Talk Priority Schools

By Greg Johnson, NEA Executive Committee

At the end of February, I visited several schools in Montgomery, Alabama, that all had one thing in common: All of the schools had received School Improvement Grants (SIG), which means they were identified as needing improvement, corrective action, or restructuring, as to enable them to make adequate yearly progress.

What struck me, however, was not one school was like another.

The schools were at various stages of transformation efforts, with varying degrees of success. Some school staff told me with pride about their efforts to collaborate with other stakeholders, while in other places, collaboration was not yet a shared value. Staff members at one school were facing the dreaded final step of school closure.  But, I’m getting ahead of myself….

My first school visit took me to a place where educators and parents were communicating well and parental involvement was up.  Prior to SIG, the Parent Teachers Association was all but dead – but now the PTA was back, and school leaders are seeing a high level of participation from parents.
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Dr. Tyna Davis

One and a half years ago, Alabama Education Association (AEA) formulated a cadre of approximately 30 educators to review the four recommended models for the School Improvement Grants (SIG). After study, the cadre recommended the transformation model.  This came after an intensive process of discussing and focusing on the pros and cons of each model.  The group unanimously agreed that the transformation model was the model that we wanted to use in our state.  Through conferences, AEA’s Alabama School Journal, editorials and news articles, we recommended to the locals the Transformation Model.  This was important because it helped shape the approaches used by our school systems.  Of 14 Alabama awardees, 13 are transformation and one is closure.  The one local that is recommending closure has had this issue on the local board agenda for several years. read more »