Santa Fe/ State Teacher of the Year: Las Cruces High School's Pamela Cort
By Matlin Smith
Las Cruces Sun-News
October 17, 2012
Las Cruces High School students and staff rolled out the red paper carpet, equipped themselves with handfuls of confetti and fired up the school spirit to congratulate French teacher Pamela Cort for being recognized Wednesday as the state of New Mexico's 2013 Teacher of the Year.
"I'm really shocked, I'm really surprised, and I'm thrilled," Cort said following the surprise announcement at the school, 1775 El Paseo Road.
Las Cruces Public Schools superintendent Stan Rounds, board of education president Dr. Connie Phillips and board secretary Dr. Bonnie Votaw joined LCHS principal Jed Hendee for the announcement.
In April, Cort was awarded LCPS 2013 Teacher of the Year. Following Wednesday's state recognition, she will be automatically in contention for national Teacher of the Year, attending a ceremony in the nation's capital.
"I will try my best when I represent New Mexico in Washington, D.C.," she said. "The reason (why I was chosen is because) I work with the greatest staff in the United States and truly, honestly, the greatest students."
Cort was met with a roar of cheers and applause from students, and performances by the LCHS drum line and pom squad.
"I'm super-duper excited," said Cort's son, Michael, a junior at LCHS who participates on the drum line. "I've had her in French class and she's a really good teacher. She really deserves it. And I think we get to go to Disneyland and meet the president, so that's really cool, too."
"I am very proud of her. She puts a lot of work into her school work. It's well-deserved," said Cort's husband, Bob, who presented his surprised spouse with a bouquet of flowers.
"We are very excited," LCHS assistant principal Lorraine Paz said.
Cort has been a teacher at LCHS for 19 years. Her French program, with more than 400 students, is the largest of any high school in New Mexico.
She sponsors the National French Honor Society, the French Club at LCHS, and every other summer Cort takes LCHS students to France, where they stay with a host family to further develop their language skills.
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ABQ/ APS Seeking Race to the Top Grant with Possible $40 Million Funding
By Hailey Heinz
ABQ Journal Staff Writer
October 19, 2012
Albuquerque Public Schools is throwing its hat in the ring for a federal Race to the Top grant that could bring in up to $40 million in extra funding.
Officials are seeking public comment on the application, which says the money would go to teacher training, expanded preschool, and development of an APS community center, among other initiatives.
The application is focused on personalized student learning. The idea is that teachers would be better trained in how to teach to students of all different ability levels in one classroom.
APS grant manager Michele Tigelaar said the district plans to improve teacher training by offering it more consistently.
- "We'll have ongoing professional development so it's not just one big information dump at the beginning of the year for our teachers in large groups, but that we form all kinds of different educator working groups," Tigelaar said.
Race to the Top is a series of competitive federal education grants. This is the first time districts have been able to apply directly for the money, which was previously available only to states.
If APS receives the grant, it would expand the AVID program from 24 schools to every middle and high school.
- AVID, which stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination, targets students in the "academic middle" who may have potential to attend college but have never considered it. The goal is to create a college-going culture among students and teach them skills like time management and proper note-taking.
The application also calls for renovating the Montgomery complex and turning it into a community space for preschool classes, parent classes and teacher training.
Officials also plan to add 10 new half-day preschool classes.
APS Superintendent Winston Brooks said he wants to ensure that programs started with grant funding aren't cut in four years when the grant runs out.
- "I have a big problem with us entering into grant commitments we can't sustain over time," Brooks said. "... We're probably talking about $4 million a year to sustain this long-term, and we would have to make some budget priority decisions about doing that."
The Albuquerque Teachers Federation helped develop the application, and ATF President Ellen Bernstein said she supports the district's efforts, despite what she views as restrictive requirements by the U.S. Department of Education.
- "It seems to me that if they truly want innovations, they should stop telling us how to innovate," she said.
But she added that APS and the union are working together - a requirement of the grant.
The district's application also must include comment from the state Public Education Department and the mayor of Albuquerque. Brooks said recently he anticipates Mayor Richard J. Berry's support.
Aimee Barabe, speaking for the PED, said state officials hope New Mexico districts will get the grant money. She said the PED's comments will be based on how well applications align with state education reform initiatives, and whether there is evidence that plans in the applications will be effective.
In addition to APS, the districts of Cibola County, Gallup-McKinley County, Las Cruces, Lordsburg and Santa Fe have sent letters stating an intent to apply for federal grant money.
Applications are due by the end of October, and the district should learn whether the application is successful by the end of December.
Go to http://www.aps.edu/finance/grant-management/aps-race-to-the-top-application for an overview of the application and a form for public comments to be submitted online until Oct. 26.
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ABQ/ APS Sends 18 To National Conference of Council of Great City Schools
By Hailey Heinz
ABQ Journal Staff Writer
October 19, 2012
Albuquerque Public Schools sent a delegation of 13 employees and 5 board members to Indianapolis this week for a conference at an estimated cost of $34,463.
Superintendent Winston Brooks said the district sent more people than usual to the national conference for the Council of Great City Schools because APS is drumming up interest in next year's event, which will be in Albuquerque.
He said some APS support staff members who typically would not attend are on the trip this year because they will be responsible for many of the logistics of next year's conference.
- "We have a responsibility to promote the Albuquerque conference," Brooks said in a telephone interview, adding that the district is staffing a booth and the APS participants are wearing pins to promote next year's event.]
- He said attendance at the national conference can vary significantly, and he wants to ensure the Albuquerque conference has a high turnout.
- Brooks said he believes the cost is more than offset by the benefit to the Albuquerque economy next year. Next year's conference is expected to bring in about $1 million in hotel, food and entertainment revenues, he said.
APS sent 13 people to the conference last year, five of them board members.
APS officials and board members are giving numerous presentations this year on topics that include Common Core standards, effectively marketing an urban district, stretching limited funds and urban school construction.
- APS Chief Operations Officer Brad Winter and board member David Peercy presented a research project they are doing about correlations between building maintenance and student achievement. The two are halfway through a two-year study, comparing achievement at schools before and after major renovations, for example
- Peercy said preliminary findings show truancy decreases after students move to new schools or their existing schools become less crowded, which makes the case for keeping up on maintenance and capital programs even in tough economic times. He said they will be using the rebuilt Del Norte High School as a natural experiment in the coming years.
Peercy said he believes the conference and APS' involvement with the Council of the Great City Schools is a good investment.
- "We have more than 60 districts across the country, and we can look at how other districts are doing things, and how does that compare with our district," Peercy said. "We get a lot of good benefit, I think, from collaborating with a lot of people."
He said APS cannot easily make comparisons with other New Mexico districts because it is so much larger. He said the council gives APS the opportunity to make comparisons with districts with which they have more in common.
- In addition to Peercy, board members Analee Maestas, Kathy Korte, Lorenzo Garcia and David Robbins are at the conference. Board president Paula Maes and member Martin Esquivel did not attend this year.
Keynote speakers at the conference include columnist and author Thomas Friedman, actress and activist America Ferrera, and chief executive of the National Urban League, Marc Morial. Superintendent Brooks will introduce Morial.
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ABQ/ Pay Hikes For 3 Associate Superintendents
By Hailey Heinz
ABQ Journal Staff Writer
October 18, 2012
Three top administrators at Albuquerque Public Schools received 6.6 percent raises this summer - boosting their salaries to $125,000 - despite decreased state funding, increased class sizes and teacher salaries that have not budged since 2008.
APS Superintendent Winston Brooks said the three associate superintendents have absorbed numerous extra responsibilities in the past several years, including the workloads of administrators who left the district. Brooks said that has saved taxpayers money, even with the salary increases.
- "We just keep losing people and somebody's got to do the work, and it keeps coming back on the shoulders of the associates," Brooks said.
The three associate superintendents are Eddie Soto, Diane Kerschen and Raquel Reedy. Soto is in charge of middle and high schools, while Kerschen and Reedy share oversight of the district's 90-plus elementary schools.
Previously, each earned an annual salary of $117,300. As of July 1, they received $7,700 raises.
Brooks did not need the school board's approval for the raises.
Ellen Bernstein, president of the Albuquerque Teachers Federation, said the decision is sure to cause discontent among teachers in the district, who have not received raises in the past four budget cycles due to limited state funding.
- "Although it makes perfect sense that when someone has more duties added to their job that they make more money, there will be incredible resentment among the thousands of people I represent, because their jobs continue to grow, their responsibilities increase, the amount of work they do has gotten to the point of being overwhelming, and nobody's offering them a raise," she said.
- Bernstein said added responsibilities for teachers are numerous, including the transition to Common Core standards, increased testing mandates and intervention meetings with individual students.
Brooks said he has empathy for teachers, but they can increase their pay by moving through the state's three-tier licensure system. The system requires teachers to provide student work samples and other evidence of improved teaching. They can also move up by getting advanced degrees.
Brooks said administrators, on the other hand, don't have such options.
Bernstein called the comparison "apples and oranges," saying the option for teachers to earn additional degrees and improve their certification is different from simply getting a raise for doing more work.
Brooks pointed to two staff departures that the three current associates have had to compensate for.
- Ruby Ethridge, then associate superintendent for middle schools, left the district in late 2010 because of a dispute with Brooks. When she left, Soto absorbed her responsibilities. Brooks said Ethridge had been earning $117,300, which was money saved when he decided not to replace her.
- Earlier this year, Diego Gallegos, assistant superintendent for community engagement, retired from his $117,300 position, and Brooks said the three associates took on some of his duties.
- Gallegos was replaced by Kris Meurer, who is doing the bulk of his work on community engagement, but is an executive director earning $104,000, rather than an assistant superintendent salary.
Given the savings from Ethridge and Gallegos' salaries, Brooks said the public is paying less for his administrative team, despite the raises.
The net savings of the personnel and salary changes is $107,500.
Board member Kathy Korte echoed some of Bernstein's concerns about teacher morale and said the move contradicts the message she has been bringing to her constituents.
"When I'm out at schools and communities, there's a perception, 'Oh, APS is top heavy.' And I tell people 'No, no, no, we cut 13 percent from the top, and we minimized cuts at the school level,' " she said, referring to APS' strategy of requiring larger budget cuts from central administrative departments than from schools.
She said the associates superintendents work hard, but principals and teachers also have increased workloads.
"Everyone's working hard, everyone feels the pinch in lack of salary increases and just the whole pinch of this economy," Korte said. "It's hurting everyone right now. It's not a knock on the associates; they very well could deserve these raises, but so does everyone."
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Grants/ Mt. Taylor Elementary School Commemorates Space History
By Bob Tenequer
Cibola Beacon Staff Writer
October 19, 2012
On Oct. 11, one hundred rockets were launched into the sky from one hundred schools across New Mexico to commemorate the state's role in the nation's space program.
Mount Taylor Elementary School sixth-grade classes including Jennifer Griego's, Gwen Heinsohn's and Stevy Elkins' classes participated in the Centennial Rocket Project launch.
According to Griego, the first attempt to launch the rocket was scrubbed because of technical problems.
- "The first attempt was a dud, so we had to put in a new igniter, and the second attempt was flawless," recalled the teacher. "We had a 100 percent recovery."
- The rocket landed outside of the school grounds in a field.
The launched rocket is on displayed in the front office at the school.
The school received a large model rocket complete with instructions for assembly and launch. Also accompanying the rocket was a lesson plan/curriculum that was focused on New Mexico's rich history in rocketry and science, a commemorative classroom poster, and a copy of the classic inspirational film "October Sky."
The event was a New Mexico Centennial project commemorating New Mexico's Centennial celebration and another very special anniversary: the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 17 Mission.
Circling high above the Earth, an International Space Station crew member, NASA Commander Suntia Williams, was to welcome teachers and students to commence in the count down - "10-9-8...3-2-1 Blast Off."
However, according to Griego, they were unable to get the radio signal, so the student body did the count down.
Secretary of the Department of Cultural Affairs, Veronica Gonzales said, "We are happy that our department could initiate this event in partnership with several sponsors to promote learning in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM)."
Cibola Beacon Editor's Note: The Centennial Rocket Project is a collaborative initiative made possible by the support of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs, New Mexico Centennial Foundation, PNM Resources, NASA, and Los Alamos National Laboratory operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC.
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Taos/ PED Documents Detail Issues Involving Questa School Board
Matthew van Buren
Taos News
October 18, 2012
A telescope directed into a neighbor's residence; a superintendent afraid his office was bugged; a personal feud that led to allegations of vote-fixing in a student council election; and a board member accused of hitting his own son because he "had not drawn blood" in a fight with another student - such is the nature of the allegations that led the state Public Education Department (PED) to suspend the authority of the Questa Independent School Board last month.
Allegations from micromanaging construction projects and harassing employees to violating of the Open Meetings Act and even engaging in physical violence led to the suspension.
The suspended board has until Thursday (Oct. 18) to respond to the PED and make its case for reinstatement.
On Monday (Oct. 15), the PED released a number of documents to The Taos News, including grievances and sworn statements, related to the board's suspension.
The majority of complaints from staff members and former board members focus on board member Matt Ortega, who is accused of harassment, micromanagement and retaliation. A letter dated Oct. 15, 2011, from then-superintendent Albert Mart�nez prohibits Ortega from contacting school personnel or being present on school campuses, "including student activities such as football games." In the letter, Mart�nez cites "abusive and harassing behavior" from Ortega and threatens to file criminal charges against him if he violates the order.
"You accused a teacher of fixing the student senate elections," the letter states. "You accused an employee of reporting you to CYFD (Children, Youth and Families Department). You called a school principal during non-working hours on her personal telephone and accused her of reporting you to CYFD. You further used your position on the board as a threat toward the principal ... Such bullying, intimidating behavior cannot be tolerated."
The accusations related to a report to CYFD appear to center on an Oct. 2011 incident in which Ortega is alleged to have struck his son on school property - an act reported by high school principal Valerie Trujillo, according to information from the PED. The incident is mentioned in multiple statements to the PED; one claims it occurred "because his son had not drawn blood when he fought."
According to another, more detailed witness statement signed on the date of the incident, Ortega was "cursing and screaming."
"You don't hit like a little [expletive], you hit like a man," Ortega is alleged to have said before "he turned around and hit his son in the chest."
Ortega did not respond to a message seeking comment prior to publication.
'Box' of evidence
Former Questa superintendent Mart�nez now serves as the principal of Pojoaque Valley High School. In an interview with the PED, he recounted several incidents involving alleged wrongdoing by board members, including one in which Matt Ortega "tried to get a lady to sue the school district for slipping on ice in the parking lot."
Mart�nez provided the PED with an example of email correspondence between himself and board member Tammy Jaramillo.
"The tone of the email is dismissive, accusatory and hostile and states that Mr. Mart�nez is 'unseasoned as a superintendent and you still have a lot to learn,'" the PED's transcript of the interview states.
In her email, dated Dec. 19, 2011, Jaramillo declines to meet with Mart�nez as he had requested.
"I will have to decline at this time due to your previous unwelcomed comments when I meet with you in your office and your current accusations of feeling harassed, micromanaged and some hostility toward you," Jaramillo wrote. "I will not place myself in that situation. We can discuss this in a board meeting where the board should conduct its business."
Mart�nez reportedly told the PED he feels Jaramillo is worse than Ortega, but that "both are very dangerous."
"Mr. Mart�nez said that he had a 'box' of evidence of harassment but did not feel comfortable sharing it with PED," the PED's transcript states. "He said that he was holding onto it in case he needed to file a lawsuit against the school district."
Jaramillo has said she has always been committed to serving the district to the best of her ability. She said she intends to lay out her position in more detail in a My Turn piece for The Taos News in the coming weeks.
Former superintendent Roy Herrera, who served this summer for a matter of weeks, was interviewed during the PED's investigation, as well. He praised the district's staff but said that after he took the helm "he found out the priority of the school district was not academics." He also told the PED that board members Jaramillo and Daryl Ortega "wanted him to fire the business manager and bad-mouthed her" and that "he thinks Matt Ortega hates Valerie Trujillo for reporting him to family services."
Herrera also told the PED about an instance when he visited Matt Ortega's home, "which sits on a hillside."
"(Herrera) said that there was a telescope set up and that he looked through the telescope and was stunned because it was directed into the [redacted] residence, and he could observe them inside the residence," the transcript states.
'Singling out' employees
According to her affidavit, business manager Susie Mart�nez told the PED of serving under five superintendents in 18 months and said board members Matt Ortega, Daryl Ortega and Tammy Jaramillo were "continuously" at the office, school sites and construction projects and were "constantly calling Mr. Herrera." She said she even called 911 once, when Matt Ortega became "outrageously angry" at a board meeting and "I feared for my life." Mart�nez told the PED she was a target of Matt Ortega and Tammy Jaramillo, and that they insinuated she was "embezzling school funds."
"Their goal is to get me fired, and that is what they want to see happen," the affidavit states. "They have also mentioned various other school employees they want fired."
Herrera and Mart�nez both told the PED that Mart�nez was "under investigation" at the request of Daryl Ortega, apparently counter to state law, which gives no such authority to individual board members. Ortega is said to have accused Mart�nez of harassing his sister, another district employee. Herrera told the PED that Ortega was upset when no wrongdoing was found. According to Martinez' sworn statement, Herrera came to be worried his office was bugged. One day, Mart�nez said, Herrera "said he had something to show me outside of the building."
"He started out by asking me if I had any idea as to how some board members knew everything going on at this office," the affidavit states. "He particularly mentioned the presence of (board member) Bernie Torres - it seemed as though these board members knew exactly when Bernie arrived at this office. He did not want to ask me this question inside the office because he felt that the office phones might be tapped or possibly even cameras in place. This to me is very disturbing to the degree where he did not even feel safe in his own office."
The PED interviewed former board members, including Urban "Bob" Jaramillo, who alleged instances of Matt Ortega and Tammy Jaramillo violating the Open Meetings Act by bringing up items that were not listed on agendas.
Robert Medina, who served on the board for eight years, said Matt Ortega "would go on and on about certain employees of the district" and would "confront employees."
"There were times we couldn't help but think he was stalking some of these employees," Medina's statement reads. "He singled out one particular employee. He constantly harassed this employee to a point in which the employee had to file a grievance against him ... In my opinion, he has no business being a board member or affiliated with the Questa Independent School District in any way."
'Personal vendetta'
An ongoing personal dispute between Matt Ortega and physical education teacher Paul Passino takes shape in the PED records, and former superintendent Mart�nez told the PED that Ortega "had a particular problem" with Passino. In a letter to Ortega dated Nov. 7, 2011, Mart�nez states that he is concerned Ortega even instructed his child to "intentionally misbehave in Mr. Passino's class."
A series of documents prepared by Passino document such instances, as well as confrontations between Ortega and himself. Among the examples given is a grievance filed by Ortega against Passino and his wife, Lori Passino, a second-grade teacher with the district. According to an April 2012 email from Passino to Mart�nez, the complaint was filed against him "for staring down and intimidating the Ortega children."
According to statements Passino provided to the PED, he and his wife were both placed on administrative leave, with a police officer delivering the letters of suspension.
"For two weeks, I felt wrongly accused, because I knew I had done nothing wrong," Lori Passino wrote in a statement provided by the PED. "I believe that due to the 'personal' vendetta against my family, I was wrongly accused. Mr. Ortega started using his 'power' to intimidate my supervisors by trying to tell them that I should be placed on a growth plan."
Upon reading the grievance, she wrote, she discovered Ortega was accusing her of campaigning against his child in a student council election. The election is mentioned in a number of other statements, with affiants alleging that Ortega accused the Passinos of fixing the student election when their children were running against each other. Mart�nez also mentions the incident in his letter banning Ortega from school property.
Relatives of the Passinos who work for the district also reported instances when they felt retaliated against by Matt Ortega because of the "vendetta." Other staff members told the PED Ortega was "after" Paul Passino and had even said as much to them.
A special interest in Paul Passino can be inferred by reading several of Ortega's emails, which are also part of the PED's record. Ortega accuses Passino of running his truck over curbs on school property and requests information about children being injured in Passino's gym class.
In a May 2012 email to Mart�nez, Ortega accuses Passino of "conducting personal business" while making phone calls and states that Passino "should be more responsible" when supervising field trips. Ortega wrote that the district won't improve if "we go after the kids and protect our staff."
"Our staff will go to the end of the world to lie and protect each other," Ortega wrote.
In a Nov. 2011 email to Mart�nez, Passino said he felt targeted by Ortega, who was also asking questions about Passino's prep and travel time, making accusations against him and contacting his supervisor, even though Ortega has such no authority as an individual board member.
"Matt has recorded me picking up my kids from Sunday religious education school, taken pictures of me while performing duty during my work day and reported me to Mr. Mart�nez for looking at him while driving home," Passino wrote in a May 2012 complaint to the State Police.
Grievances
The series of incidents led Paul Passino to file a formal grievance against Matt Ortega.
Several employees' statements to the PED refer to grievances they filed against Ortega and others. The grievances were withheld from The Taos News by the Questa district when requested under the Inspection of Public Records Act. "There are very few records (responsive to your request), as there have been no grievances filed against board members, and there is very little correspondence re: school board behavior," an Oct. 4 email to The Taos News from interim superintendent Lester Beason states.
In Passino's initial grievance, filed about a year ago, he accuses Ortega of violating board policy and requests "that all false accusations toward me and my family come to a stop, and that any concerns be addressed with my supervisor" rather than being brought up in public meetings.
Paul Passino filed another grievance at the end of 2011, alleging retaliation. He names Mart�nez and Ortega and asks that Ortega "have no contact or discussion with or about me during school hours or in public board meetings," and that discussions about his performance take place privately with his supervisor.
Deadline
In the PED's letter notifying the Questa board of its suspension, Education Secretary-Designate Hanna Skandera wrote the board's "failures are sufficiently severe and numerous" as to justify the action.
Nearly a month before the Sept. 18 suspension, PED budget analyst Melissa S�nchez wrote an email to deputy secretary Paul Aguilar, who is currently serving in place of the Questa school board, describing the issues. "The board is insisting on running the show on hiring and firing," she wrote. "They ask for things that are not within their authority."
S�nchez wrote that the board "has even accused the business manager with embezzlement and is also trying to get the superintendent to get rid of this individual," even though the business manager "submits financial data timely and accurately."
The board must respond to the PED's suspension by Thursday (Oct. 18). Attorney John Kennedy, with the Cuddy and McCarthy firm, said he met with the board members for nearly five hours Oct. 9 to discuss the response. He declined to go into specifics, however, citing attorney-client privilege.
A public hearing regarding the suspension is scheduled to take place in Taos, Nov. 5. Kennedy said discussions between the board members and PED in the interim will determine whether the hearing will be necessary.
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Baltimore MD/ 'Restorative Practices' Offer Alternatives to Suspension
By Nirvi Shah
Education Week, Vol. 32, Issue 8 [Edweek.org]
October 17, 2012
When the student-government president here at City Springs Elementary/Middle School turned into the class clown last school year and began treating teachers disrespectfully, administrators had many options for how to deal with him, including sending him home for a few days to cool his heels.
But the "restorative practices" approach the school uses took educators in a different direction. They called the boy's mother to work out a punishment that would be more fitting. Her idea: Strip him of his title. The school agreed and also required the student to tell the whole school at an assembly that he didn't deserve to be president.
It was the same sort of scenario, on a smaller scale, that any politician found in the wrong might have to face.
"If we suspended him for two or three days, what would it teach him?" Assistant Principal Debita Basu said.
At City Springs and many other schools across the country, restorative practices are about holding students accountable and getting them to right a wrong.
- The approach is getting more notice than ever as criticism grows of zero-tolerance disciplinary policies that often require out-of-school suspension and expulsion.
- Educators are turning to restorative practices, peer courts in middle and high schools, and related efforts in the hopes of changing students' bad behaviors rather than simply kicking them out of school as punishment and risking disconnecting them from school altogether.
"It's about building relationships and having [students] do what you want them to do because they want to do it-not because they're afraid of what the consequences are," said Rhonda Richetta, the principal of City Springs, which has 624 students. "We really want kids to change."
Criminal-Justice Roots
Restorative practices in schools originate from a criminal-justice technique in which convicts are held accountable in part by facing the people they have harmed. The strategies have been around for years, said Sally Wolf, the executive director of Illinois Balanced and Restorative Justice, in Paxton, and are used around the country and internationally. But the concept still has skeptics, a sentiment she used to share.
"I thought it was too touchy-feely," said Ms. Wolf, whose nonprofit organization trains school staff in restorative techniques. But children "do want to work out things. They do want to be safe."
One noticeable characteristic of many schools using a restorative approach is in the way teachers and other staff members speak with students: They address students in ways that are meant to elicit empathy.
Instead of snapping at a student to stop talking or demanding to know why he or she is interrupting a lesson, a teacher might say, "I spent a lot of time planning my lesson today and I can't get through it," Ms. Richetta said, thus helping students understand how their behavior affects others.
For City Springs teacher Kellie McGuire, the restorative practice approach once seemed as disruptive as her students' misbehaviors. She found herself stopping class frequently to deal with mouthy, misbehaving children. Her attitude, inherited from her previous years of experience at another school was: "Suspend this kid. Get him out of my room."
But she and other teachers learned to build relationships with their students. They gather students, as often as once or twice a day, in a circle. The teacher begins by asking and answering a question. Then students take turns answering the same question. A teacher might ask students whether they've ever broken a bone or what they want to see in their next class president. The goal is for all to share their feelings, express what's on their mind, and learn about each other.
Circles can be impromptu, to defuse a situation quickly, get students talking about what they were thinking when they behaved a certain way, and ask them how they'll make the situation right.
"I have this one kid, he used to get mad and say 'I hate you,' " Ms. McGuire said. She told the student, a 3rd grader, how his words stung. Now, when he gets angry, he briefly puts his head down on his desk and doesn't say what he's thinking-even double-checking with her to make sure his offensive thoughts haven't escaped his lips. "He knows it hurts my feelings," she said.
When a situation warrants it, the circle approach can be used more formally. In these conferences, everyone talks through an incident-say, a fight between two students-with parents and advocates for both students on hand.
Efforts in Chicago
At Christian Fenger Academy High School in south Chicago, for example, when a student was chased down and threatened with physical harm for kissing the wrestling-team captain's girlfriend, a conference yielded an agreement between the students' parents to contact one another if the hostility escalated. And the wrestling captain and the competitor for his girlfriend's heart, a student with disabilities who was a loner, ended up eating lunch together every day after that, said Robert Spicer, the dean overseeing restorative-justice efforts at the public school.
The alternative, Mr. Spicer said, was that the students "would have all been suspended and their wrestling season shut down."
Developing a school culture that defaults to healing takes work and buy-in from the whole school, Mr. Spicer and other restorative-practices proponents acknowledge.
"The biggest trouble that we have is people say, 'It sounds good but it's pie in the sky. People just aren't going to do it. It takes too much time,' " Ms. Wolf said. But advocates say additional instructional time emerges because teachers are less likely to be interrupted by students, and students spend more time in school and less in the principal's office.
- "Over time, the students seen in the office stop coming. My hope is that the issues will not be something that we have to deal with ever again," said Ms. Richetta, the principal at City Springs, a charter school that serves students in its surrounding neighborhood.
Her school has used the restorative-practices approach for about five years.
The school, where most students come from low-income families and most are African-American, has cut its suspension numbers by about three-quarters in the last few years, Ms. Richetta said, but reshaping students' behavior is still a work in progress. Her school still suspends students on occasion, she pointed out, although their behavior is still discussed and its origins understood.
- A calmer school environment takes time, and results may not be immediately apparent, said Mary Jo Hebling, who trains people in restorative practices at the International Institute for Restorative Practices in Bethlehem, Pa., where City Springs' staff members and hundreds of other educators were trained in recent years.
While the approach could be a tough sell with students, too, Mr. Spicer of Fenger High said their reactions can be surprising.
"They're open to even the crazy stuff-as long as you are talking to them about why this is important, where this comes from," he said.
- For teachers, the approach requires training. Groups like the Illinois organization Ms. Wolf runs offer training relatively inexpensively. And the private restorative-practices institute is a graduate school devoted exclusively to teaching about the approach.
Fenger, where the majority of students are black and come from low-income families, shifted to restorative practices three years ago, when it was designated a turnaround school by the district. Staff members had to reapply for their positions, and Mr. Spicer, a new principal, and other new administrators were brought in.
Within a few weeks of the start of school, 16-year-old honors student Derrion Albert was beaten with railroad ties about two blocks away. He later died.
"His death brought attention to youth violence," Mr. Spicer said, affirming his own convictions about restorative practices. "Someone had to be the point person for peace."
Since then, Fenger has experienced a sharp decline in misconduct-a drop of about 70 percent. Student enrollment fell significantly after the turnaround efforts began, too, but is now back on the rise, and violent and drug-related misconduct has decreased sharply.
'Trial' by 'Jury'
Another strategy employed at Fenger and other schools looking for alternative ways to handle student misconduct is the peer jury.
One such school is the 900-student Davidson Middle School in San Rafael, Calif., where student suspensions have dropped from more than 300 in the 2009-10 school year to 27 last school year.
- At Davidson, students now have a choice when they commit misdeeds other than those for which state or federal laws require suspension:
- They can either be disciplined by their classmates or face suspension. In peer court, students face a panel of five or six classmates who have been trained to listen-and interrogate.
When Superintendent Michael Watenpaugh came to San Rafael five years ago, he found a district that hadn't adapted well to a shift in demographics. This bedroom city to San Francisco had gone from mostly white, middle-class families to about 60 percent Latino enrollment, including many poor children. Student achievement was "tanking," he said.
- "What we needed was kids in school. Suspending kids for five days was truly going against what our goal was and wasn't proving effective in changing kids' behavior," Mr. Watenpaugh said.
When his son, Jacob, was found with a small knife in his backpack, the teenager chose peer court.
Classmates peppered the 7th grader with questions about why he thought bringing a knife to school was OK and whether he considered that it would be dangerous if someone else found it. They delved into his academic record, too, noting his lagging grades in science and mathematics. They questioned his choices of company and wondered if he was making bad decisions. His "sentence" was to write a paper on bringing knives to school and decision-making, 20 hours of community service, and five tutoring sessions each in science and math. Jacob had 21 days to finish the tasks or be suspended.
Since then, Mr. Watenpaugh said, Jacob has "never thought of taking anything in his backpack that shouldn't be there."
- "Our whole focus will be on what does the student need to get back on track instead of what do we need to do to punish them," said Judy Wolfe, who supervises the student-court program in the 20,000-student Syracuse, N.Y., school district, where several schools use the approach. As in San Rafael, student court typically convenes during lunch, and the records of students who carry out their sentences are wiped clean.
Student court can actually resolve problems and provides consequences that have meaning, and students rarely reappear in her courtroom, Ms. Wolfe said.
"It takes more time," than suspending students, she said of peer court, "but if you want to look down the line, which is more productive?"
Education Week Special Series: Rethinking Discipline
Zero-tolerance policies, which require out-of-school suspension or expulsion for certain inappropriate behaviors, have become the go-to disciplinary approach in many schools.
But research suggests some downsides: Such punishments may not change students' behavior and are often meted out unfairly. This article is the first in a four-part series exploring alternative approaches.
This week: The aim of "restorative practices" disciplinary techniques is to get students to right a wrong. The hope is that they'll also learn how their actions affect others.
- Next week: The Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, or PBIS, approach may be a lot of work, schools say, but it aims to change students' behavior for the long haul.
- Week of Oct. 29: Without solid classroom-management skills, teachers may struggle to keep students engaged, on task, and out of trouble.
- Week of Nov. 5: Suspending students, but keeping them in school, can prevent disengagement and dropouts.
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Washington DC/ IES to Start 'Continuous Improvement' Study Program
By Sarah D. Sparks
Education Week, Vol. 32, Issue 8 [Edweek.org]
October 17, 2012
It can be tough to translate evidence into action in education research.
A principal or superintendent might sift through academic journals or vendors' pamphlets for an effective reading program, but even a seal of approval from the federal What Works Clearinghouse is no guarantee that what helped students in one district will be successful with another.
To better inform that knowledge base, the Institute of Education Sciences is crafting a new research program, called "continuous improvement research in education," to go beyond "what works" and add more context to education findings.
- "Knowing what works plays a very important role in school improvement, but alone it's not enough," said John Q. Easton, the director of the IES, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Education.
- "There are questions about building the capacity to implement what works, building the capacity to measure, check, and adapt to changes."
The initiative, expected to be launched in 2014, would award four-year grants of up to $1.5 million each, though there's no word yet on how many would be awarded. The IES wants researchers to focus on supportive school climates, high school transitions, or access to postsecondary education.
The initiative would build in part on a slew of new research models, including:
- "design-based implementation research"-being developed at Vanderbilt University's National Center on Scaling Up Effective Schools, in Nashville, Tenn., and SRI International's Center for Technology in Learning, in Menlo Park, Calif.-and
- "rapid prototyping" models tested at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, in Stanford, Calif., and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, in Cambridge, Mass.
In both models, researchers and districts work together over years to identify and test solutions for specific problems.
'Iterative' Research
"[In] a typical research project, here's my research question; I'm going to answer my research question. This is much more iterative, developed collaboratively, and you're not sure how it's going to go or what the time frame is," said Bridget T. Long, a Harvard University education economist and the president of the National Board for Education Sciences, which advises the IES and discussed the proposed initiative at a meeting here in Washington on Oct. 5.
Mr. Easton said the initiative would focus on cycles of improvement, in which researchers develop, test, and tweak interventions in the classroom or school context. ("Researchers Seek Faster Answers to Innovation Questions," Jan. 12, 2011.)
- For example, NBES member Hirokazu Yoshikawa, the academic dean at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, said he used rapid prototyping, which includes 90-day, intervention-testing cycles, to adapt a teacher professional-development program in Chile.
The method was, Mr. Yoshikawa said, "spectacularly successful in achieving buy-in and local ownership, but also, from a scientific standpoint, getting to a part of the science that I don't think we'd ever gotten to, which is how do you track the day-to-day or week-to-week improvement process?"
"It creates local tests of change," he said, "and it's the practitioners who develop those methods themselves."
The projects would also focus on systemwide interventions, "examining how components of systems work together to generate desired outcomes," according to the draft request for proposals.
Prior federal research has pointed to local context as a sticking point for scaling up successful educational interventions. Recent federal longitudinal studies of school improvement found district policies and supports can mean the difference between schools that turn around and those that struggle.
Careful Collaboration
Anthony S. Bryk, an NBES member and the president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, likened continuous-improvement research to the Toyota auto company's famed "total quality management" system, in which any worker can stop the factory line if he spots a problem.
- "What is the problem we're trying to solve, what and why is the change we're putting in place, and how will we know if that change is an improvement?" Mr. Bryk said, describing the approach continuous-improvement research takes.
"That's a very different way of thinking about the work," he said. "It's seeing improvement as a learning journey, rather than the way most districts see it as, 'Well, we have this new idea, I have to roll it out fast, implement it at scale, and most of my attention is on crisis intervention.' "
Barbara Means, the director of SRI International, cautioned that the federal research agency will have to structure the grants to force educators and researchers to be equal collaborators, in which "neither can totally steer the ship, but both must be accountable."
- The IES has already been building up the supply of research partnerships that might be capable of taking up the work.
- The new network of federally financed regional educational laboratories has developed some 70 research alliances involving states, districts, and researchers.
"What's become really clear is this is really hard work," said Ruth C. Neild, the commissioner of the National Center on Education Evaluation, part of the IES. "Engaging over a sustained time is harder for researchers, harder for districts and states, but we think the rewards will be greater."
If successful, said NBES member Robert Granger, the president of the New York City-based William T. Grant Foundation, the initiative could produce a new gold-standard model for education research, akin to the IES' original focus on randomized controlled trials, but "where the gold standard isn't to run a trial; the gold standard is seeing consistent results across a number of conditions."
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Washington DC/ COLUMN: A New Approach to Difficult Middle School Years
By Valerie Strauss
Washington Post
October 19, 2012
I once attended a back-to-school night where the school principal asked a big group of parents if anybody, given the chance, would return to middle school and take the chance to redo their lives. Not a single hand went up - and it's not just because of bad memories of those difficult years. Parents know that even today nobody has figured out exactly how to educate middle schoolers, who are changing developmentally in unique ways. I wrote a post about this issue last year, and here is a piece on a new approach to educating these students.
By Patrick Tolan [Director of Youth-Nex at the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia]
There is a troubling bias that most adults hold about adolescents, particularly in how we overlook the importance of the transition from elementary to middle school. It is a bias that goes beyond insensitivity and creates serious consequences - impeding education, stymieing potential, and decreasing productivity and civic engagement with the world around them. It also misdirects policy and allocation of limited resources.
- This bias is our insistence upon seeing adolescence only as a time of great problems, of alienating and alienated personalities, and viewing younger adolescents in particular as trouble waiting to explode but for our careful watch and strong control.
We overlook their capability and vigor for self-management and incorrectly view them as in emotional overdrive, unable to apply judgment, consider others, or see the future impact of what they do.
- This bias is wrong.
- 40 plus years of scientific evidence has shown that most adolescents are very engaged in trying to be successful at school, home, and in their communities.
- Most are working to make the most of opportunities, to be responsible, and to begin exploring what it will mean to be an adult.
Research does show that the move to middle school, which occurs as children enter adolescence, is a treacherous time.
- On average there is a substantial drop in school engagement and achievement.
- Family relationships become more strained and kids report increased stress levels.
- The adolescent spikes in substance use, delinquency, and other problems first appear.
However, much of what we have learned shows that it is not adolescence per se that imposes these problems, but the disconnect between what we know about development and how we teach and treat youth at this age.
There is a challenge to face but it may be for the adults as much as it is for youth - a challenge to stop clinging to the bias that adolescents are problems waiting to happen and instead to engage youth for positive development.
What if we were to believe the accumulated research from the past 40 years and began to view this transition to middle school, with its attendant challenges, as not just a time of new fears for our children or the start of an awful time to just get through?
What if we recognize it as a point of great opportunity for securing the important connections to family and school?
- What if we see our youth, as the research suggests, as capable, engaged, caring members of society and approach middle school as an opportunity to set the stage for a lifetime orientation of dedication to learning and growth?
- Most importantly, can we finally recognize that entering our middle schools produces strain on our youth that taxes their motivation, connection, and relationships with adults?
- And having done so, can we instead focus on efforts that will promote these positive factors instead of accepting or bemoaning the status quo?
We need to address the wholesale drop in performance and decrease in connection to adults and turn this time into one that builds on and secures the investment of our elementary school education.
This is the perfect time to shape adolescent idealism and their growing interest in the wider world into commitment to work, engaged citizenship, and care for others.
- How do we change our views and more importantly change our actions?
- How do we make use of the valuable research and innovative work already underway?
- How do we channel that capability and become friendly helpers of adolescents shaping their own development?
Can we start to reconsider that this time - the move from elementary to middle school - needs the same sustained attention that we give to high school completion and early reading achievement?
This is the focus of a two-day conference ending Friday by the Youth-Nex Center, a University of Virginia Curry School of Education center focused on research, practices, and policies about positive youth development, or how youth grow into effective and productive adults.
Major organizations serving youth, educational training leaders, front-line practitioners, youth advocates, and scholars in the biology, psychology, and sociology of early adolescence are meeting to share ideas and forge meaningful actions that all work from this perspective of youth as capable citizens and middle schools and centers for positive youth development.
The positive youth development approach is a radical shift in perspective, with profound implications not only for middle school students but also for youth and families beyond these years.
It holds that we should put our energies, planning, programming and spending toward youth capability support, meaningful engagement in their own learning and in their community. It affirms that we focus on helping youth be productive and succeed even in the face of many challenges.
Youth are the great potential for our society, one that our biases are blinding us to.
