Teacher of the Year

Testing is over and we are now looking to next year. Like every year, we are losing teachers. Some are going because circumstances have changed in their lives; marriage, divorce, and family needs. Some may be leaving because they find this work very stressful. I understand the need for some to leave and I would never encourage anyone to stay who felt it was time to go on. Now the problem is how do we get accomplished teachers to come to our school?

Recruiting in hard to staff schools is a major issue across our country. I am a part of the Teacher Leader Network and this is an ongoing topic of our online conversation. In some school systems, like Miami -Dade, National Board Certified teachers are volunteering to go the most needy schools. In this school system teachers are offered incentives that are tied to extra duties and a specified number of professional development hours. In my own state, Mobile County transformed five schools last year completely changing out the faculty and staff. Teachers and administrators were offered monetary incentives to go to these five schools. The incentives are given in part at the beginning and the rest at the end if goals are met. Incentives tied to performance is a concept many of us will have to grow accustomed to, I am not sure how I feel about this yet.

My current concern is recruiting to my school. It is difficult because of the school’s longtime reputation. So many times when I tell people where I work, they gasp and ask if I am afraid to work there. I have never been afraid at my school nor do I think any of the others teachers have felt any fear at Brighton. How do you change a reputation that is so unjustified?

When I first came to Brighton, my principal and I recruited a counselor we had worked with in our former school-Georgia James. Georgia is the most outstanding counselor I have ever worked with in my many years of teaching. Georgia’s area of expertise is Parenting Programs and coordinating testing. This year she has brought new life to our Parenting Program and according to the teachers testing never went so smoothly. When I called her to come to Brighton, I told her it would be just like our old school which I called “Camelot”. Well, Georgia and I will agree we do not quite have “Camelot” yet, but we are on our way. Georgia and I also agree these are the best children we have ever worked with in our careers.

Last week, in honor of the great effort demonstrated by our students during testing, our principal provided sack lunches for a picnic on campus. Georgia and I share an office and we were mesmerized as we watched our eighth grade students have their picnic outside our window. It was the most idyllic scene. We watched as the students ate their lunches while the teachers sat on a bench eating and talking. When the students finished, they gathered into small groups to talk and a few did some cartwheels on the grass. Georgia looked at me and said, “I love this place!” This was the exact same feeling I felt the first time I came to Brighton, “I love this place!”

I just do not know how to sell this idea to other teachers. Our working conditions are very good; no class has more than 20 students, resources are plentiful in terms of materials and people, and we have many hours of outstanding job embedded professional development. On the whole parents are very receptive to suggestions and work well with the faculty. It is stressful in the sense that we are under many State and Federal mandates. Lesson plans, weekly tests, benchmark testing, and seven month plans are strictly scrutinized. The greatest downside to the job that I have struggled with for most of the year is falling into the negative climate that that existed for a such long time. At this point, I truly can say I see the light at the end of the tunnel, but it is a slow change. We need a few experienced and dedicated teachers to replace those leaving to help us completely reform this school. We are so close.

I welcome your comments on teacher recruitment in hard to staff schools.

Posted by at 1:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

It that time of year-testing time! My fever blisters have returned, my principal has very dark circles under her eyes, our testing coordinator’s face is drawn with anxiety, the teachers’ faces show deep lines of worry, and the students have rarely smiled during the last two weeks. This is my first testing experience in a school where our test scores determine so much of our future.

During the past two weeks, I have watched the tension and the effort of the entire school as grades 3-8 go through a battery of tests. The students did a wonderful job and for the most part worked so hard. Our school had 100% participation in the younger grades and 99% in the older grades. It was a complete school effort to achieve this participation rate from offering daily student incentives to making phone calls to homes. One morning, one student was late and our school secretary called her house and told her parents they had three minutes to get her to school. Believe it or not, the student was at school in three minutes! This is the advantage of having a school secretary who lives in the community and knows everyone!

Prior to testing, our school initiated a program called, “Encourage a Kid”. Each teacher in our school along with school secretaries, aides, and custodians, adopted a student to seek out daily and give extra encouragement. Teachers recommended students for this program based on need. Many teachers took this assignment to heart and really made a special effort to make daily contacts with these students. One of the students I was assigned to would seek out me before the test if I did not get to see her first thing in the morning. This confirmed to me one of my beliefs about the importance of building relationships with students. We also had some outside support in encouraging our students. A local high school’s Key Club adopted two grades in our school and wrote personalized notes to each student. The younger students loved these letters. In a thank you letter one of our students wrote back,” Thank you for helping me not be so nervous.” Some days students were very anxious. One day two classes did not finish the test in the allotted time. The teachers were almost in tears over this and after school one of the students came up to me agonizing over not finishing. I tried to reassure her all we asked was for her to do her best.

I am not one of these people who whines about testing. I have accepted this is the age of accountability for our schools and as a classroom teacher, I welcome accountability. However, when I was going thought the test booklets to erase stray marks,(one of my “fun” jobs during the past two weeks) one student’s test booklet struck me as I turned the pages of the immaculately bubbled in test. This was the test of one of our special education students. I had been told how hard he had worked during the tests. I thought about him and the effort he gave to completing this task of these many tests. I do not know what his scores will be, I just know he gave 110%.

I hurt for our students who are giving their very best and yet by our testing standards may never have the reward of high scores. I wish policymakers could see this student’s face as he worked so diligently for the many days of testing. My concern is how we measure student achievement. Somehow we must find a way to reward all students for the growth they make each year and give every child a chance for success.

I welcome your comments on this subject.

Posted by at 10:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)

I had really planned to address the issue of teacher quality later on in telling my story. However, since this has come up on the comment page. I would like to share what I have learned this year.

What I have seen at Brighton is like any school, there are teachers at different levels of their career not only in terms of years of service, but in expertise. I really like Kappa Delta Pi’s book,Life Cycle of the Career Teacher because we are all at a different stages in this journey. It is my contention that in order for teachers to grow and improve through this process certain factors must be in place. There must be a professional climate to work in that is saturated with meaningful professional development and role models who are dedicated to the craft of teaching.

To establish a professional climate, as teachers we must first view ourselves as professional educators with a teaching practice. I taught almost 20 years before I really understood that I had a professional practice. This revelation came to me in the wee hours of the night while working on my National Board Portfolio. The questions continually referred to my practice and it finally dawned on me that, “I had a practice!” (in my mind only doctors and lawyers had a practice). I loved this concept and I used the phrase throughout my portfolio, “In my practice...” I used it so frequently that my colleague who did much of my proofreading would scratch it out every time. Maybe he did not know he also had a practice! Teachers must have this sense of professionalism.

In my school, I see a need for models of how this looks at various stages. I was blessed to have mentors along my way who demonstrated to me what it is to maintain a professional manner even in difficult circumstances, never start the day without being completely prepared, were actively involved in professional development, constantly strived to improve their teaching, and not embarrassed about being passionate about their work. I strongly believe it takes a critical number of accomplished teachers in a school to lead the others. I worry about a group of really strong, young teachers in our school and wonder if they will reach what The Life Cycle of the Career Teacher refers to as “The Emeritus Teacher” without sufficient models.

Professional growth also takes additional training. I am proud of the fact that this year our school has been deeply involved in hours of professional development that has actually changed many classrooms. Our improved assessments are the evidence that this works if the training is embraced by the classroom teacher. In my travels as National Teacher, I met a retired teacher from Warrior, Alabama. She told me when she was packing up her thirty-plus years of teaching, a note came around to sign up for a summer reading workshop. She registered for the workshop. Her colleagues questioned her for doing such by asking her, “Why are you doing to this, you are going home?” Her answer, “ Next year I plan to come back and volunteer to work with students in reading. Therefore, I want to learn the latest strategies and methods to help the students.” Now this is an accomplished teacher, trying to improve her teaching practice to the very last minute. This should be the standard for all teachers.

Yes, there teachers who never reach this level of proficiency and for a variety of reasons. I do not think any teacher enters the field with the intention of becoming ineffective. I agree that possibly somewhere along the way they became too overwhelmed by lack of support, too isolated or did not have the needed skills to become an effective teacher. Our schools must be places that have the type of climate where teachers can grow and improve by providing appropriate teaching tools, meaningful professional development, and models of teachers who are intense about their work. This year it has been quite an inspiration to me to watch a young teacher in our school voluntarily mentor a first year teacher. This young teacher has taken on a responsibility that many will not and she has given freely of her time and knowledge. I have wondered two things as I have watched her diligence. First, does this first year teacher truly appreciate the gift she has given ? My first year of teaching was in an isolated trailer and on the first day of school the lead teacher told me she did not work with first year teachers. Secondly, will someone be there to mentor her to the next levels to become a “teacher emeritus”? This is part of our role as teachers to give back to our profession and seek ways to support our colleagues in their growth so that there are no “bad apples”.

I continue to welcome your comments and discussion of the comments. Your comments are very thought provoking. I also hope that wherever you live you are enjoying a lovely spring. This is my favorite time of year in the deep South.

Posted by at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

I am often asked how the children of Brighton feel about their school and what they know about our school having the label of low performing. I spend most of my time in the K-4 building and I really do not think many of the young children have any knowledge of this label. The older children I am sure know of Brighton’s reputation. I was told that years ago when Brighton High School was closed quite unexpectedly, one student told someone from our district office he planned to drop-out because he knew he did not have the background to make it in the other school. The inequity of standards we have for our schools is of great concern to me and I believe this is the most blatant discrimination our children of poverty and color face.

Discrimination comes in other forms. I have found discrimination can be unintentional. For example, we took our fourth grade students to a County-Wide Science Field Trip. Several things happened that day that made me feel very defensive about our students. We were the first school to arrive and the facilitators were not quite ready and we were not given t-shirts to wear.Even though we were given our shirts at the end of the day, this made us the only school at the event without matching shirts for the day. Students asked me about why they did not have the same shirts as the others.Then when they dismissed us by schools, our school was the last to be called. A child sitting next to me asked me why we were last and I replied it was probably the bus order. There was nothing intentional about any of this, but when you already feel you have been slighted this adds to your defensiveness.

Other times this discrimination is more blatant. Our principal invited the cheerleaders from the high school most of our students will attend to come and cheer at an Academic Pep Rally. My first reaction when I saw the cheerleading squad was there were no cheerleaders of color. For a high school that is 37% African American with a growing Hispanic population, I was surprised. I thought what message is this sending our students. I was further upset when a teacher from this same school said to me, “I guess our school does pretty good considering we have students from your school with your low test scores.” Our school sends less than 50 students a year to two different high schools. I do not think our children are the problem in this school. However, our students have the label of “those Brighton kids”.

In the afternoon as we load the buses, I often look at the faces of “these Brighton kids” silhouetted in the bus windows. Their faces haunt and inspire me because I know that someday Brighton children will have to compete with the students from the highest performing schools in our area for the same colleges, scholarships, jobs, and opportunities. I also know our school is the best hope for our students to have an equal opportunity for success. Therefore, our school has to be of the very highest quality to give “these Brighton kids” the education they are so deserve.

I encourage your comments about your experiences and opinions. I appreciate the comment from my State Superintendent of Education, Joe Morton. Dr. Morton has been very supportive and encouraging of my choice to work at Brighton. He actually made a surprise visit to our school on opening day. Dr. Morton has a personal interest in our school as he began his career as a teacher at Brighton. I am very appreciative of having a State Superintendent that has a very hands-on leadership style with schools in Alabama and has such a great heart for Alabama’s children.

Posted by at 4:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)