The USI Network Goes to Boston
Here, in a photographic nutshell, is the fulfillment of the central purpose behind the USI Network’s 2009 Winter Trip to Boston: informed conversation amongst school leaders and teachers concerning what lessons can be learned and applied from their visits to successful Boston public schools that have faced similar challenges for a longer period of time. Discussion was frequent and in-depth during the Winter Trip, which took place from Sunday through Tuesday, December 6-8, 2009 and included administrators and teachers from 17 of our 19 network schools. The topics discussed included everything from school culture to curriculum models to teacher buy-in. Billed by trip co-facilitator Jeff Nelson as a retreat, it was indeed a time to examine, compare, decide, and make plans to adjust school practices based on the classrooms, teachers, and principals that were seen on the trip.
After arriving in Boston on Sunday, participants visited one school on Monday and one on Tuesday. Schools included two elementary schools, Mason Elementary School and Young Achievers Science and Mathematics Pilot School; a middle school, Clarence R. Edwards; and two high schools, Boston Community Leadership Academy (BCLA) and Fenway High School. USI Network members were able to meet with the respective principals, visit classrooms, talk with teachers, and in some cases, sit in with academic and guidance counseling departments. Charged with the task of identifying how their own schools need to grow and focus their learning, participants spent time in a variety of Boston classrooms watching teacher instruction and student interaction, examining classroom environment, and in some cases having a quick word with students to find out their ground-level perspectives. This account will focus on first-hand knowledge from shadowing two of the schools on the trip; on Monday, Disney II magnet elementary school; on Tuesday, ACE Technical High School.
On Monday, elementary administrators and teachers visited Samuel W. Mason Elementary School. Mason was, in 1990, the “least chosen elementary school” in Boston. With the leadership of Principal Harolyn Bowden, Mason transformed itself via the 1993 Charter One Act and has gone on to win various awards, including the U.S. Department of Education Model Professional Development Award in 1996 and the National Blue Ribbon School of Excellence Award in 1997. Supported by committed teachers, staff, teacher interns, devoted parents, and a strong school community working collaboratively and learning together, Mason has found great success teaching students in a fully inclusive rigorous classroom, working to meet the needs of each individual child. Participants at Mason got a chance to meet as a large group with Principal Bowden, and then to visit a variety of classrooms in small groups. After each class visit, groups took a moment to discuss what they had seen and how it compared with their experiences and practices at their own schools. Following these classroom visits, the principals and administrators met in a small group with Principal Bowden to discuss the difficulties of advancing progressive policy as a new principal, detailing the ways in which she was able to create positive school change without alienating her staff. Bowden stressed that “everyone owns these kids,” by which she meant that administrators, staff, and parents all take active responsibility for the success of the students.
USI Network administrators visit classrooms at Mason Elementary:
Bogdana Chkoumbova, principal of Disney II Magnet School, took part in the visits to Mason Elementary and Young Achievers, and she shared her biggest takeaways as well as Disney II’s plans for the future. She admired the schools’ “new creative staffing models.” Examples included hiring teachers with dual certification as well as allowing teachers to teach only core classes during their school day, and enlisting teacher assistants, parent volunteers, and community partners to teach non-core subjects such as art, music, and dance after 3 P.M. These creative models “capitaliz[e] on the relevant budgetary autonomy of the model.” Thus, Bogdana, as a principal, wanted to exploit the freedom to create unique models for hiring strategies and professional development regarding her teachers. Similarly, several principals and administrators on the trip echoed Bogdana’s desire to explore how their situation as contract or performance schools, affords them some leeway for modification of existing school models and creative new strategies, which could lead to greater efficacy and productivity in their schools.
In addition to staffing models and teacher use, Bogdana noted two takeaways specific to content area. The first concerned mathematics, specifically Young Achievers’ use of guided math groups. “Our team has been having this discussion (concerning the use of guided math groups) for some time, and we finally observed a working model,” said Bogdana. “The big question of ‘remediation or re-teaching’ during math group time will focus our further discussions.” Bogdana and her team from Disney II—as was the experience for various school groups on the trip—were delighted to see a working model of an idea with which they had been toying. This is one of the greatest virtues of the facilitated school visits on the Winter Trip: by witnessing how more veteran schools have enacted programs that they wish to execute in the future, Network schools can suitably adopt or modify those programs to fit their own needs and concerns. There is also the simple thrill of encouragement: this can be done, because others have done it!
The second content-specific takeaway Bogdana identified concerned literacy. Disney II has been researching programs or models to support the phonics skill development of their PreK-2 students, and so they were pleased to see the creative use of the Foundations curriculum (Clabaugh & Rozycki) at Mason, as it could be conducive to the Disney II model and philosophy. Bogdana says the Language Arts Committee at Disney II will continue exploring the Foundations program as an option for the next school year. By seeing how other schools adapt available material and programs to their specific needs, Network school administrators found inspiration for their own processes of adaptation.
“Everybody owns these kids.”
—Principal Harolyn Bowden
On Tuesday, secondary school administrators and teachers visited Boston Community Leadership Academy, the first traditional Boston public school to convert to pilot school status. Headmaster Nicole Bahnam has overseen an impressive change of fortune, with the school receiving a Civic Leadership Award from the Boston Foundation in 2004 as well as being a two-time finalist for the School on the Move Award (2006, 2007). Bahnam, in addressing USI Network members, stressed the importance of hiring teachers who are masters of their subject areas, especially at the ninth-grade level, when students are in the critical first stages of high school learning. In order to insure the attraction and retention of highly competent teachers, Bahnam decided to use her budgetary autonomy to devote 97% of her funds to teacher salaries. She explained the importance of having talented adults in front of students rather than spending more on computers and other classroom materials. BCLA has a full academic college prep curriculum that emphasizes community and leadership as well as habits of mind and academic expectations. These pillars require that students focus on improving their communities as well as developing their minds. BCLA asks its students to investigate, develop, and master community issues and then to display their scholarship through portfolios and senior exhibitions. BCLA uses an inclusion model that includes co-teaching to support students in inclusive classes. The hope is that BCLA students develop the scholarly attitudes, habits, and skills necessary to succeed in college and to lead fulfilled lives as informed citizens.
Representing ACE Technical Charter School, Maria Gonsiorek, Michele Stefl, and Kate Beazley said their biggest takeaways from visiting BCLA (and, on the first day, Fenway High) were that positive school culture, seminar programs, and the use of one’s advisory department are all integral to success. BCLA demonstrates well the interconnection between a positive school culture (of excellence and achievement) and increased teacher buy-in, which enables the implementation of seminar programs and thus, greater rigor for the students. ACE Tech visitors also noted the importance of presentation and speaking skills, and returned to their school with the hopes of encouraging students to present and defend arguments before their fellow students. Some Network members had the pleasure of sitting down for a brief session with BCLA’s advisory department, and were impressed by its well-honed and extensive team of counselors.
USI Network Program Manager Melissa Goodnight and Baba Fred Kheperu from BSICS Sizemore visit a classroom at BCLA:
On both days, following the school visits, administrators and teachers gathered in their small groups to discuss what they had observed and learned and to identify their next steps. This time for joint discussion and reflection was essential, because as Jeff Nelson said, if you don’t commit yourself to taking one or two concrete steps moving forward, you run the risk of not taking any steps at all. Reminded of the importance of decisive team planning, the trip participants came up with strong, explicit plans for what their schools would do next. Numerous schools, including Disney II, Sizemore, and Woodlawn, set the use of data to drive instruction as a primary goal going forward. Improving school culture was on top of the agenda for several schools, including ACE Tech, Perspectives Calumet, and Power House. Other next steps included setting time for teacher collaboration (Catalyst Circle Rock and Catalyst Howland); revamping the structure and efficiency of meetings (NKO); displaying student work exemplars (Urban Prep-Englewood); increasing teacher empowerment through developing Instructional Leadership Teams (Urban Prep-East Garfield). At the end of the second discussion group on Tuesday, each school had one team member stand up and give a presentation detailing the fruits of their discussion: the details of both what they learned and what comes next.
“Unless you work in a lighthouse, you’ll never work alone.”
—Kyle Westbrook, quoting a math teacher from Edwards Middle School
USI Network Director and Co-Founder, Sybil Madison-Boyd confers with Jeff Nelson and Assistant Superintendent for Pilot Schools for Boston Public Schools, Sonja Brookins Santelises:
Representatives from the Network schools present their top takeaways from the trip:
Trip co-facilitator Jeff Nelson consulting with USI Director of Secondary School Supports, Kyle Westbrook:
Hopefully the schools visited on this trip offered a view into the ways in which wise leadership, talented teachers (and teacher buy-in), highly effective curricula, and the use of data to drive instruction can lead to impressive strides forward in achievement. At the same time, the shared learning experiences and discussion forums allowed USI Network participants the chance to learn from one another. Through communication, collaboration, and cross-school learning—using these gracious Boston public schools for inspiration and comparison—each of our schools can move forward towards reaching their goals in providing a rigorous education to all of their students.
—Stephen Dierks