Major changes taking place at schools in 'restructuring' status
1/10/06–Brightwood Elementary School in Springfield, Mass., has a new principal, a sharpened focus on standards-based teaching and learning, new instructional “coaches,” more professional development, and more in-depth data analysis.
Springfield school officials hope these new initiatives will succeed in raising student achievement at Brightwood, which has consistently failed to meet its adequate yearly progress (AYP) goals under the No Child Left Behind Act and has been identified for restructuring.
“We hope we will have good results,” says Brightwood Principal Yolanda Gomez. “We are putting all of our efforts in having this school succeed.” If there is no improvement, it will be up to the Springfield superintendent to decide what happens next -- and whether the school staff will be replaced.
Under NCLB, if a school fails to make AYP for four years, it is identified for “corrective action.”
The school must continue to offer school choice and supplemental services and also must either replace the staff, adopt a new curriculum, have central office staff take on more responsibility for the school, appoint an outside expert, extend the school year or school day, or restructure the school’s organizational system.
If a school fails to make AYP after one full year of corrective action, the district must develop an “alternative governance plan.” The following year, the plan must be implemented.
Under the plan, the district must either reopen the school as a public charter school; replace all or most of the staff, including the principal; enter into a contract with a private management company to operate the school; turn over operation and management to the state; or carry out any other major restructuring of the school’s governance arrangement.
In Springfield, where several schools are in corrective action, Assistant Superintendent Ann M. Southworth says the district is working with the state education department on a restructured curriculum for the whole district to make sure there is consistency across all the grades, K-12.
The district has placed “professional development coaches” in every school to help teachers improve instruction in language arts and math, Southworth says, and experts in curriculum and instruction have been placed in schools in long-term internships -- six months to a year -- so they will be ready to become principals when needed.
Professional development
Springfield used state funds to hire three “school improvement officers” to help principals and the staff turn around under performing schools, Southworth says. They are part of the superintendent’s senior leadership team and will oversee professional development and other improvement strategies.
The district also is using a five-year Project LEAD (Leadership for Educational Achievement in Districts) grant from the Wallace Foundation to help school administrators become “instructional leaders.”
A Project LEAD instructional intern has been assigned to implement the district’s curricula and organize professional development activities at Brightwood.
Of the school’s 536 students, three-quarters are Hispanic, a third speak a first language other than English, and 93 percent are from low-income families. The only group that made AYP last year were English language learners in reading, Gomez says.
The school’s improvement strategy includes the creation of a Performance Improvement Mapping Team, consisting of the principal and seven teachers. Team members participated in several retreats over the past few months, where they learned how to analyze test score data to determine why students were not doing well and set benchmark and outcome goals.
Another strategy under way is a weekly “learning walk,” a guided walk through the school with school site administrators and district curriculum personnel to observe teachers in the classroom.
Teachers are evaluated regularly and receive frequent feedback about their instructional practices.
Teachers must submit lesson plans to the principal every week to ensure that they are following the curriculum. One activity that teachers found particularly helpful, Gomez says, was a visit to a high-performing school followed by extensive discussions.
The type of changes occurring in Brightwood are mirrored in hundreds of schools across the nation.
According to data from the Education Commission of the States, about 335 schools were undergoing restructuring (in year 5) under NCLB last spring.
Another 746 were planning restructuring (year 4), including 268 in California.
A study of struggling schools in Michigan published by the Center on Education Policy in November found that a large majority of schools that have gone through restructuring have succeeded in improving.
The report found that 85 percent of schools that had missed their AYP targets for five or more years improved their test scores enough in 2004-05 to make AYP.
But the report, Hope But No Miracle Cures: Michigan’s Early Restructuring Lessons, warns there are no quick fixes. It says there was no single factor that could be responsible for achievement gains.
Schools that used a combination of four or more reforms had significantly higher chances of meeting their AYP targets.
Reconstituted staff
In Hamilton County, Tenn., Orchard Knob Elementary School, in the second year of restructuring, is taking several steps to improve, including having a reconstituted staff, says Ray Swofford, associate superintendent for elementary education.
The district assigned a new principal and assistant principal to the school and added a “consulting teacher,” an instructional expert to advise teachers on the best strategies for language arts.
The school had several low-performing teachers, who were required to reapply for their jobs. Most retired or resigned to avoid being fired.
Under a districtwide incentive program, teachers who agree to work at Orchard Knob or another low-performing school could earn up to $7,000 a year on top of the regular salary, while a principal at a high-need school could earn an additional $13,000.
According to Swofford, students at Orchard Knob are doing well academically, but attendance is a problem.
The school failed to make AYP four years ago because of poor academic performance, but even though the school met its student achievement goals since then, it has stayed on the “needs improvement” list because the attendance rate, 91.5 percent, fell short of the required 93 percent.
The district used a federal school improvement grant to hire a truant officer to work with Orchard Knob and the district’s seven other high-need elementary schools.
Three additional teachers were hired to focus on the students with the greatest needs and to reduce the student-teacher ratio for those classes to 10 to 1.
A new assistant was hired to oversee in-school suspensions, and a new “dedicated substitute” teacher was hired to work in the classroom every day and serve as a tutor when not needed as a sub.
A full-time “family engagement specialist” also was brought into the school to set up a classes for parents, to interpret test scores for parents, and to supervise before and after-school tutoring. A “reading night” and “math night” were scheduled for parents so they could learn how to help their children at home.
“We have every plan in place to make sure the attendance rate will be on track,” Swofford says.
School staff are calling students’ homes when they are absent, and individual classes are competing for the best attendance rate. “We’re confident that we’re going to make the goal this year.”
Alternative governance
The Ontario-Montclair school district in California has three schools in restructuring.
De Anza Middle School missed its AYP target last year because one subgroup, English language learners (ELLs), missed the target by just one point, says Vicki Bartelt, the district’s coordinator of school accountability. Berlin Elementary School and Euclid Elementary also missed their AYP goals primarily because of ELLs.
When the district began drawing up a restructuring plan, “the superintendent’s cabinet didn’t feel it was appropriate to remove the schools’ staffs because they were improving, and the state didn’t want to take over the schools, so the district went with the ‘other restructuring’ option,” Bartelt says.
The district created an “alternative governance board” to oversee improvements at the three schools. This board includes a member of the Ontario-Montclair school board, several key administrators, and the president of the Ontario-Montclair Teachers Association. The board meets monthly and its still in the data-gathering phase, Bartelt says.
At De Anza Middle School, a Saturday academy was established for students who scored far below the basic level on state tests. The school now devotes two periods a day for language arts and math for at-risk students.
At the district level, Bartelt says, an administrator with experience as a principal was hired to serve as a “leadership coach” at the three schools and at two other schools in year 4 status.
Climate of hope
Bartelt acknowledges these reforms are putting more pressure on teachers, but notes: “Teachers are very resilient. They are making progress, and there is satisfaction in that. But there is frustration that even though there is progress, it is not enough.”
In Springfield, Southworth acknowledges it’s discouraging for teachers to be labeled in negative terms. But, she adds, “teachers in the underperforming schools have really been engaged in assessing what they’re doing and are pleased to see the progress being made.”
Principal Gomez prefers to characterize the climate at Brightwood Elementary as more about responsibility than pressure. “We know what we have to do. We know we can help students to improve. We have informed the teachers, students, and parents. This doesn’t happen in isolation.
It takes tremendous effort. We believe we are going to succeed.”
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