We Must Be Ready!

In recent years, there has been significant research done in the area of school improvement and turning low-performing schools around, particularly in schools that are high in poverty. Research in the area of school “turnarounds” has yielded the most significant results for high-poverty and low-performing schools because as a group they need the most assistance. The readiness factors are: Readiness to Learn --Since students living in poverty enter school already well behind their peers, and that gap only widens over time, it is imperative that schools operate in ways that address these deficiencies immediately and consistently. • Safety, discipline, and engagement. A calm and orderly environment is a prerequisite for learning. From the very first day, a student enrolls they will be expected to participate in the calm and orderly environment. Without it, little else can follow. Students living in poverty face extreme difficulties, and the school environment often reflects this. High poverty schools that beat the odds go the extra mile to support each child through each day and to create an atmosphere that facilitates critical connections between adults and students that is safe and orderly. And while we focus relentlessly on achievement in core academic areas, our school will employ curricula and instructional approaches that reflect a broad-based set of techniques, content, and experiences to engage and inspire each student to learn. Research shows that such robust curricula, coupled with project-based and other learner-centered instructional techniques, are a critical element of success for HPHP students. • Action against adversity. Schools must counter the deficits students living in poverty bring to school every day by offering nutritious meals, medical exams and services, and behavior-based training that set students and parents up for success. We must ensure that the teaching staff has human services training themselves, so they better understand the life circumstances of their students and have the basic skills to address them effectively in their classrooms. • • Close student–adult relationships. A major success factor of high-performing, high-poverty schools lies within our ability to forge close relationships with students as the single most powerful lever for encouraging success to a population who primarily come from homes of poverty. We must make personal connections that reach out to our students on an individual level. Readiness to teach—Everything is about “learning” which is the “result” of effective “teaching.” For us to be successful, the entire staff has to take responsibility for student achievement through strategies such as personalized instruction based on diagnostic assessment, flexible time on task, and a teaching culture that stresses collaboration and continuous improvement. The “Professional Learning Communities” model that emphasizes constant collaboration and data analysis will be the foundation of our organizational structure. Three crucial elements support a school’s readiness to teach: • Shared responsibility for achievement. The entire community, students, parents, teachers, and often other community members must be intensively and relentlessly focused on raising student achievement. Adults are motivated to change their own behavior to better assist students in reaching success. Expectations are set high, and the entire school community is engaged in facilitating students’ success. • Personalized instruction. High-performing high-poverty schools organize instruction around a short feedback loop of formative assessment, adapted instruction, further formative assessment, and further adapted instruction. The high-performing high-poverty schools employ the data-driven decision-making techniques of typical standards-driven school reforms but do so with more intensity. The assessments are highly targeted (often no more than 4-5 items) and frequently given (sometimes weekly); results are analyzed by teams within a day or two; and instruction is tailored in multiple ways to address gaps. Small group instruction, individual tutoring, and other strategies that explicitly address specific student misconceptions and learning challenges are immediately implemented after group analysis of student learning trends and individual cases. Assessment is seen by teachers and students alike as a critical tool for learning, rather than a disconnected chore or stressful high-stakes activity. • • Professional teaching culture. Teachers in high-poverty schools must work together and function collaboratively, focusing on formative and ongoing assessments of student learning, every week and often every day. Typical practices should include professional learning communities, joint planning time, and group reviews of student work. We will provide the time and support to facilitate these tasks, which are seen by everyone as a crucial part of their work, rather than an additional obligation. We will require team-based, school-wide professional development that is focused directly on improving instruction and achievement. Attendance at professional development is required and not optional. It is an “ongoing” process and not a one-time event. Readiness to act—School leaders will have the ability to make mission-driven decisions about people, time, money, and programs. They must be adept at securing additional resources, leveraging partner relationships, and developing creative responses to constant unrest. The ability to face the unique challenges of a HPHP school must be in the hands of the personnel who work with students daily. These elements support a school’s readiness to act: • Resource authority—High-performing, high-poverty schools’ resource authority shows up across the gamut of school operations: the daily schedule, often the annual school calendar, the way teachers collaborate with each other and participate in school decision-making, the allocation of the school’s budget and the very nature of instruction will be determined by results. In other words, the team has to be able to make adjustments to the functioning of the organization. • Resource ingenuity—To accomplish what needs to be done, Principal and staff find every mechanism and tap every organization or group they can. We will employ a performance-based pay system that will reward teachers for performance, based on the results of the whole student population, parent approval ratings, student attendance, teachers’ attendance and graduation rates. Acquisition of teaching skills is an expectation that does not warrant additional pay and will be built in the overall schedule. Internal personnel evaluation is considered a group responsibility not a “us versus them” approach. Goals should be realistic and will be reevaluated annually. The staff will hold each other responsible for results, as well as evaluations by administration. • Agility in the face of turbulence—We must find ways to overcome the constant turbulence of a high-poverty school—and be flexible enough to solve problems that crop up each day. This agility is essential to tackle the endless stream of circumstances that conspire to disrupt a school’s readiness to teach and readiness to learn. Responding to rapidly changing and difficult situations requires flexibility and persuasion, rather than rigidity and adherence to narrow standards of operational practice. Research shows that a strong culture of accountability in the face of constant unrest helps establish the expectations among adults and students alike that everyone is working together to tackle the tough work of reaching proficiency. Resiliency --In addition, we must foster a sense of resiliency in our students, defined as the capacity to succeed in spite of adversity or life stressors. Considerable research has shown that students can overcome adversity and in some circumstances can use adversity as a springboard to growth and success. Providing resilient students with the educational skills at all levels will give these students an important internal resource – knowledge – that cannot be affected by external circumstances (e.g. poverty) that are beyond one’s control. In order to achieve our mission of educating resilient students, all members of a school community should adhere to the following core guiding principles: we will set and meet high expectations; we will contribute to the global community; we will exercise choice wisely; and we will get to know one another and allow others to know us.