful to the faculty than helpful. I also had to acknowledge to myself that “my dream” for Brighton may not be the correct path for the school and I may not be the right person for this job.

Then during January, there was a break in this negative climate. This bright spot came about as a result of the state mandated reading test scores for our Kindergarten and First Grade Classes. Our Kindergarten students benchmarked at almost the 80 percentile and our First Grade students benchmarked at 87% with no students labeled needing intensive instruction. This was an incredible gain for our school and placed these two grade levels at the top of our district’s scores and ranked them fairly high at the state level. There were shouts of joy and tears of happiness in our school that day.

Even though I was thrilled at this news, I was not totally surprised because I had been watching changing instruction taking place in these classrooms. Many Early Childhood Educators may not agree with what has taken place in our school, but we were given a very systematic and structured reading program to pilot in grades K-2. When I asked the teachers why they thought their scores had so improved, they replied the new reading program and intervention groups. One day I observed an hour of reading instruction in one of our first grade classes. During this lesson, I watched the teacher take this scripted program and bring it to life with her personality and the culture of the children. I was mesmerized as I watched her engage every student in the classroom with her energetic lesson. I was amazed at the amount of knowledge about reading the children had acquired in such a short time. I was also envious because I knew I could never teach this lesson with her rhythm and beat. My favorite part of the lesson was when she said in a very loud, expressive voice, “It is time for blending!” The students immediately threw up their hands, waving them in the air, and shouted, “Hallelujah!” I got my smile back on that day along with a few tears of joy.

I do not believe it was just the reading program and intervention groups that brought about this improvement, but a collaborative effort to focus on a need. Often what I have seen and heard about schools labeled low performing, they have many programs thrown at them with little direction. I heard of one such school that had thirty initiatives going on at the same time. This year with the help of our new reading coach, our district reading coach, and the company who piloted the reading program, our teachers have been involved in many hours of job embedded professional development for this reading program and for the strategies and methods of the Alabama Reading Initiative. This training has enabled the teachers to create a balanced approach to reading in their classrooms. This model of professional development to study, observe, demonstrate, and practice followed with feedback has been outstanding. I have watched the teachers in our school embrace and use what they are learning. I believe we have finally given the teachers some real teaching tools, not just another kit! This has been very exciting for me to grow and learn with our teachers and celebrate their successes. I think it is the beginning of a new day for Brighton.

I encourage those of you who have experienced similar successes in your school to share what are the teaching tools that make a difference? What is the most effective professional development you have been involved with during your career? What is it that can really make a difference in our classroom instruction?

Posted by at 11:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

I can not tell you how much I have enjoyed reading the many comments to my last post. I so appreciate your words of encouragement and I am especially grateful to hear form those of you in similar situations. It has taken me longer to write this week as I mull over a verbal response I had to my last post. I was asked, if I acknowledged there is a need for accountability than how do you not label schools?

I remember the day my principal shared the just released test results with our faculty. The results were not what we had hoped to hear. I watched the faces of the other teachers during the discussion that followed. Their expressions ranged from frustrated, disheartened, to almost angry. My principal said very little except nothing would change if the teachers were not willing to change. I have heard teachers from other schools in an alike situation tell about how the news of low test scores actually united the faculty. I have not seen this in my school except at grade levels. This is probably due to the fact that our K-8 school is housed in two buildings that are not connected. These buildings are in walking distance, but not situated in a way that allows the teachers to have contact on a daily basis. This makes ongoing conversions very difficult.

I wonder about these conversations. My former school had a green sofa in the in the hall and this is where the teachers in this building hung out after school. We had some really great conversations and most of them genuinely pertained to our teaching. One of my sons called me one day to see why I was staying at school so late and I told him, “It was green sofa time”. I am looking for a “green sofa” for my new school because we need to have these continuing conversations.

Here are some questions of concern. Can we as a profession talk about our weaknesses without finger pointing? If your school is not making the needed progress, do we hold each other accountable or just ourselves? Are teachers really ready to accept accountability? If so, what does this accountability look like without labeling schools? I so often wish the format and the standards for accountability had come from educators instead of policymakers.

Please continue to send in your comments. It would be great to share your thoughts on professional conversations and our current standards of accountability.

Posted by at 1:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)

Labeling A School

Joe’s comment to my last post is a perfect intro as I continue the story of my metamorphosis. If any of you are of my generation and remember the cartoon Mighty Mouse, you will understand I came to my school with the Mighty Mouse attitude, “Here I come to save the day!” This created much resentment for my being there in spite of what I could bring to the school because I really did not have a clue about what it meant to work in a school labeled failure and the teachers knew it.

My first reality check came the day I had to attend a meeting of schools labeled Tier I. Previously this label had been High Priority School and before that Low Performing. When I was sitting in this room with the others from the area schools, I had several reactions. First, I was embarrassed to be there. I wanted to stand up and say, “This is my first year at this school, I did not do this!” Then I felt this great sense of frustration and I realized this how the teachers in my school have felt for so long. I do not know how they have survived. I felt ashamed of what I expected from the teachers because I do not know if I could have continued to work with this burden on me. Labeling a school as failing is devastating to one’s soul and creates such a depressed climate that I began to feel like I was drowning. I realized this is the culture the students and teachers at Brighton have worked in while trying to make significant gains in achievement. I began to understand this negative climate takes its toll on you physically as I started to have constant headaches, fever blisters, and sleepless nights. I have discovered these physical symptoms are shared by many of our faculty members. This anxiety and stress is increased by the overwhelming sense of urgency for the academic needs of the students. In my journal I wrote, “My sense of frustration and failure is killing me. It is overpowering.”

One gray morning as I was driving to work, I realized I was the only one on my side of the road everyone else was going in the opposite direction into town. I asked myself, “Am I going the wrong way?” Daily, I question myself, “Am I the right person to work at this school? Can I really help and have impact? Do I have what it takes? Can teachers who have been recognized for their work be accepted in hard to staff schools?” I do not know the answers to the questions, I just know that I want to be in this school. I want to help create a positive culture that will enable the students and teachers to overcome this label of failure. I also have learned the key to this change of climate lies within the teachers at my school, not me.

Please continue to send in your comments and questions.

Posted by at 12:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (32)

In a comment to a recent post, I was asked “What assumptions about how schools succeed made you believe that you could make a difference in a "failing" school? My answer is the same reply I a gave a very savvy third grade boy at my school who asked me, “Why are you at our school?” I told him I fell in love with your school when I first visited two years ago and I want to help your school be the very best it can be because you deserve the best. I believed my eighteen years of experience in an award winning Title I school along with two years of traveling across my state and our country visiting schools and meeting teachers had given me a wealth of knowledge I wanted to share. In addition, much to my surprise, I was able to bring to the school over $70,000 in programs and materials that I felt could improve instruction. Plus, my college, Samford University, had agreed to form a partnership with the school to aide and assist in a variety of ways. In essence, I thought I could bring help to this school.

The first week of school brought many surprises. In talking to the teachers, I was told they had tried to have a morning routine for starting the day, but it had never lasted. The teachers agreed they would like for a student to lead the pledge and they shared with me a Brighton Bear Code that had been written for the school. It was decided this would be done on the intercom every morning. Fourth grade students immediately began practicing since they would be the first to lead this morning exercise. I amazed how quickly our children learned all of words to the pledge and Bear Code. My former school had a very high tech television studio with an outstanding student led morning show. At Brighton, I hold the intercom button every morning while the students go though the program with hopes that someday we will have the technology to have a TV program. This morning ritual has become quite popular with the students and by the end of the year almost every child in the school will have the chance to lead this school exercise. The teachers also appear to really like this part of the day. After the first week, a teacher said to me, “This is like a real school.”

The other morning routine I had hoped to establish was improving our bus duty and starting school on time.This has not been so successful. In the past, students sat in the lunchroom after they ate breakfast. I was determined the students would read silently at this time. I brought in crates of books and assigned seats. One of the veteran teachers told me this would not work. She also told me starting school on time would not happen. After several weeks of fighting the noise of this crowded lunchroom, I went to this veteran teacher and I told her I was waving the white flag, she was right about reading in the lunchroom. With teacher input, a new schedule was made to have the students sit outside their rooms and the teacher on duty reads aloud to the children. I stay in the the lunchroom and handle breakfast duty. Currently, in the lunchroom we are working on our math facts and we watch Multiplication Rock every morning with multiplication fact cards covering the lunchroom walls. School is starting on time and I am learning many valuable lessons about teacher leadership.

I appreciate your comments and encourage your continued input and questions.

Posted by at 1:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)