Talk Priority Schools

By Paula Monroe, NEA Executive Committee

On March 1^st Christy Levings and I had the privilege of visiting two alternative high schools in North Carolina – the first one was Davidson Extended Day.  In the beginning the staff at Davidson were not quite sure what we were doing there.  The principal, James Fitzgerald, made it possible for us to have time at the beginning of their day to have a full conversation with the staff.  The more we talked and listened, the more relaxed everyone was with our presence.

Paula Monroe (left) and Christy Levings of NEA's Executive Committee.

As at many of the SIG (School Improvement Grant) schools I have visited, the staff was not involved in putting “the plan” together – a transformation model.  That was done by a district level person who has since retired, as has the principal who was at Davidson at the time.  The challenge that staff are dealing with is what the grant said they were going to do and what they actually can do.  While the new principal was given the plan, according to staff, he has done an excellent job of working with them to find solutions and creative ways to address their issues.  It was a rough start to the year but, together, with the leadership and support of the principal, they have tried to figure out how to make it work.  One thing that is exciting for the staff is, after having gone to a virtual instruction format that made them feel more like tech support than teachers, they now are back to providing face to face instruction.  As one of them said, “Now I can actually teach!” read more »

By Paula Monroe, NEA Executive Committee

A very emotional four days in Denver-area schools showed opportunities and challenges ahead for priority schools.

Lake Middle School

The visits started at Lake Middle School, the school saved from closure last year by member and community organizing by the Denver Classroom Teachers Association. This is the school NEA President Dennis Van Roekel visited in September with the superintendent.  I went with DCTA Executive Director, Carolyn Crowder and national and state association staff and met in the school library with approximately 10 staff for various lengths of time.  The site rep, Jim Goffred, was in attendance and provided a constant voice throughout the conversation.

Lake’s parents and teachers came up with a transformation plan and submitted it to the school board, but they were not allowed to do the transformation model.  The district identified it as a restart/turnaround model.  However, the turnaround model wasn’t actually implemented in the defined method.

Today they have divided the current student population into three different schools on one site.  read more »

By Paula Monroe, NEA Executive Committee

In the end, as so many had heard and didn’t want to believe, the Denver Public Schools School Board voted 4 to 3 to “reconfigure Montbello High School and its five feeder schools”. The decision came at approximately 1:30 a.m. on November 18. The Board meeting room was still packed. Students from Montbello who held up posters signed by the MHS students that read – Montbello High School 30 years old too young to die! – were in tears. Teachers and staff left in tears. It was very disheartening and disappointing.

That being said, DCTA did a great job of organizing community support and building a community coalition around saving these schools. read more »

By Paula Monroe

Does it take every one to help students succeed?  Do students need a healthy breakfast in order to learn?  Is it important to provide a safe ride to and from school for our students that live to far to walk?  Is a clean and healthy teaching and learning environment important to all of us who work at a school site?  Is a school nurse who knows the students and community a valuable partner to the teachers and school staff?  What about the librarian or media tech, is their contribution to student learning important?  Does the extra help that paraprofessionals provide improve student learning?

You’re probably thinking, “Absolutely, of course!”  Why do I even need to ask those questions?  Well, one thing that was abundantly clear to me during my visits to Cleveland High School and Hawthorne Elementary School – our Priority Schools – was the invisibility of these dedicated and valuable members of the education family, the education team.  read more »

By Paula Monroe

My first site visits to NEA Priority Schools were today.  What a day!

The morning started at Cleveland High School.

Seattle has three SIG schools and I got to visit two of them today.  I was joined by Seattle Education Association Vice President, Jonathan Knapp, NEA Director, Kathy Axtell and NEA Priority Schools Campaign Staff, Steve Snider.  We met the principal briefly and talked at length to the Academic Dean.  Jonathan gave us some background information on some of the local association issues as we prepared to visit some of the classrooms.  We were able to meet three of the staff who were able to speak to us about the SIG process so far.

Cleveland was in the process of implementing STEM and the consistent message was that the SIG money was supporting the STEM grant implementation.  It was difficult to separate the two.  The other consistent message was public education need stability.  We need to see if our efforts will actually pay off.  We have new initiatives every few years and we never stick with them long enough to actually determine the effectiveness or value. read more »