Visit St. Stephen’s Community House in Columbus, Ohio, on a day Shawna Streeter’s preschoolers from Hamilton STEM Academy are visiting their friends in the senior citizen program, and you’d think you were visiting a family reunion.

The students greet their “senior friends” with hugs, smiles and “I love you.” Then the real fun begins as both generations participate in activities geared towards improving their physical health and keeping their brains sharp.

On one visit, the students prepared a healthy fruit tart with their senior friends. On another visit, they played shapes and colors bingo together. Practicing exercises together is another way they stay active.

“How can you not have a good day when the children come?” said JoAnn Thompson, a participant in St. Stephen’s senior program. “They are fantastic and we all enjoy when they visit.”

Streeter takes her students to St. Stephen’s as part of the “Bringing Learning to Life” project, lead by the Columbus Education Association and National Education Association.

In August of 2010, Learn & Serve America, a program of the federal Corporation for National and Community Service, awarded the NEA Foundation a $550,000 grant to partner with Ohio State University’s (OSU) College of Education and Human Ecology and the Columbus Education Association to implement “Bringing Learning to Life.” The grant originated through a proposal submitted by NEA’s External Partnerships and Advocacy Department, which is also directing and overseeing the project in collaboration with the NEA Foundation.

Through graduate level course work at OSU, the “Bringing Learning to Life” project trains K-12 teachers how to implement service-learning projects that help their students see the clear connection between their academic curriculum and real-world experience, while simultaneously strengthening students’ engagement with school and the communities in which they live.

Service-learning is defined by the National Service-Learning Clearinghouse as “a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities.” It’s an education movement, long advocated for by NEA, that has been shown in numerous studies to improve academic outcomes for students and to help them build critical thinking and teamwork skills.

Dr. Valerie Kinloch, professor of literacy studies at OSU’s College of Education and Human Ecology. Photo: Sewell Johnson

Dr. Valerie Kinloch, a professor of literacy studies at OSU’s College of Education and Human Ecology explains, “Service-learning is teachers, students, and community partners working to understand how academics can link to community service.”

Two cohorts of teachers from Columbus City Schools have now completed the service-learning course, led by Kinloch. Twenty-nine projects in the first cohort, ranging from community gardens to public theater performances, are now in the implementation process.

Streeter’s project is “Healthy Living in Linden.” She knew there was a need for the Linden community in Columbus to learn about healthy lifestyles, as their zip code had the highest obesity rates in Franklin County. Feeling the best way to tackle the problem was to impact multiple generations, Streeter partnered with the senior program at St. Stephen’s, a social service and health providing resource center for the high-poverty Linden community.

The planning for the visits is student centered. Streeter chose the umbrella topic of healthy living, but her students choose the activities to do with the seniors. The project has had an impact for both the preschoolers and the seniors.

“I think sometimes we don’t realize how much we impact each other. Even just visiting for an hour each month, it’s huge,” says Streeter.

Through Streeter's service-learning project, her preschoolers have built beneficial relationships with their "senior friends." Photo: Sewell Johnson

Through the project, the young students have been exposed to a world outside of their classroom. They see that learning can happen anywhere, not just at school. For the seniors, the visits from the preschoolers boost spirit and even confidence.

Not all of the participants in St. Stephen’s senior program can read. For one man, that meant not playing games with the other seniors. But when the young students came to play color and shape bingo, he not only participated but won for the first time.

Streeter says her students frequently talk about their senior friends in the classroom and think of ways to include them in their learning. “St. Stephen’s is not just a place down the street anymore,” said Streeter. “It’s where we go. It’s part of Pre-K now.”

The Role of Service-Learning in School Transformation

The majority of teachers in the first cohort of Kinloch’s service-learning course were from Linden-McKinley STEM Academy, one of NEA’s Priority Schools Campaign targeted sites.

Linden-McKinley has been through a lot of change the past several years. Located in the Linden community, the school was struggling to keep students enrolled as charter schools popped up.

In a radical effort to turn the tides, a new curriculum built around STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) was introduced for the 2009-2010 school year. The new curriculum emphasizes 21st century skills such as critical thinking and problem solving. In addition, middle and high school students were combined to form a STEM academy serving grades 7 through 12.

The transition was not an easy one, with the community feeling left out of the decision-making process. But through the support of the NEA’s Public Engagement Project, the Columbus Education Association convened a community conversation attended by more than 300 people — parents, business leaders, teachers, district administrators, and local faith-based and political leaders. The presentation on the new STEM curriculum and its potential to close achievement gaps was a success.

With everyone on board, the process of transforming Linden-McKinley began. One of the key elements of the transformation: the integration of service-learning into the school environment.

Linden-McKinley is a project-based learning school, meaning staff take standards of what students are supposed to know from the state and mesh those standards so they are interdisciplinary across math, science, English and social studies.

“Being a STEM school we focus on creating authentic learning opportunities for students so they can see the relevancy and connect it to life outside of school,” said Principal Tiffany Chavers. “The service-learning projects give students an opportunity to make those connections.”

Joe Crowley, 9th grade Social Studies teacher at Linden-McKinley STEM Academy. Photo: Sewell Johnson

Joe Crowley is a 9th grade Social Studies teacher at Linden-McKinley. He was part of the first cohort to go through Kinloch’s course, where the final project was a grant proposal in support of a service-learning classroom project. His project “Neighborhood Drug-Use’s Impact on Housing, Quality of Life” was funded and is now in full implementation.

Through the “Drug Project,” students study the effects of drugs and how drug-abuse impacts the community.  Crowley’s students made maps of where they lived, looked up crimes in those areas and what kinds of drugs are associated with those areas. They conducted polls in classes, made PowerPoint presentations, and even integrated technology into the project by filming their own PSAs using handheld cameras Crowley was able to purchase with the grant for his project.

“We have done things here at Linden that we didn’t think we could do,” said Crowley. “We’ve seen a change in work ethic, the students are proud of their project. They’re not just turning something in for a grade. They want to make sure that if it has their name on it, that it’s good work.”

Crowley’s students don’t only work on their “Drug Project” in his class. Their learning is carried over to other core subjects, where the concepts are explored through those disciplines.  The entire 9th grade team of about 180 students and math, science and English teachers is involved now.

The focus on student-centered and project-based learning is starting to pay off. Last year, the school raised their Performance Index by 4 points. Tenth-grade scores on the Ohio Graduation Tests rose by double-digits in reading, math, writing and social students, and went up 9 percent in science.

“We’re not just a stand alone entity in the middle of a neighborhood,” said Timothy Wangler, a 12th grade literature arts teacher whose service-learning project has students turning a book into a theater production to be performed for the community.  “We’re changing the overall perception of what school is.”

True Collaboration

The “Bringing Learning to Life” program isn’t just about the relationship between schools and their communities. It demonstrates the positive impact partnerships between local unions, schools, and community groups can have on both the education of students and neighborhood connections.

“We have these three major institutions [The Ohio State University, Columbus Education Association and Columbus City Schools] working together thinking about education,” explained Kinloch. “We’re not proposing mandates or regulations; we are saying we are concerned about students. We are concerned about teachers. We are concerned about local communities. We don’t need to work in isolation.”

Rhonda Johnson, President of the Columbus Education Association. Photo: Sewell Johnson

The Columbus Education Association (CEA) has had a partnership with OSU for 50 years. They partner on teacher preparation, both with current educators through graduate coursework and future educators through connecting OSU students with their field experiences in Columbus City Schools.

CEA has been instrumental in getting teachers to participate in the “Bringing Learning to Life” project and coordinating the grants for the individual service-learning projects.

“Were not just a partner whose name is listed on the page,” said Rhonda Johnson, President of the Columbus Education Association. “We’re a partner who is making sure the grant is supported and their work is supported.”

While the professional development for teachers is an important attribute of the project, for CEA, the bottom line is the students and how the service-learning projects can help them succeed in school.

“It’s helpful for students to see they’re not always just consumers, they have something to give back,” said Johnson. “The service-learning has helped them learn that.”

Community partners, such as St. Stephen’s Community House are also critical to the success of “Bringing Learning to Life.”

Tommy Ferguson works with young students from Hamilton STEM Academy.

St. Stephen’s was founded in the Linden community in 1919. Their programs range from providing food to families to after-school tutoring for students in the area. With a long-established connection to the community, St. Stephen’s is a natural partner for the service-learning project.

“We are the link between the community and the school system,” said Tommy Ferguson, the local project coordinator for “Bringing Learning to Life” and the tutoring coordinator at St. Stephen’s.

Ferguson partly credits the hands-on learning approach of the service-learning projects for some of the academic gains at participating schools.

“We are creating a culture of learning that isn’t the ‘typical teacher in front of the classroom,’ but seeing projects through start to finish,” explained Ferguson. “Any time you have an opportunity that generates interest and excitement in learning from students, you can’t stop them.”

It’s lunchtime on a Friday afternoon, and students are lining up outside the counselor’s office at Davidson Elementary School in this Inland Empire city 65 miles east of Los Angeles. The students’ excitement is palatable: Davidson’s school store is open for business, and students are ready to spend P.A.W.S. on their weekly shopping trip.

“I’m going to get the lizard!” exclaims one third grader standing in line.

“Okay. Make sure you have 20 P.A.W.S.,” replies school counselor Denise Salcido as she turns to another student in line.

Davidson, located in San Bernardino, California, has devised a way to combat student attendance and behavioral problems by opening a school store. Forget Euros, dollars or pounds, the only currency that’s accepted here are P.A.W.S.—standing for Positive Attitudes With Success and playing off the school’s mascot, a bulldog.

Fourth grader Angelina Quiroz shows off her mini skateboard she bought with P.A.W.S. points at Davidson Elementary School’s student store. Photo: Staci Maiers

From finger puppets and fish, to bracelets and novelty key chains, a sliding scale operating on a supply-and-demand model determines the going price for the store’s inventory.

“I got a fish! I’m going to name it Nemo,” squeals four-year-old pre-schooler Catalina Navarro when exchanging her 10 P.A.W.S. “I like the toys. I have to be good [to get P.A.W.S.].

San Bernardino’s middle and high schools already had adopted a Positive Behavior Support (PBS) system, but the framework had not been implemented at the elementary level in the district. A group of teachers and school staff, including Salcido who taught for 12 years before becoming a school counselor four years ago, got together to collaborate and brainstorm about how PBS could be applied to Davidson. The idea of a student store emerged on the top of everyone’s lists.

“We just did it because it made sense to us,” said Salcido. “We knew that the students were waiting for a store.”

Students can earn P.A.W.S. for mastering and demonstrating their social skills—things like coming to school on time, finishing homework, and managing bathroom breaks. The store is only open during lunch periods on Fridays, giving students a week to save up. Parents and grandparents agree motivation has played a key factor in the program’s success.

“The children get very excited,” said Frank Navarro, Catalina’s grandfather. “It’s an incentive. Catalina comes home and does her homework. It’s very motivating for her.”

School administrators agree the P.A.W.S. student store is working: attendance is up while behavioral incidents, like referrals and suspensions, have decreased significantly since it opened for business earlier this academic year, says principal Ernestine Hopwood.

“The student store gives our kids a sense of pride, a pat on the back, and something to show their parents that they are following school rules,” said Hopwood. “It has been very effective in reinforcing positive behaviors in the classroom, and on the playground.”

PBS—also known as Positive Behavioral Support or Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports—originally emerged in response to aversive consequences with people with developmental disabilities. Instead of punishing students for bad behavior, students are rewarded for good behavior.

“Our staff is delighted that students are able to save P.A.W.S. and spend P.A.W.S., without any additional out of pocket monies,” added Hopwood. “It gives our Spirit Day Friday an additional boost.”

According to research compiled by NEA’s Priority Schools Campaign, schools that adopt a systematic approach to managing, monitoring and cultivating positive behaviors often combine it with efforts to implement Response to Intervention (RTI). As a system, educators are able to identify students who are struggling (academic and behavior), diagnose the best course of support (targeted intervention and instruction) and measure their effectiveness with the student.

Karen Turley, a parent support worker, helps second grader Destinee Chagolla count her P.A.W.S. points. Photo: Staci Maiers

“In our community, we have very distinct needs—not just academic and financial but emotional and mental,” said Rebecca Harper, president of the San Bernardino Teachers Association. “A lot of times students can exhibit behavior that affects not just their own education but that of other students in the classroom. When counselors step in and work with students in an early age as possible, we can turn the student around so they’re on the right path.”

School stores, an example of school-wide PBS, help to address both sides of the education system—academic and behavior. Many educators and administrators agree that student behavior is one of the greatest challenges facing public school teachers today. Factors such as increased class size, student engagement, challenging home environments, and school culture all have significant impact on overall student behavior.

“Having been a former teacher, I noticed when behavior can impede the learning. When some of those behaviors in the classroom are under control, the learning is much easier to do,” said Salcido. “I saw that student behavior was not allowing them to learn—from whether there’s abuse at home, they’re homeless, they’re into gangs, they’re into drugs, or they’ve lost parents. They’re supposed to come in to learn physics, algebra and geometry. That’s hard. I’m all about human behavior.”

Students at Davidson Elementary School trade and count out their P.A.W.S. points every Friday when the student store opens up for business. Photo: Staci Maiers

At Davidson, students, school staff and parents say P.A.W.S. don’t just teach lessons about behavior; they’re teaching students about actions and consequences, supply and demand, responsibilities and respect. The experience is also sharpening up math skills for these elementary students.

“On our grand opening day, it pretty much wiped us out,” said Salcido, who used her bargain shopping skills to pinch pennies and stretch the $200 seed money. “When I was hearing feedback from other peers and that teachers are using it for positive and negative consequences, I said, ‘Wow. We have something here.’”

Since receiving a School Improvement Grant (SIG) last year, Davidson has made strides in closing its achievement gaps. By accepting the federal grant—approximately $1.485 million that expires in 2013—Davidson agreed to install a new principal, hire new teachers, extend the school day by 15 extra minutes, and provide more after-school activities. So far, the changes have yielded positive results.

“Davidson Elementary School is starting to make the change for the better because of the SIG,” added Harper. “Being an NEA Priority School is helping them adjust and make the improvements they need.”

The schools reside together on the Tulalip Indian Reservation in the Marysville School District in Washington, and are one of NEA’s Priority Schools Campaign Intensive Support Sites.

This video demonstrates how the staff identified core curriculum concerns, embedded culturally responsive practices and became systematic about allocating resources.

From that point, the staff has worked to improve their effectiveness through structured grade level data teams, collection and use of data to inform their instruction, and applying job-embedded professional development in their classrooms.

The video was featured on the Learning Forward YouTube page.

History has looked favorably upon Michigan, from the booming fur trade of the 18th century to the prosperous copper mining industry of the 19th century. More notably, Henry Ford’s Model T marked Michigan’s legacy as a thriving auto industry, providing millions of jobs for much of the 20th century and for building America’s middle class through affordable transportation, employment, and job security via unions.

Small towns flourished under Michigan’s prosperous economy – small towns such as Saginaw, which originally thrived as a lumber town. Generations later, the auto industry became the dominant source of employment with manual transmission assemblies, steering gear boxes, and power steering pumps.

Michigan is now known as ground zero for the struggling auto industry. Since 2000, the state has lost approximately 18 percent of the total workforce, and in August 2009, the unemployment rate hit a distressing double-digit number of 14.1 percent.

For Saginaw, this meant a steep decline in manufacturing, which spurred a significant amount of the population to abandon the city. In a ten year span (2000 to 2010), Saginaw’s population went from 61,799 to 51,508 – a 16.7 percent decline.

The high unemployment rate turned Saginaw into one of the most impoverished cities in America. In fact, Saginaw is ranked as having one of the highest crime rates in America and is on the list of top 100 most dangerous cities in the United States.

The country and the state’s economic collapse also impacted the Saginaw School District. The exodus of families seeking jobs in other states instigated a decline in student enrollment and over a ten year span the district has lost an annual average of 400 students.

The rebirth of Michigan will take much more than a recovered auto industry. Its renaissance starts with reinvesting in public education. And, it starts in Saginaw.

SIG in Saginaw

Twenty-eight schools in Michigan received federal grant money from the Recovery Act of 2009. Saginaw received $10.3 million in School Improvement Grant (SIG) money, with $3.4 million going to Willie E. Thompson Middle School and $4.4 million to Arthur Hill High School. Both schools were placed on the U.S. Department of Education’s list of persistently low-achieving schools for not meeting Adequate Yearly Progress under No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

Prior to receiving SIG funds, educators, school administrators, and the local union were already collaborating, setting common goals and restructuring classroom instruction.

“No decision was made without union involvement – we all had to figure it out,” said Leann Bauer, president of the 523-member Saginaw Education Association.

A bonding agent used to help the school community “figure it out” was the National Education Association’s Keys to Excellence for Your School (KEYS) program, which allowed educators and school administrators to focus their attention on making critical improvements that can help boost student achievement.

KEYS is a comprehensive, research-based, data-driven program for continuous school improvement. Developed by the National Education Association (NEA), it is the product of a 15-year collaborative effort involving educators, school district administrators, parents, and business and community leaders.

Normally, this service is a big-ticket expense for schools and school districts. However, it came at no cost to Saginaw because of NEA’s commitment to help struggling schools.

The Saginaw school community also benefited from a three-day forum sponsored by NEA’s Priority Schools Campaign, which provided leadership from the Saginaw Education Association with a platform to work with their school administrators and share winning strategies with more than 300 teachers, education support professionals, union leaders, and district administrators and parents. This group represented 36 Priority Schools from 17 states.

“The recession hit us hard and our schools suffered. But we’re committed to weathering this out and we’re committed to providing quality education for every student,” said Bauer. “The resources we’ve received so far have allowed us to strengthen our practice and lead us in a direction that is more student centered.”

In a study released in June 2011, the National Bureau of Education noted the direct correlation between job losses and decreasing student test scores – especially the high-stake test scores that have become synonymous with NCLB.

Children Left Behind: The Effects of Statewide Job Loss on Student Achievement cites the economic forces – wild fluctuations in the stock market, austerity measures, and globalization – that can cripple communities and hamper student achievement. These are factors that are obviously beyond the control of teachers and school administrators.

“The economic situation in Saginaw created a snowball effect. A student’s most urgent needs are not reading or writing at grade level. It’s ‘where am I going to live?’ said Julie Kolobaric who was teaching 7th grade science and English at Thompson prior to becoming the school’s coordinator of accelerated and extended learning – a SIG funded position.

She continued: “Our students often deal with bigger issues, and those issues are bigger than MEAP tests,” referring to the Michigan Educational Assessment Program, the state’s standardized test.

As the accelerated and extended learning coordinator, Kolobaric supports teachers in creating a more rigorous, relevant, and inquiry based model of teaching and learning for all students. She creates programs and opportunities for students to grow and develop at their pace. Moreover, she identifies and supports students to showcase their talents and extend or enrich their talents in the community and beyond.

“When I first heard we were a SIG recipient, I knew this would be a great opportunity for our students, parents, and teaching staff,” said Kolobaric. “We’ve already seen positive outcomes.”

The redirection in focus via SIG has allowed Thompson to make Adequate Yearly Progress for two consecutive years, and what was once a school labeled as “persistently low achieving” is now well on its way to becoming an International Baccalaureate (IB) World School.

Like most educators, Kolobaric takes on multiple assignments. In addition to her educator support role, she is also the International Baccalaureate coordinator, which is also funded with SIG dollars. Under this capacity, Kolobaric works with supporting teachers with IB training and unit writing. She provides in-house professional development on IB, and facilitates the growth of an internationally-minded culture at Thompson.

“[An IB curriculum] allows students to think instead of memorize facts,” said Kolobaric. “It’s about getting the kids that international exposure where they can see there’s something outside of Saginaw – even if they don’t have an opportunity to be outside, the curriculum itself presents a global perspective.”

When approved as an IB school, Thompson will be the second IB school in Saginaw.

Most of the schools across the country that have received SIG funds are middle schools. According to Kolobaric, middle school is a hard period in a student’s life.

And, Debra Crevia couldn’t agree more.

“Middle school is a critical time for students. It’s an age where we don’t want to lose them,” she said. “Students come into middle school with a lot of enthusiasm and we want to capitalize on that positive energy.”

As Thompson’s literacy lead teacher, another SIG-funded position, Crevia’s role is to incorporate literacy into all content areas. She meets with educators during prep hours to help strengthen their work or brainstorm ideas. She’s also instrumental in promoting literacy throughout the school.

The SIG grant has afforded Crevia the opportunity to be creative while maintaining high achievement and expectation. One of her most recent successes included a school-wide book reading.

Every student read Touching Spirit by Ben Mikaelsen for thirty minutes a day for four weeks. Crevia turned traditional P.A. announcements into live reading sessions. Halfway into the book, students were asking about the sequel and cafeteria workers were asking for copies of the book to read along and help continue the excitement.

“It was fun,” Crevia said, adding that reading is the basis to everything. “If you’re not literate, you’re not going to be able to function – it’s the foundation of being a true 21st century student.”

The goal for Thompson is to get students ready for high school, with an eye on college.

Last year, 50 college advisors visited and shared information with students, and many of these middle school students went on college tours.

“By providing strong study skills and work habits in middle school, we’re preparing students for the rigor that’s expected in high school and in college,” said Mit Foley, principal of Thompson. “We’re creating a college culture.”

It’s all connected

Like the rest of Saginaw, Arthur Hill High School experienced widening economic inequalities among its student population, as well as significant changes in student demographics. Graduation rates were low, and the high school failed to meet Adequate Yearly Progress for three years straight.

“We weren’t ready for these changes,” said Sharon Richardson, a professional development coordinator and former special education teacher who taught for 32 years. “When students come from low socioeconomic backgrounds you have to think differently, and you have to teach differently to get students interested and parents engaged – you’re not lowering expectations, you’re just doing your work differently.”

Richardson continued: “It’s really about collaboration and setting common goals together. And, the amount of professional development is almost crazy, but it’s all good stuff.”

Through the infusion of federal dollars, educators and school administrators developed new anchors and focused on a Rigor and Relevance Framework, which is a tool to examine curriculum, instruction, and assessment. It’s based on high standards and student achievement, and is a tiered system that takes you through A, B, C, and D. The goal is to move a teacher from A to D.

“The tiered system helps move a teacher who stands in front of the class expecting students to memorize information to one that creates a deeper understanding of the material,” said Richardson.

Also new to Arthur Hill is a support system for freshman students through what’s called a ninth-grade academy. There are two academies. One focuses on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) while the other academy centers on Innovation.

When school leaders assessed the challenges facing Arthur Hill, they discovered that 50 percent of summer school students were freshman and 92 percent of the students earned credit during summer school for credit recovery, which is a program that allows students with credit deficiencies to earn credits at an intensive pace.

The academies focus on transitioning middle school students into high school while applying the same type of rigor that the rest of the student population gets.

“Many of the resources provided by SIG, such as literacy and math coaches, as well as behavior specialists were directed toward ninth graders,” said Matthew Wenzell, dean of the ninth-grade academy. “We’ve created an environment where we can increase the number of students who become full-fledged sophomores.”

Supporting incoming students also helped lower behavioral incidences.

Interventions were put in place, such as Saturday School. This is a three-hour session where educators speak with students about life skills, the value of setting goals, and looking at people as role models. The program was designed to help students with behavioral issues, but it has since shifted to include all students, in large part because of the program’s value.

“Kids enjoy Saturday School,” said Wenzell, emphasizing that on one particular Saturday 80 percent of the students had volunteered to spend three hours of their weekend at school. “We’ve seen incredible results.”

The high school also works closely with Thompson, which is one of its feeder schools.  Staff coordinates high school visits designed to introduce middle school students to high school life.

Middle school students go into classrooms, visit the STEM and Innovation academies, and are introduced to the college coordinator, who builds upon the college-culture mindset.

“It’s a five hour day for these students. Kids leave us feeling overwhelmed,” said Wenzell. “But the first step into high school is serious business.”

The new mindset and culture at Thompson coupled with Arthur Hill’s support for ninth-grade students are creating patterns of academic behavior that lead to high achievement and college readiness.

This year’s senior class has received more than $770,000 in scholarships. Last year’s seniors received $1.5 million in scholarships, and school leaders are certain they will exceed that amount this year. Moreover, 100 percent of seniors have registered for college, with many of them already accepted into schools.

“We’ve seen kids who had difficulty adjusting socially and academically to the increased demands from high school curriculum completely turn their circumstances around,” said Wenzell, who proudly highlighted that one of his students went from having a troubled background to having to decide which of three colleges she should attend.

Saginaw’s economic realities are harsh, but those realities are not housed within Thompson or Arthur Hill. The days of teachers versus school administrators are gone, and everyone is working collaboratively to create a learning environment that will not just help students, but will pull Saginaw out of further decline through a strong and educated workforce.

“The money from the federal government has helped guide our work, but it’s the hard work and creative thinking from teachers that catalyzes change,” said Bauer.

Belmont High School in southeast Dayton is doing things a little differently. They’re taking it one step at a time. And halfway through a three-year school improvement plan, they’re seeing results.

First up was getting student discipline in order. The dramatic drop in violence at the school has been covered by the NEA Priority Schools Campaign and Dayton Daily News. Now the Belmont story continues with collaborative efforts to ramp up the school’s academic discipline.

“You can actually learn here now,” said Brooke Todd, a senior who vividly remembers the fight she witnessed her first day at Belmont as a freshman. “I probably wouldn’t be graduating if the school hadn’t changed.”

Quantitative achievements don’t fully demonstrate what’s happening at Belmont. It’s things like teachers requesting to transfer into the school after years of an ‘evacuation model.’ Students are not only working, they are working to improve. There are actually extracurricular activities now at Belmont.

And the numbers are here, too:

• Belmont has increased its Performance Index score by 3.5 percent from the 2009-2010 to 2010-2011 school years. The Performance Index is a weighted average that includes all tested subjects, grades and untested subjects. It is designed to reflect the achievement of every student enrolled in the school.

• Promotion rates have risen significantly. In 2008-2009, only 30 percent of ninth graders were promoted, while the next year, the figure went up to 63 percent. In 2010-2011, the number climbed even further—all the way up to 84 percent. A similar pattern emerged for tenth graders. In 2008-2009, 42 percent were promoted, in 2009-2010, 78 percent moved on to the next grade, and for the 2010-2011 school year, the figure stands at 80 percent.

• College-level test participation has risen dramatically. In 2008-2009, eight juniors took the ACT, and in 2009-2010, that number doubled to 17. In 2010-2011, 80 juniors took the test. 86 percent of Belmont students have been accepted to some form of post-secondary education.

“Everything’s on an upward trend,” said Michael Slightam, an American History teacher at Belmont. “Of course there’s always room for improvement. Anytime that you go through growth and change, you know you’re going to experience pain, which is fine. But we’re not afraid as a group or a team to discover what we did wrong and fix it rather than hide from it.”

Talk About Stressful

The start of the 2011-2012 school year brought 7th and 8th graders into the mix at Belmont. As if adding two grade levels with pretty much the same staff wasn’t stressful enough, they moved into a new building just after Thanksgiving.

“We got off to a pretty good start during the year, and then the move happened,” said Belmont Principal David White, whose bullhorn has been replaced by a microphone and speaker system. “The process literally took nine weeks, so second quarter was rough.”

The new Belmont High School building in Dayton, Ohio.

But the stress associated with the move seems to be short-lived. The new Belmont building is one of, if not the, nicest and most state-of-the-art in the district. With bright windows, a nice cafeteria, and air-conditioning, the new environment is a vast improvement over the old. The gym induces jealousy from the other high schools in the district.

The physical setting adds to the sense of Belmont pride that is growing as the transformation proceeds. Many at the school associate moving with a literal shedding of the “old Belmont.”

“Once we got out of the old and into the new, the focus of the teachers and students switched more towards academics,” said Ken Kraemer, assistant principal. We see less behavior problems, more positive influence on grades.”

Along with excitement for the new space is respect and opportunity. At the old Belmont, students could not be trusted with toilet paper in the bathrooms. Instead, they had to check it out from staff. That’s no longer an issue as students work hard to maintain the cleanliness of their school.

“The students are ecstatic about being in the new building,” said Bobo Harmon, a paraprofessional who can always be found with a group of students, making sure they are doing what they are supposed to be doing. “They like the space, the colors, the brightness. It’s a good feeling right now.”

But adding 7th and 8th graders and learning the ins and outs of a new building aren’t the only stresses at Belmont.

The school is in a district dealing with the requirements of the federal Race to the Top program. On top of that they have an additional set of requirements from the federal School Improvement Grant program. The district, Dayton Public Schools (DPS) is also beginning to transition curriculum, instruction and assessment processes to meet the new expectations of the Common Core Standards, which will be implemented in Ohio in 2015. All of this while the district faces an approximate $12 million deficit in the state budget.

“There’s a full-blown shift in the educational system in Ohio,” said White. “It’s been a huge challenge, and I just try to keep everybody up. I stay as transparent as I can and just say ‘this is what I know and I don’t know everything’ but as long as we’re working at this together, we should be okay.”

Dayton Education Association President David Romick.

David Romick, president of the Dayton Education Association, sees a lot of frustration and flux with the various federal, state and local requirements.

“There’s a lot of ‘what’s next?’ or ‘what else?’” said Romick. “Our teachers took 4,000 units of professional development last summer on their own time to gear up for transformation this school year… but the question hanging out there is how much of it, if any, is going to be required.”

Romick meets with DPS superintendent Lori L. Ward weekly to keep up to date on all the issues surrounding education reform. His relationship with Principal White remains close and collaborative as they work together to keep the staff at Belmont from becoming too overwhelmed.

The focus on reform is a shift from the traditional role of local association leader. “When I was new, I saw myself as a member advocate, working through issues with members,” said Romick. “Now it’s become much more of a reform management role.”

When Educators Get the Chance to Lead

While dealing with the stresses that come along with education reform, the morale remains high at Belmont. That’s what happens when educators are considered equal partners in the school’s transformation.

In the summer of 2010, Belmont Principal David White gathered all the teachers, handed out the district pacing guide and told them to write their own curriculum to align with the district requirements. Last summer, staff came in with their subject area teams and adjusted the curriculum.

As Marjorie Punter, a literature teacher at Belmont explains: “You had to take the curriculum you were working under, and project where you wanted it to go. At the end of the year we wrote a crosswalk on where we thought things should be changed. For some of mine I had to adjust timeframes; didn’t spend enough time on this, too much time on that. Then we reworked the curriculum based on the crosswalks.”

Ultimately the students benefit most from their teachers leading the education program. “Our curriculum is designed around the learning needs of the students that we have, you know, our kids,” said Slightam.

The collective input on the curriculum has enabled everyone to be on the same page; who is teaching what and when. With a strong curriculum in place, attention has shifted to classroom learning.

The learning is structured around three measurable units: bell work, the very beginning of a class period where previously taught material is reviewed; classwork, the teaching and student participation of new material; and homework, assignments that reinforce what was learned in class.

“We started out on bell work, classwork and homework. It was an attendance thing, like how many students are doing it?” said John Seebock, Dean of Students. “Now we’ve moved on to the next level with how well are they doing it? By finding out how well they are doing on bell work, classwork and homework, you can decide how well you’re teaching that subject matter.”

The teachers and students set weekly performance goals together. “It’s a nice way to start each week with your students,” said Katherine Schaaf, a 7th and 8th grade math teacher. To say ‘this is where we were last week. This is what we achieved. Now how do we bring everybody up in the class?’”

Teachers then measure how well their students performed on the bell work, classwork and homework assignments. The data is shared in weekly grade-level team meetings with administrators and decorate the classroom walls. In fact, you can’t turn a corner in the school without seeing progress charts in the halls. Even during lunch, the Ohio Graduation Test results are shining from a projector as students eat, constantly drilling in the importance of their academic success.

“The nice thing about what we do here at Belmont is that everybody is consistent with the type of data that they track,” said Schaaf. “We are truly using it to make decisions about what we’re doing.”

There is a lot of hope that the school’s focus on academics and use of data can get the 7th and 8th graders on the Belmont track a lot earlier.

The 7th and 8th graders have their own wing of the school, slightly isolated from the older students. This year there are fewer than 40 students; next year there will be more than 100. What happens at Belmont will determine if other high schools in the district adopt the same model.

“I like the idea of getting the 7th and 8th graders sooner because our 7th graders are so far behind,” said White, who has personally taken to monitoring their wing during class changes. “We’re trying to track down why, it didn’t happen here, but it terms of curriculum and instruction, we’ve realized now that it’s better to have them in the building so we can get them to where they need to be.”

For example, the 7th, 8th and 9th grade teachers are all on the same team that meets twice a week. They can discuss the problem areas they see in the transition to high school. In addition, teachers meet with their subject area peers where the higher-grade teachers can identify weaknesses they are seeing and the lower grade teachers can work on strengthening those skills and better preparing the students for the higher levels.

“We are setting up a curriculum that will fit the 7th and 8th graders so when they transition into the high school level, they will be able to succeed,” explained Kim Norsworthy, a 7th and 8th grade teacher at Belmont. “They will know what’s expected by their teachers, and the teachers will know what’s expected by the students.”

The Proof is in School Spirit

You know the Belmont plan is working when students are at school until 9 PM working on academic projects.

“We have kids that are getting involved in things that kids normally wouldn’t get involved in,” said Slightam.

For example, National History Day is a big deal in Dayton Public Schools. It’s a competition with events at the district, state and national levels that encourages students to submit imaginative exhibits, original performances, media documentaries, Web sites and papers related to a chosen theme. In the past, Belmont students would have one, maybe two entries for the competition. This year, after making it to the state competition last year, the school has seven entries.

There is still work to be done at Belmont, as the school has yet to meet Adequate Yearly Progress. But you can tell they’re getting there, as the students become more engaged and eager for new learning opportunities.

Government teacher Kate Sanicky was teaching her class about Washington, D.C. last semester. A group of students who had never been outside Dayton approached her about organizing a trip to D.C. since they were learning about it.

Sanicky agreed to chaperon and the students set to work fundraising for the trip. They spent eight hours a day gift-wrapping at the mall on weekends during holiday season. They tapped into teachers and Belmont alumni. They sold candles, candy, cookie dough and coupon books. “You name, they’ve done it all,” said Sanicky.

The students raised enough funds and spent spring break visiting and learning more about the nation’s capitol.

“It is a lot of time,” said Sanicky. “But when students start saying ‘Ms. Sanicky you do everything’ you realize that builds rapport with them, they understand you care about them. So they put in the extra time as far as their academics are concerned. They don’t want to let you down because they know you’re not going to let them down.”

A trophy case at Belmont.

The focus on academics and improvement in grades has also enabled more students to participate in athletics. Eligibility used to be a major issue for the coaches at Belmont. “I used to bite my nails and think ‘how many kids am I going to lose?’” said Slightam, who is also the baseball coach for Belmont. “Now I’m confident.”

Kipp Grubuagh is the intervention specialist at Belmont, and the wrestling coach. Last year, 16 students tried out for the wrestling team. This year there were over 30. “With the order in the building I’ve noticed the sports participation is up,” said Grubaugh. “There are more students coming out for teams, and we’re becoming more and more successful, too”

Not only did Belmont have its first pep rally in memory this year, the school’s football team had its most winning season in nine years. The girl’s volleyball and basketball teams also excelled this season, generating a greater sense of school spirit for the Belmont Bison. “It used to be that the Belmont crowd was four or five people,” said Punter. “But now people are coming to the games and the students are starting to support the teams.”

The changes at Belmont are having a positive impact on even the most at-risk students.

Austin Carr was a truant student. He dropped out, came back, dropped out again. With a young brother at home and mother in and out of the hospital, school did not seem like a top priority. “It just got to me,” said Carr. “A diploma is just a piece of paper and it just wasn’t as important as my family.”

Belmont Principal David White spends time with students at lunch to make sure they are on track.

He was forced to come back to school by the court, but the attention of Principal White and his teachers got Carr back on track and kept him coming to school. While taking on the role of a strict disciplinarian with the students, almost like a drill sergeant, Principal White does have a softer side. Walk through the halls or spend a lunch period with White, and it’s clear he knows nearly all of the student’s names and the effective ways to encourage them.

Last year, Carr’s interim report showed really strong improvements. Principal White took notice and the first day back from spring break, called Carr into his office. Carr was surprised to find out he wasn’t in trouble.

“Mr. White showed me my report and was like ‘dude, I’ve never seen a jump like this.’ I’ve been coming to school ever since. I’m getting good grades and it keeps me out of trouble.”

This story is part of a series about Belmont High School, located in Dayton, Ohio. Through the dedication of hardworking educators, a local association leader committed to the success of both members and students, and an energetic administration that works collaboratively with the staff, the school is in the middle of a dramatic transformation. The series examines work in an atmosphere partially dictated by numerous federal programs with different requirements, where educators have a strong say in leading their profession and student success is measured beyond test scores. Read Part 1 and Part 2, and view the videos on YouTube. Read and watch the videos in the entire story here.

You know the Belmont plan is working when students are at school until 9 PM working on academic projects.

“We have kids that are getting involved in things that kids normally wouldn’t get involved in,” said Michael Slightam, an American History teacher at Belmont.

For example, National History Day is a big deal in Dayton Public Schools. It’s a competition with events at the district, state and national levels that encourages students to submit imaginative exhibits, original performances, media documentaries, Web sites and papers related to a chosen theme. In the past, Belmont students would have one, maybe two entries for the competition. This year, after making it to the state competition last year, the school has seven entries.

There is still work to be done at Belmont, as the school has yet to meet Adequate Yearly Progress. But you can tell they’re getting there, as the students become more engaged and eager for new learning opportunities.

Government teacher Kate Sanicky was teaching her class about Washington, D.C. last semester. A group of students who had never been outside Dayton approached her about organizing a trip to D.C. since they were learning about it.

Sanicky agreed to chaperon and the students set to work fundraising for the trip. They spent eight hours a day gift-wrapping at the mall on weekends during holiday season. They tapped into teachers and Belmont alumni. They sold candles, candy, cookie dough and coupon books. “You name, they’ve done it all,” said Sanicky.

The students raised enough funds and spent spring break visiting and learning more about the nation’s capitol.

“It is a lot of time,” said Sanicky. “But when students start saying ‘Ms. Sanicky you do everything’ you realize that builds rapport with them, they understand you care about them. So they put in the extra time as far as their academics are concerned. They don’t want to let you down because they know you’re not going to let them down.”

A trophy case at Belmont.

The focus on academics and improvement in grades has also enabled more students to participate in athletics. Eligibility used to be a major issue for the coaches at Belmont. “I used to bite my nails and think ‘how many kids am I going to lose?’” said Slightam, who is also the baseball coach for Belmont. “Now I’m confident.”

Kipp Grubuagh is the intervention specialist at Belmont, and the wrestling coach. Last year, 16 students tried out for the wrestling team. This year there were over 30. “With the order in the building I’ve noticed the sports participation is up,” said Grubaugh. “There are more students coming out for teams, and we’re becoming more and more successful, too”

Not only did Belmont have its first pep rally in memory this year, the school’s football team had its most winning season in nine years. The girl’s volleyball and basketball teams also excelled this season, generating a greater sense of school spirit for the Belmont Bison. “It used to be that the Belmont crowd was four or five people,” said Punter. “But now people are coming to the games and the students are starting to support the teams.”

The changes at Belmont are having a positive impact on even the most at-risk students.

Austin Carr was a truant student. He dropped out, came back, dropped out again. With a young brother at home and mother in and out of the hospital, school did not seem like a top priority. “It just got to me,” said Carr. “A diploma is just a piece of paper and it just wasn’t as important as my family.”

Belmont Principal David White spends time with students at lunch to make sure they are on track.

He was forced to come back to school by the court, but the attention of Principal White and his teachers got Carr back on track and kept him coming to school. While taking on the role of a strict disciplinarian with the students, almost like a drill sergeant, Principal White does have a softer side. Walk through the halls or spend a lunch period with White, and it’s clear he knows nearly all of the student’s names and the effective ways to encourage them.

Last year, Carr’s interim report showed really strong improvements. Principal White took notice and the first day back from spring break, called Carr into his office.  Carr was surprised to find out he wasn’t in trouble.

“Mr. White showed me my report and was like ‘dude, I’ve never seen a jump like this.’ I’ve been coming to school ever since. I’m getting good grades and it keeps me out of trouble.”

This story is part of a series about Belmont High School, located in Dayton, Ohio. Through the dedication of hardworking educators, a local association leader committed to the success of both members and students, and an energetic administration that works collaboratively with the staff, the school is in the middle of a dramatic transformation. The series examines work in an atmosphere partially dictated by numerous federal programs with different requirements, where educators have a strong say in leading their profession and student success is measured beyond test scores. Read Part 1 and Part 3, and view the videos on YouTube. Read and watch the videos in the entire story here.

While dealing with the stresses that come along with education reform, the morale remains high at Belmont. That’s what happens when educators are considered equal partners in the school’s transformation.

In the summer of 2010, Belmont Principal David White gathered all the teachers, handed out the district pacing guide and told them to write their own curriculum to align with the district requirements. Last summer, staff came in with their subject area teams and adjusted the curriculum.

As Marjorie Punter, a literature teacher at Belmont explains: “You had to take the curriculum you were working under, and project where you wanted it to go. At the end of the year we wrote a crosswalk on where we thought things should be changed. For some of mine I had to adjust timeframes; didn’t spend enough time on this, too much time on that. Then we reworked the curriculum based on the crosswalks.”

Ultimately the students benefit most from their teachers leading the education program. “Our curriculum is designed around the learning needs of the students that we have, you know, our kids,” said Michael Slightam, an American History teacher at Belmont.

The collective input on the curriculum has enabled everyone to be on the same page; who is teaching what and when. With a strong curriculum in place, attention has shifted to classroom learning.

The learning is structured around three measurable units: bell work, the very beginning of  a class period where previously taught material is reviewed; classwork, the teaching and student participation of new material; and homework, assignments that reinforce what was learned in class.

“We started out on bell work, classwork and homework. It was an attendance thing, like how many students are doing it?” said John Seebock, Dean of Students. “Now we’ve moved on to the next level with how well are they doing it? By finding out how well they are doing on bell work, classwork and homework, you can decide how well you’re teaching that subject matter.”

The teachers and students set weekly performance goals together. “It’s a nice way to start each week with your students,” said Katherine Schaaf, a 7th and 8th grade math teacher. To say ‘this is where we were last week. This is what we achieved. Now how do we bring everybody up in the class?’”

Teachers then measure how well their students performed on the bell work, classwork and homework assignments. The data is shared in weekly grade-level team meetings with administrators and decorate the classroom walls.  In fact, you can’t turn a corner in the school without seeing progress charts in the halls. Even during lunch, the Ohio Graduation Test results are shining from a projector as students eat, constantly drilling in the importance of their academic success.

“The nice thing about what we do here at Belmont is that everybody is consistent with the type of data that they track,” said Schaaf. “We are truly using it to make decisions about what we’re doing.”

There is a lot of hope that the school’s focus on academics and use of data can get the 7th and 8th graders on the Belmont track a lot earlier.

The 7th and 8th graders have their own wing of the school, slightly isolated from the older students. This year there are fewer than 40 students; next year there will more than 100. What happens at Belmont will determine if other high schools in the district adopt the same model.

“I like the idea of getting the 7th and 8th graders sooner because our 7th graders are so far behind,” said White, who has personally taken to monitoring their wing during class changes. “We’re trying to track down why, it didn’t happen here, but it terms of curriculum and instruction, we’ve realized now that it’s better to have them in the building so we can get them to where they need to be.”

For example, the 7th, 8th and 9th grade teachers are all on the same team that meets twice a week. They can discuss the problem areas they see in the transition to high school. In addition, teachers meet with their subject area peers where the higher-grade teachers can identify weaknesses they are seeing and the lower grade teachers can work on strengthening those skills and better preparing the students for the higher levels.

“We are setting up a curriculum that will fit the 7th and 8th graders so when they transition into the high school level, they will be able to succeed,” explained Kim Norsworthy, a 7th and 8th grade teacher at Belmont. “They will know what’s expected by their teachers, and the teachers will know what’s expected by the students.”

Next in the series: The Proof is in School Spirit

The extraordinary transformation at Oak Hill Elementary continues to garner acclaim with the announcement that principal Patrice Faison was named the 2012 Wells Fargo North Carolina Principal of the Year.

Just four years ago, the High Point, North Carolina school had one of the lowest academic performance scores in the state. Fast forward to 2010-2011 with Oak Hill making the largest gain in Guilford County Schools, increasing its student performance score in reading, math and science by almost 20 points from between 25 and 39 percent proficiency to over 65 percent proficient.

With a nod to the collaborative spirit and practice NEA believes is a hallmark of real, replicable and sustainable school improvement, Faison said: “My leadership style has illustrated that if you assemble a good team and trust them, favorable results will follow.”

The colorful mural portrays the neighborhood’s history and diverse culture and also helps prevent graffiti, which had long been a problem in the neighborhood. The project not only beautified the neighborhood, it also engaged students in service learning, and showed the entire community the importance of arts education.

This story is part of a series about Belmont High School, located in Dayton, Ohio. Through the dedication of hardworking educators, a local association leader committed to the success of both members and students, and an energetic administration that works collaboratively with the staff, the school is in the middle of a dramatic transformation. The series examines work in an atmosphere partially dictated by numerous federal programs with different requirements, where educators have a strong say in leading their profession and student success is measured beyond test scores. Read Part 2 and Part 3, and view the videos on YouTube. Read and watch the videos in the entire story here.

Test scores get all the press when talking about how to measure the success of a school transformation.

Belmont High School in southeast Dayton is doing things a little differently. They’re taking it one step at a time. And halfway through a three-year school improvement plan, they’re seeing results.

First up was getting student discipline in order. The dramatic drop in violence at the school has been covered by the NEA Priority Schools Campaign and Dayton Daily News. Now the Belmont story continues with collaborative efforts to ramp up the school’s academic discipline.

“You can actually learn here now,” said Brooke Todd, a senior who vividly remembers the fight she witnessed her first day at Belmont as a freshman. “I probably wouldn’t be graduating if the school hadn’t changed.”

Quantitative achievements don’t fully demonstrate what’s happening at Belmont. It’s things like teachers requesting to transfer into the school after years of an ‘evacuation model.’ Students are not only working, they are working to improve. There are actually extracurricular activities now at Belmont.

And the numbers are here, too:

• Belmont has increased its Performance Index score by 3.5 percent from the 2009-2010 to 2010-2011 school years. The Performance Index is a weighted average that includes all tested subjects, grades and untested subjects. It is designed to reflect the achievement of every student enrolled in the school.

• Promotion rates have risen significantly. In 2008-2009, only 30 percent of ninth graders were promoted, while the next year, the figure went up to 63 percent. In 2010-2011, the number climbed even further—all the way up to 84 percent. A similar pattern emerged for tenth graders. In 2008-2009, 42 percent were promoted, in 2009-2010, 78 percent moved on to the next grade, and for the 2010-2011 school year, the figure stands at 80 percent.

• College-level test participation has risen dramatically. In 2008-2009, eight juniors took the ACT, and in 2009-2010, that number doubled to 17. In 2010-2011, 80 juniors took the test. 86 percent of Belmont students have been accepted to some form of post-secondary education.

“Everything’s on an upward trend,” said Michael Slightam, an American History teacher at Belmont. “Of course there’s always room for improvement. Anytime that you go through growth and change, you know you’re going to experience pain, which is fine. But we’re not afraid as a group or a team to discover what we did wrong and fix it rather than hide from it.”

Talk About Stressful

The start of the 2011-2012 school year brought 7th and 8th graders into the mix at Belmont. As if adding two grade levels with pretty much the same staff wasn’t stressful enough, they moved into a new building just after Thanksgiving.

“We got off to a pretty good start during the year, and then the move happened,” said Belmont Principal David White, whose bullhorn has been replaced by a microphone and speaker system. “The process literally took nine weeks, so second quarter was rough.”

But the stress associated with the move seems to be short-lived. The new Belmont building is one of, if not the, nicest and most state-of-the-art in the district. With bright windows, a nice cafeteria, and air-conditioning, the new environment is a vast improvement over the old. The gym induces jealousy from the other high schools in the district.

The physical setting adds to the sense of Belmont pride that is growing as the transformation proceeds. Many at the school associate moving with a literal shedding of the “old Belmont.”

“Once we got out of the old and into the new, the focus of the teachers and students switched more towards academics,” said Ken Kraemer, assistant principal. We see less behavior problems, more positive influence on grades.”

Along with excitement for the new space is respect and opportunity. At the old Belmont, students could not be trusted with toilet paper in the bathrooms. Instead, they had to check it out from staff. That’s no longer an issue as students work hard to maintain the cleanliness of their school.

“The students are ecstatic about being in the new building,” said Bobo Harmon, a paraprofessional who can always be found with a group of students, making sure they are doing what they are supposed to be doing. “They like the space, the colors, the brightness. It’s a good feeling right now.”

But adding 7th and 8th graders and learning the ins and outs of a new building aren’t the only stresses at Belmont.

The school is in a district dealing with the requirements of the federal Race to the Top program. On top of that they have an additional set of requirements from the federal School Improvement Grant program. The district, Dayton Public Schools (DPS) is also beginning to transition curriculum, instruction and assessment processes to meet the new expectations of the Common Core Standards, which will be implemented in Ohio in 2015. All of this while the district faces an approximate $12 million deficit in the state budget.

“There’s a full-blown shift in the educational system in Ohio,” said White. “It’s been a huge challenge, and I just try to keep everybody up. I stay as transparent as I can and just say ‘this is what I know and I don’t know everything’ but as long as we’re working at this together, we should be okay.”

Dayton Education Association President David Romick.

David Romick, president of the Dayton Education Association, sees a lot of frustration and flux with the various federal, state and local requirements.

“There’s a lot of ‘what’s next?’ or ‘what else?’” said Romick. “Our teachers took 4,000 units of professional development last summer on their own time to gear up for transformation this school year… but the question hanging out there is how much of it, if any, is going to be required.”

Romick meets with DPS superintendent Lori L. Ward weekly to keep up to date on all the issues surrounding education reform. His relationship with Principal White remains close and collaborative as they work together to keep the staff at Belmont from becoming too overwhelmed.

The focus on reform is a shift from the traditional role of local association leader. “When I was new, I saw myself as a member advocate, working through issues with members,” said Romick. “Now it’s become much more of a reform management role.”

Next in the series: When Educators Get the Chance to Lead

The Power of Family School Community Partnerships: A Training Resource Manual (276 pgs, 13.1MB, PDF) provides a wealth of activities, practical strategies, and research to help education stakeholders create a context for working together. The ideal audience for this training is a collection of school teams comprised of educators, family members, building leaders, and community members who believe they can make a difference in their schools. Having all the players represented creates a foundation for future collaborative action.

Drawing upon decades of research, the Manual provides simple, but provocative, strategies for uncovering what gets in the way of partnering and outlines clear paths for creating partnerships that support student and school success. The Power of Knowledge, Communication, Partnerships, Culture, Families and Communities in Academics, and Capitalizing on Resources are all roads which lead to effective collaboration, communication, and mutual respect—all essential elements for sustaining a web of support around priority schools and all schools. (Read about how one state used a selection of resources from the Manual in a unique training experience at IslandWood, a Bainbridge Island-based educational charity in Washington.)

The Training Resource Manual (in .pdf) contains brief presentations, training activities, strategies, and background readings on each of these topics. Presentation files (.ppt) are also provided which are aligned with each of the chapters. A sample agenda for a 2 hour training module with selected activities, strategies, and visuals is also included. For optimal viewing of PDF files, please use Firefox or Internet Explorer. To save the files on your local drive, right-mouse click on the link and select “Save Target As” or “Save Link As.”

• Download FSCP Manual 2012 (276 pgs, 13.1MB, PDF)

Download PowerPoint presentations (requires MS PowerPoint 2003 or later):

• Module 1 – The Power of Knowledge (21 pgs, 590KB, PPT)
• Module 2 – The Power of Communications (7 pgs, 516KB, PPT)
• Module 3 – The Power of Schools/Family/Community Partnerships (10 pgs, 381KB, PPT)
• Module 4 – The Power of Culture, Language and Economics (15 pgs, 430KB, PPT)
• Module 5 – The Power of Families and Communities in Academics (11 pgs, 369KB, PPT)
• Module 6 – The Power of Capitalizing on Resources (6 pgs, 340KB, PPT)

• Download Training Tips (20 pgs, 721KB, PDF)

Do you have limited time for a Family-School-Community Partnership training? Please choose from this selection of activities, strategies and visuals to support a 2-3 hour training experience to introduce participants to the possibilities of partnering.

• Download Training Formulas (40 pgs, 2.1MB, PDF)
• Training Formula A – Overview (7 pgs, 205KB, PPT)
• Training Formula B – Readiness for Partnerships / Building Awareness for Family Engagement (15 pgs, 242KB, PPT)
• Training Formula C – Literature and Research Review (10 pgs, 246KB, PPT)

Sanford wrote:

To be sure, there are plenty of things for teachers to be discouraged about in today’s schools. Budget cuts, increased class sizes, high-stakes testing — small wonder that teachers are more concerned about their jobs than they have been in decades. But there’s also cause for optimism — among the teachers with the highest job satisfaction are those who are encouraged to work closely with parents. And recent surveys suggest that parents have never been more engaged in their children’s educations than they are today.

We know that preparing children for school and for life is a shared responsibility. The results of the 2011 MetLife Survey of the American Teacher show what can happen when parents and teachers work together toward that common goal. According to the survey, parental engagement is rising substantially — for example, nearly half of all parents visit their children’s schools at least once a month, nearly triple the amount that did in 1988. Some 83 percent of students surveyed believe that their teachers and parents work together to help them succeed. We know from national data that levels of parent involvement in high-poverty schools is still unacceptably low — and that when parents aren’t involved, families, schools and communities suffer.

When parents get involved in schools, they tend to give teachers high marks on a range of important issues — collaboration, responsiveness, sharing information and providing guidance on things they can do to help their students succeed. For their part, teachers say they value the important role that parents play, and want to be supported by school leaders and their peers as they reach out to parents and work with them.

The NEA Foundation and others are harnessing the power of parents in low-income schools through a transformative way of promoting involvement: school-sponsored home visits by teachers. While parent-teacher conferences are almost universal, home visits by teachers are far less common. But they change the parent-teacher dynamic in important ways. Unlike conferences, which often focus on one-way communication about students’ performance and discipline issues, home visits are built around open dialogue. They focus on building and sustaining trust.

In cities like Springfield, Mass., and Seattle, Wash., these visits have become a core strategy for increasing student achievement in low-performing schools, work that we support through the NEA Foundation’s Closing the Achievement Gaps initiative. Both of these school districts, and others around the country, see the visits as a worthwhile investment of time and resources that improves the quality of both teaching and learning.

Read the rest of this op-ed on The Huffington Post.

The webinar broadcast on March 29^th entitled: Advancing Student Learning with Family-School-Community Partnerships is now available. Click on the video below. You can also download the PowerPoint separately by clicking on Advancing Student Learning Webinar Presentation (39 pgs, 1.4MB, PDF).

This webinar explores the 10 strategies for effective partnerships identified in the NEA report Family-Schools-Community Partnership 2.0: Collaborative Strategies to Advance Student Learning as well as examples of successful local programs.

For more information about the webinar or the Family-School-Community Partnerships 2.0 report, contact Roberta Hantgan or Dorrie Arrigo. We also invite you to submit your questions, comments, or suggestions for future webinars.

Jenna Marvin, a media specialist at Howenstine High Magnet School, doesn’t buy into the perception of some that the National Education Association (NEA) and its members resist change and reform.

On the contrary, at her school in Tucson, Arizona, educators aren’t just welcoming change and reform—they’re leading it.

“We’re fighting very hard to save schools,” Marvin says. “We’re embracing change, so we can meet the needs of kids today, not those of 20 or 30 years ago.”

Who are the kids of today? A lot of them look very much like the kids at Marvin’s school.

At Howenstine, students are low-income. They’re English language learners. They’re special education. They’re at high risk of dropping out. But Howenstine is a service-learning magnet school, and a designated site of NEA’s Priority Schools Campaign, which works with educators, schools, local associations, and districts to focus attention on raising student achievement in struggling schools.

With these designations, students are drawn to Howenstine by a desire to connect their classroom with their community, which research shows raises achievement and keeps kids in school. They’re also drawn to Howenstine because it’s a small school where struggling kids get individual attention from educators who put in the extra time and the hard work to help all students succeed.

While opponents of public education have been attacking teachers and unions, calling them greedy and concerned only with paychecks, benefits, and the status quo, a revolution is taking place at Howenstine and other schools across the country. Educators like Marvin are turning around low-performing schools by leading reform and bringing about significant change.

Such leadership for student success is part of NEA’s bold new action agenda to transform the teaching profession, announced last December by NEA President Dennis Van Roekel. The plan—Leading the Profession: NEA’s Three-Point Plan for Reform—had a clear message: Teachers must take the lead, and they must take responsibility for their profession.

“NEA aims to ensure that teachers’ expertise isn’t confined to the classroom,” Van Roekel said. “Teachers should have more opportunities to strengthen their skills and knowledge and inform policy decisions that affect the classroom.”

The three-point plan calls for raising the bar on teacher quality before new educators reach the classroom; making sure that teachers remain at the top of their game throughout their careers; and helping teachers lead reform by helping them become community and policy leaders. The Priority Schools Campaign is integral to putting educators at the forefront of reform efforts.

Giving Teachers a Voice

Educators have always been willing to accept changes to better meet students’ needs; they just didn’t want those changes foisted upon them without having a chance to offer their input. What’s different here is that educators now have a respected voice in the process, and the union is leading the reform effort rather than being pulled along behind it.

“Instead of everyone from the outside telling us what to do, they’re working with us,” says Marvin. “We know these kids, we know the school, and we know the community. Who better than teachers to lead the reforms?”

Union-led reform can’t be accomplished without collaboration, and NEA members at priority schools across the country are teaming with parents, principals, community organizations, and elected leaders to raise student achievement.

At Howenstine, they kick-started the process with a school-based assessment and improvement system called KEYS (Keys to Excellence for Your Schools). NEA collected data from parents, teachers, education support professionals, and administrators for a picture of where Howenstine stands on KEYS indicators at high-performing schools. That way, they can easily discover what’s not working, and, just as important, what is working for them—such as the service-learning model in a small school setting.

“We offer a community that allows students to shine, who might not do so in a larger school,” says Marvin, who moved to Tucson eight years ago to escape the harsh Chicago winters. She was attracted by the sun, the desert, and the giant Saguaro cactuses that dot the Sonora hills.

In fact, it was a project on the Saguaro cactus that led to one of Marvin’s proudest moments in her 20-year teaching career.

A park ranger came to talk to the school about Saguaro National Park’s “Saguaro Census,” which takes place every 10 years (on the same schedule as the U.S. census) to track the population and the health of the cactus.

A shy student named Megan was inspired by the presentation. To help with the census, she arranged a field trip for her class.

“What made me the most happy,” Marvin says, “was seeing Megan step up and take a leadership role. This wouldn’t have happened for Megan at a larger school. The small setting and her relationship with her teachers and peers allowed her to feel safe and be a star.”

Adding Value

Heather Bates, an English teacher and the Association representative at Howenstine, says a lot of the students wouldn’t do as well in a larger school. “They’re a little different, and they’re the kind of kids who’d be invisible in a large school,” she says. “But being different isn’t a bad thing here—it’s celebrated by the students.”

Heather Bates, English teacher at Howenstine High Magnet School.

She says because students accept one another as individuals, they don’t form cliques. They cross social and ethnic circles to collaborate on service-learning projects as well as on their studies.

“Students who wouldn’t normally become leaders can develop leadership qualities here,” Bates says. “And students who are intelligent but may have struggled are now valued for their unique approaches to learning.”

The same goes for their educators. At Howenstine, collaborative reform has allowed teachers to develop their leadership skills. Their intelligence and unique classroom expertise is valued, and they have opportunities to expand that expertise and leadership with NEA’s targeted professional development opportunities.

Nonmembers have begun to take notice of the resources NEA brings to the table.

“People see that there’s more to NEA than car insurance and those little perks we like, which aren’t necessarily a draw for younger members,” Bates says. “But when they see action, support, and professional development that’s tangible with a direct payoff, they see that membership truly is valuable.”

Educator-led reform and collaboration not only brings value, it also brings about transformation.

North High School in Des Moines, Iowa, is another target site of the campaign, where collaboration is dramatically turning around teaching and learning. North High went from dead-last place in state assessments to the number two position in just under a year.

North High math teacher Amanda Dvorak attributes it to collaboration.

North High School math teacher Amanda Dvorak. Photo: Amy Buffenbarger

“My favorite part about teaching at North is the people and how well we work together,” Dvorak says. “The staff work so hard to make sure that kids are getting what they need, and there is something to be said about having the opportunity to partner with your best friends.”

She says the Priority Schools Campaign created professional learning communities where educators share ideas.

“It’s awesome to not have to do all the legwork to find new strategies and opportunities, and then have to figure out if they’re worth the time and money,” she says. “The campaign’s forums—like the Changes, Challenges and Collaboration forum in New Orleans last November—let us talk with other schools going through the same struggles. I didn’t realize how different yet similar schools are, and how a lack of collaboration could stifle what we’re trying to accomplish.”

It’s one thing to collaborate with other educators. It’s entirely new for Dvorak and her colleagues to be collaborative with administrators. Their new spirit of cooperation is changing the perception of NEA as a union concerned chiefly with protecting teacher interests.

“The campaign fostered a good working relationship with our administration,” she says. “We’re able to sit at the table and discuss together what’s best for our students, incentives that are non-divisive and evaluation processes that help instead of inhibit. Our voice is now heard.”

Changing Perceptions

Although North Carolina might not be considered union-friendly—it’s a right-to-work state—the Priority Schools Campaign is still changing perceptions about public educators and what NEA has to offer to reform efforts.

Three years ago, Oak Hill Elementary School in High Point, North Carolina, had one of the lowest academic performance scores in the state. Two years ago, still floundering, it became one of the lowest-performing schools in the nation, with only 24 percent of students scoring proficient on state reading exams and 39 percent in math.

A new principal, both a Nationally Board Certified Teacher and a Guilford County Association of Educators (GCAE) member, was able to assemble a highly committed staff. Together, they made a strong start during the first year of the school’s federal School Improvement Grant.

As the school planned for year two, it became a target site of NEA’s Priority Schools Campaign, which worked with school administrators and staff to provide resources and training, such as C.A.R.E. training (Culture, Ability, Resilience and Effort), to help raise achievement among minority and low-income students.

Oak Hill is located in a high-poverty area where 98 percent of students receive a free breakfast and a free or reduced-price lunch. Many of Oak Hill’s students and parents are immigrants who speak a combined 17 languages and come from Latin American, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

Last year, Oak Hill increased student performance on its End of Grade tests from 45.8 percent to 65.2 percent, a jump of 19.4 percentage points and the largest increase in the district. With the NEA’s help, educators are working toward more successes this year.

Part of that success will likely come from educators who actively sought out NEA’s C.A.R.E. training. “They felt they needed some new strategies for engaging the culturally and linguistically diverse students in their school community,” says Denise Alston, an analyst and trainer with the Priority Schools Campaign who provided the training.

“The Priority Schools Campaign gives us clout—it delivers training and resources the school system doesn’t have access to,” says GCAE President Elizabeth Foster.  “This is a huge value for the membership dollar, and it’s an example of a sustainable concept that can be duplicated throughout districts.”

Foster says one reason education is attacked as a profession is that a contingent of Americans want to privatize public schools. They’ve tried to vilify pro-public school organizations like the NEA and convince the public that it collects dues for its own gain rather than for the good of the students. Union-led reform proves them wrong.

“The work of the campaign is a clear demonstration that we don’t just negotiate salaries and benefits or file grievances for our members,” she says. “We identify problems and find solutions to the persistent issues facing education today.”

Carrabec High School in North Anson, Maine, has its shares of persistent issues, the kind that plague a lot of rural, low-income schools. More than a quarter of the students live in poverty. Substance abuse, teen pregnancy, and dropout rates are high, while test scores have remained low. But then the high school was awarded a federal School Improvement Grant and became a target site of the Priority Schools Campaign.

Because of continued attention to raising student and community aspirations and to implementing a number of new programs allowing all students access to higher level math and English, the school has become a “shining star,” according to Jo Anderson, senior advisor to Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who visited the school in February.

Between last year and this year, students’ Preliminary SAT scores in reading and mathematics improved from 17 percent proficiency to about 37 percent proficiency. Two years ago, a total of 69 students failed 134 classes. By the end of last year, only 33 students failed 49 classes. Of those who failed, most made up the credit over the summer.

This year Carrabec offers four AP classes; next year there will be seven, and enrollment in AP classes has increased from just three students last year to 76 students this year. The school added 20 minutes of instructional time to the regular school day, expanded summer school, and created a study skills class for students who need support.

“Everyone is working very hard, and we’re changing the conversation about what the association can do,” says Rose Mahoney, of the Maine Education Association (MEA).  “Our members are excited, while nonmembers are intrigued by the resources the campaign brings. They see us come in and pay attention to what they’re doing every day on the ground level—we’re hearing their concerns, hearing their joys, and helping them in their jobs.”

Word has spread through the North Woods of Maine. At a recent MEA bargaining meeting, Mahoney said that an out-of-district teacher asked about the Priority Schools Campaign. A Carrabec educator had told him how it was making a difference there.

“He said they were seeing it in the kids, not only in their performance, but in their commitment,” Mahoney says.

Georgia Association of Educators Uniserv Director Felecia Lee. Photo: Amy Buffenbarger

Spreading the word about the Priority Schools Campaign is how NEA affiliates can strengthen their membership, says Georgia Association of Educators Uniserv Director Felecia Lee. In Georgia, the Priority Schools Campaign is concentrating efforts in Augusta’s three high schools—Laney High School, T.W. Josey High School, and Glenn Hills High School.

“Each One, Bring One” is an age-old membership recruitment adage of churches and other religious institutions, and Lee says the Priority Schools Campaign works the same way.  When a group of educator stakeholders from Augusta, including a parent, an administrator, and a school board member, went to the Priority Schools Campaign forum in New Orleans, they brought home the message of collaborative reform and became NEA evangelists.

“The forum and the work going on in our schools puts us out there in a very positive way, and more people want to be a part of that work,” Lee says. “The Priority Schools Campaign is bringing together a community of people with a common goal. It’s in everyone’s interest for our schools to be successful, and the Priority Schools Campaign leads the way.”

In conversations about Finland’s stunning success over the past decade, many education leaders look at what makes the system work so well – the high bar for entry into the teaching profession, the absence of standardized tests, the embedded professional development and support systems, to name just a few – and ask “Why can’t we do this in my country?” But what makes Finland even more unique is that education policy is largely free of politics. Whether it’s the status and prestige of teachers or the problem of educational inequity, these are matters on which politicians on the right and left agree.

But that’s Finland. Where does that leave so many other countries, including the United States, whose national conversation over education is tarnished by divisive, partisan politics and competing interests? How can public education advocates cut through the noise of grandstanding politicians and bad research and lead in transforming the teaching profession?

It’s time for the public to stop listening to those who have never been in front of a classroom and who espouse ideas that undermine public education, says NEA President Dennis Van Roekel.

“You have to remember that many people who are talking about reform are not really talking about education, as in what’s really works for teachers and their students. Their interest is something else – privatization, for example. We know what works and we need to be out front.”

“The status quo is not acceptable,” Van Roekel said. “And we can change it. But the idea now is for educators to stop asking for permission.”

Van Roekel made these remarks on a panel of international teacher leaders at the Celebration of Teaching and Learning in New York City on Friday. The topic was how unions around the world are taking the initiative in defining the teacher profession as it faces serious challenges inside and outside the classroom. Joining Van Roekel was Mike Thiruman, president of the Singapore Teachers’ Union, Eva-Lis Sirén, president of the Swedish Teachers’ Union and Angelo Gavrielatos, president of the Australian Education Union. Linda Darling-Hammond, professor of education at Stanford University, moderated the panel, which followed the completion of the second annual International Summit on the Teaching Profession.

Read the full story at neatoday.org.

It’s not every day that teenage boys are moved to tears, but it happens on a regular basis at Howenstine High Magnet School, a service-learning magnet high school in Tucson, Arizona.

At Howenstine, students in the Arizona Career and Technical Education program work on a Habitat for Humanity house as part of the school’s community and service learning outreach. For most of the year, the lot adjacent to the woodshop rings with the sound of hammers, power saws, and the lively shouts of students happily at work.

But when they’re finished with their part of the construction project and the Habitat House is about to be moved to its permanent site, the students meet the Tucson family who will call the house home. It’s a powerful moment with lots of warm handshakes and hugs, and many of the students well up with emotion — even the boys with the toughest swagger.

The tears are quickly wiped away in embarrassment, but math and drafting teacher Peter Coston says he sees something more in his students’ eyes.

“I can see the pride and confidence that they may rarely experience,” he says. “They enjoy the feelings of success and respect from the house recipients, as well as from teachers, administrators, fellow students, and their own family. I can tell how meaningful it is to them by the way they walk and talk as they put on the tool belts, hard hats and safety glasses on their way out to work on the ‘Habitat House’.”

Howenstine was selected to be a part of NEA’s Priority Schools Campaign because of dedicated staff like Coston, its collaborative approach to improving the school’s performance, and its service-learning focus. Service-learning is praised by NEA and the education community because research shows it boosts achievement, builds leadership and strengthens ties to the community.

Math and drafting teacher Peter Coston works with students at Howenstine High Magnet School in Tucson, Arizona. Photo: Travis Williams

Coston says the work of the Priority Schools Campaign and a School Improvement Grant have helped the school make AYP and increase test scores, but the support has also given teachers a say in the kind of policies that will help them achieve what they know is best for their school and their students – like targeted professional development.

“During my first year at Howenstine, teaching only math, I was trained in the service-learning teaching methodology and participated in a district-wide training program to integrate academic math standards into the construction curriculum,” he says. “All construction class students are required to complete lessons in construction math and, as of this year, drafting. I’m excited to be integrating algebra, geometry and 21st century computer skills into the students’ learning through the drafting class.”

Improved math skills lead to better skills on the construction side because the CTE program integrates comprehensive work skills standards with traditional academic standards. Coston is able to collaborate with the woodshop/construction teacher, as well with community partners to increase student knowledge of applied mathematics.

“Part of what we do in CTE is work with the local business community to help integrate real-world work skills into our practices,” he says. “We get a lot of input from builders on what skills they need from their employees. Problem-solving and strategic thinking skills are essential for both the math classroom and the jobsite.”

The builders also want high school diplomas from their employees, and the Habitat project keeps at-risk students from dropping out. Some kids come to Howenstine for the individualized attention and small class sizes, but Coston and his colleagues agree that most stay there because of the real-world experiences they get through service-learning projects like the Habitat House.

Working on the house, however, is a privilege they must earn through high marks in all of their classes and the students work hard to attain that privilege.

“They do the work in their traditional academic classes every day so they can go outside and do what gives them a sense of purpose and belonging,” says Coston.  “By putting students in an active, hands-on working environment, they feel more comfortable and more receptive to the required academics than they do in a traditional classroom. And like other extracurricular activities, such as sports, clubs, and trips, their participation requires them to maintain their grades in other classes.”

Matthew Dominguez, a junior, says the Habitat for Humanity project helps him in math, but also in reading and comprehension – there are lots of construction manuals he and his fellow students have to pore over before they begin working on the different sections of the house.

Dominguez has been in the construction class for three years, and he’s grateful for the opportunity to learn about building. He says when he has a home of his own, he’ll know how to make repairs, remodel rooms, or put on an addition. But what he values the most about the project is helping his community.

“The best part is that you help a family out,” Dominguez says. “It makes me feel better about myself and it shows that I care about my community when building the Habitat House for a family that can’t afford one.”

What do night walks, tree houses and suspension bridges have to do with family-school-community partnerships? They’re all part of the unconventional outdoor education methods focused on cultivating the relationships required to sustain school reform.

IslandWood, a Bainbridge Island-based educational charity known better as a “school in the woods,” played host to nearly 40 teachers, education support professionals, parents, principals and others for a three-day meeting designed to develop skills and provide strategies for school-based community liaisons and partners.

“Parent engagement, especially at the middle school level, has to be seen as something more than coming to a conference or being seen in the school,” said Gloria Henderson, an assistant principal at Totem Middle School in Marysville, Wash. “We have to look at it differently.”

And doing and thinking about parent and community engagement differently was an underlying theme of the Family Ties Conference, which was spearheaded by the Washington Education Association and supported in part by a grant from NEA’s Priority Schools Campaign. Rather than dumping information onto participants, organizers relied on metaphors of nature and nurture—allowing attendees to draw their own conclusions about the connection between a night walk through the woods and working in and with a high-needs school.

“The walk in the woods at night gave us a different perspective. For a lot of families with kids going into middle school, it is like walking in the dark,” said Suzzanne Schalo, the vice president of the Totem Parent Teacher Student Association whose son attends the middle school. “As a parent, going into a middle school, I wasn’t sure what to expect but the reassurance of having the parent liaison there was huge.”

Photo: Staci Maiers

Although there wasn’t any singing of Kumbaya around the campfire, participants agreed they felt a sense of community, which is much-needed in work where burnout and heightened scrutiny are constant factors, says Valerie Fisher.

“Administrators, certificated and classified [staff] got to cross communicate without our positions getting in the way,” said Fisher, a family support worker at Seattle’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School. “That helped break down walls, and let us know we’re all in this together.”

Delila Leber, a kindergarten Spanish teacher at Mount View Elementary School in the Highline Public School District, agreed, adding that situational awareness also can play a pivotal role in education reform work.

“It makes it more impactful when you use and integrate the environment you’re in,” said Leber. “This place is so peaceful, and it clears your mind. You’re so clear about what you want to do when you get back.”

For some participants, who were forced outside their comfort zones, they reflected on how adults within a school system can work together to increase student success. Crossing a suspension bridge in the woods became a metaphor for what it will take for school personnel to span the gap between student success and community resources. Highlighting the importance of community partners in sustaining school success, conference planners devoted a significant part of the experience to strategies for the realizing the potential of community resources.

Julius Defour (left), an achievement gap intervention specialist at John R. Rogers High School in Spokane, looks over a wild turkey feather with Lisa Lucas, a community engagement specialist at Hawthorne Elementary School in Seattle. Looking at the difference in birds’ feathers was just one of the unconventional teaching techniques used during WEA's Family Ties Conference. Photo: Staci Maiers

“I thought about ways that I actually might be a barrier,” said Lisa Lucas, a family and community engagement specialist at Hawthorne Elementary School in Seattle. “I’ve had opportunities to ask myself what ways I might be a barrier, which helps me be more mindful.”

As the clock ticks down for priority schools that have received a federal School Improvement Grant, the emerging question has been sustainability, with family-community partnerships surfacing as the key component needed to continue the reform work in priority schools. Unlocking the mystery of strong family and community partner engagement, many participants learned that the strongest strategy is to move from the schoolhouse to the community instead of always waiting for the community to come in.

Heather Harris, a sixth-grade teacher at Washington Middle School in Yakima, Wash., received an invitation from her principal to participate in the three-day gathering after making a record number of calls to her students’ parents to increase communication.

“It was nice that when calling parents I was using the phone for positive recognition of their children,” said Harris about the work that led her to the conference. “Having parents from other schools here has helped me gain perspective.”

Her colleague, Robert Sanders who teaches eighth grade at Washington, agreed.

“We were looking at it from a teacher’s viewpoint—from the school—and we got to see it from the outside, like a parent,” said Sanders.

Study after study has shown that arts education is a powerful and important component of adolescent learning. Dance, drama, music, and visual arts provide outlets for creativity, instill discipline, and help us to understand and analyze the world around us.

Research also shows that the academic gains students achieve with high arts participation are greatest for struggling, low-income students at the most risk of academic failure. A decade-long study of after-school programs for low-income youth found that arts programs attracted higher-risk students than sports and had far greater academic and developmental benefits.

What’s more, arts programs in the school also provide opportunities to engage parents in their students’ work in ways that traditional academics might not.

Tom Hall, an English and theater arts teacher at Howenstine High Magnet School in Tucson, Arizona — an intensive support site of NEA’s Priority Schools Campaign — knows the importance that theater arts can have in a high school setting. He’s also well cast as a high school drama teacher – he’s played a featured role in the western “Posse” and had parts in the TV series “Legend” and “The Magnificent 7″ for CBS. He’s also a member of the Screen Actors Guild for work he’s done in westerns on the silver screen.

The Priority Schools Campaign (PSC) caught up with Hall to talk about the importance of arts education and how his program helps brings families into the high school.

PSC:  First, can you talk about why a theater arts department so important at the high school level?

Hall: Well, it’s important not only at the high school level, but at every level. But in high school especially, it gives the kids an outlet for their energy. It allows them to be creative and dress up and be other people. We started the drama class last year, hoping we could put together maybe one show, and we ended up doing three shows. When we do public performances, the students have the opportunity to perform for friends and family, as well as each other.

It’s also important because it brings people into the school. Those of us involved in the Priority Schools Campaign know that research shows parent, family, and community involvement in education raises achievement and helps us improve our schools.

English and theater arts teacher Tom Hall.

PSC: How did theater become a passion of yours?

Hall: I’d left a teaching job in South Carolina to work in mining and geothermal engineering in Tucson. Bored and looking for a way to fill the off hours, I started performing in community theater throughout Tucson. In 1989, when the mining and engineering fields bottomed out, I returned to teaching as a reading tutor for special needs kids. I incorporated lots of characters and funny voices in reading with kids and soon found myself setting up drama programs at local middle schools.  In the meantime, I started my work in television and commercial westerns, especially when they needed big guys to play lumberjacks or desperadoes. Years later, I still take parts in local productions, my wife and I are regular members of our church’s reader’s theater, but now I am asked more to direct and adapt scripts for groups and schools, especially at Howenstine where I teach full time.

PSC: How did the theater program start at Howenstine?

Hall: During my second year at Howenstine (2010-2011) our principal, Maritza Nunez, gave the go ahead to start a theater arts class. We had 10 students, no budget, and a few old costumes stuffed outside in a storage shed. But we were an instant success nevertheless! We did three shows that year and packed the house every time. We supported ourselves from bake sales and ticket sales and managed to get by. With help from families, we were able to buy scripts, costumes and props, to pay royalties, and to take the kids to a professional stage play each year.

PSC: How are parents engaged in the theater program?

Hall: I have always enjoyed great support from our parents. They have been our biggest supporters and cheerleaders. I have not seen a show yet where all my kids’ parents have not been in the audience. I receive heartfelt, sometimes tearful “thank yous” from parents of kids who have never been willing or able to try being in the spotlight. When they see their kids up there having fun, and entertaining not only the audience, but each other, they get to see a side of their kids they’ve never seen before. The parents of two of my students told me that their child had never expressed any interest in going to college, but now both are looking at classes at Pima Community College for Drama.

PSC: How does the theater program get parents into the school who might not otherwise participate?

Hall: Most of our ticket sales go to parents and families, so that brings them in. But like I said, when we started we had nothing. We started from scratch and the parents came forward to donate props and costumes, and now we have a pretty fair assortment of period costumes. We’ve had costuming and props from Shakespearian plays to Dr. Seuss productions, and the parents really helped with those. So, there’s support all around, from financial to moral encouragement. There’s also logistical support. We’re not a neighborhood school and don’t have activity buses, and a lot of our kids have to travel quite a ways to get to school every day. If they have to come back in the evening for a show, it’s up to the parents to see that they get there and home, and the parents have always been very supportive of that.

PSC: Do the productions bring in families of students not performing in the plays?

Students make posters for Howenstine High Magnet School theater arts program.

Hall: Yes, because it gives a lot of other kids a chance to be a part of it. There’s the backstage work, there’s the production work, there’s the public relations work to sell the tickets, again, mostly to parents and other family members. We have artistic kids who don’t want to be in drama, but want to participate by creating advertising posters. We have kids who volunteer to be ushers or to come sell tickets at the door, and they encourage their parents to come and be a part of it, too. It’s a group and community effort.

PSC: What is unique to the theater arts department that allows parents to get involved in their children’s school work?

Hall: Well one unique way I’ve found that parents are involved is that they simply sit down with their child and help him or her go over lines. Parents tend to feel more comfortable doing that because it’s not a subject like trigonometry or physics, where they may feel a little threatened by the material. But they can easily sit and listen or read from a script with their child. There’s really no wrong way to rehearse a play, learn lines, or get into character. It really contributes to the whole process the kids are going through because the parents are helping them along with it.

PSC: Have other community members been inspired to contribute to the drama department?

Hall: Yes, definitely! We receive a lot of support from other schools and high schools in the district. We’ve had to borrow just about everything—lights, costumes, scripts. We’ve been working on a play set in Dickens Victorian England, and a lot of our costumes in that upcoming show are period costumes. We have a professional wardrobe person here in Tucson who always comes to our shows and really likes the kids, so she’s agreed to provide us with the costumes.

The students have also had opportunities to work with professional playwrights and authors around Tucson, and one of the things that we hope to do at Howenstine is premiere a play by a local author.  And of course community members always donate food and crafts for our bazaars and bake sales.

It’s like we’re a community playhouse in the neighborhood even for people who don’t have kids who go here. For them, it’s like a night out at the theater. We advertise the play on the school marquee out front and neighbors always show up. They say, “Oh, we saw your marquee out there and there’s a show tonight, so here we are!”

PSC: How have the students become leaders in the school and community through the theater arts program?

Hall: For a while, we had a lack of student leaders at Howenstine because there was nothing for them to lead. So we brought back the National Honor Society and have service learning projects, like the Habitat for Humanity house. We also have a student council, obviously the drama program, and things that we do in the community and with our neighbors here that have given the kids the opportunity to develop leadership skills. The students are engaging, interesting, fun, and bright, and now they have the opportunity to stand up and be noticed.

PSC: What do the students say about the theater classes and productions?

Hall: Here’s what kids have shared, with permission, when journaling about class:

“The reason class is important to me is because it’s entertaining. I love entertaining people and might want to be an actor for a career. If this school didn’t have theater arts, I don’t know what I would do…” – DB, a sophomore in his second year in the drama program.

” … it gives you a chance to act as someone else without being judged… to get past all that embarrassment .” – SM, a sophomore girl new to program.

” It’s a lot of work, but it’s mostly worth it. .. not sitting in a desk for an hour, bored, waiting for bell to ring. You don’t pay attention to the clock when you’re in this class.”   – DE, a sophomore who has performed in her first two productions this year.

“It challenges me out of my comfort zone and I really do like having the chance to play different roles for my school.”  – JA, a senior in his second year in the program, who has performed in five shows, and is currently Howenstine’s first ever student director.


PSC: So, what are the spring production plans?

Hall: We’re doing a dinner theater where audience members can have dinner and see a show right at Howenstine! We’re very excited, and the parents are, too!

NEA joins family and friends in mourning the tragic death of Gina Jacobs.  NEA came to know the beloved High Point, N.C. wife, mother and community hero as a result of her extraordinary volunteer work at Oak Hill Elementary School. Oak Hill is one of 30 intensive sites in the organization’s Priority Schools Campaign (PSC).

For students, Jacobs was a passionate and fierce advocate, leaving no stone unturned or opportunity missed, in her seemingly never-ending quest to make sure that things like bicycles and books—and ultimately success—were within their reach.

For Oak Hill staff and the Guilford County Association of Educators, Jacobs was that dependable partner, always going above and beyond in a shared vision of every student’s basic right to a quality education.

A May 2011 NEA profile bestowed the title “volunteer extraordinaire” on Jacobs and remains one of the most popular stories on the Priority Schools Campaign web site.

At the Priority Schools Campaign Forum in New Orleans late last year, the new grandmother proved to be quite popular. Indeed many had heard about the super volunteer who was not only making a way—but making a difference. They were eager to learn how to earn and leverage community support.

At the time she admitted to having mixed feelings with being away from her family mere days after the birth of her first grandchild. And yet with her characteristic selflessness, she shared agreement with her family that transforming struggling schools was too important which made the trip one not to be missed. From the forum’s start to end, she was as excited to share stories about Oak Hill, as she was about those of her new granddaughter.

“Strong family and community support can make a struggling school, a stellar school,” said Denise Alston, senior policy analyst for NEA’s Priority Schools Campaign. “Oak Hill’s transition from one of the lowest performing elementary schools in the state to star on the rise, is due in part to Gina’s efforts. She was more than a volunteer extraordinaire; she was a champion and a true gem. Our thoughts and prayers are with her family, friends and the entire Oak Hill and High Point community.”

In Las Vegas, Nevada, the Clark County Education Association joined the tour at Kit Carson Elementary School, where students were treated with a surprise visit by The Lorax. “Wherever students want to go, good reading skills can help make the journey easier,” said CCEA President Ruben Murillo. “‘NEA’s Read Across America Tour—Driven by Mazda’ has a simple but significant goal of making reading fun so students are on the right path to academic success.”

Prior to visiting Kit Carson, The Lorax and Mazda vehicles stopped by Roosevelt Elementary School in Stockton, Burbank Elementary School in Hayward and Davidson Elementary School in San Bernardino, all in California. Check out photos from the events in the slideshow below.

NEA’s “Read Across America Tour – Driven by Mazda” is currently traveling through the West and East Coasts, visiting schools and Mazda dealerships, and will culminate with a final stop in New York City on March 2 to celebrate “Read Across America Day,” Dr. Seuss’ birthday and the opening of Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment’s 3D feature Dr. Seuss’ “The Lorax.”

Photos in slideshow by Staci Maiers, Brenda Alvarez and Schaloyn Garrett