GILROY
– District officials are calling a 2-year-old quality control
program a success, as observation teams conduct visits this week to
every district classroom.
Classroom
”
walk-throughs
”
are part of a districtwide reform process to provide feedback on
how staff development training is paying off.
By Lori Stuenkel
GILROY – District officials are calling a 2-year-old quality control program a success, as observation teams conduct visits this week to every district classroom.
Classroom “walk-throughs” are part of a districtwide reform process to provide feedback on how staff development training is paying off.
“What we’re hoping is to see an increase in the (teaching) strategies that we focus on,” said Jacki Horejs, assistant superintendent of educational services, who helps conduct the walk-throughs.
Since beginning the program, conducted three times each year, in 2002, district officials have seen the number of teachers using district-endorsed methods increase, Horejs said.
“We’ve just really seen a phenomenal increase in consistency,” she said.
Observation teams, which may include district administrators, school principals, literacy coaches and teachers, spend roughly five minutes in each classroom. Teachers may not observe their own school.
Team members work off a checklist divided into three areas: teaching methods used, whether students are actively learning and classroom environment. For example, observers watch for teachers checking for student understanding at the beginning, middle and end of a lesson. Other checklist items include using visuals, engaging 80 to 100 percent of students in listening and speaking activities and posting the California education standards in the classroom.
“The purpose of the walk-throughs is really to determine the level of implementation of those strategies,” said Tammy Gabel, principal of Antonio Del Buono Elementary School. “(It) defines the minimum standards for instructional delivery for the teachers.”
On Tuesday, teams walked through classrooms at Gilroy High School, Brownell Academy Middle School, Antonio Del Buono, Eliot, Rod Kelley and El Roble elementary schools. Observations continued Wednesday and Thursday at Community Day School; Ascencion Solorsano and South Valley middle schools; and Las Animas, Glen View, Luigi Aprea and Rucker elementary schools.
“I think that what we saw (Tuesday) made us feel good,” GHS Principal Bob Bravo said Wednesday. “I think we see people trying to do more of the things that are on the checklist.”
The teams’ data is combined into charts providing snapshots of the district and each school showing the number of teachers using each strategy. Also, principals meet with their school’s teachers to report on what the team saw.
“We really wanted to look at the aggregate to see how are we doing on the implementation of our improvement initiatives,” Horejs said. “These are the (strategies) that research has shown are most effective.”
Teachers are notified in advance when a walk-through is planned and are aware of the standards being observed. The process sometimes causes teachers to stress about the visit or spend extra hours on lesson preparation, said Michelle Nelson, president of the Gilroy Teachers Association.
“Some teachers are OK with it,” Nelson said. “Some are uncomfortable with the process and don’t understand the purpose still.”
Teachers should not be doing extra work to prepare for the five-minute visit, Nelson said.
Eliot Principal Diane Elia agreed, lamenting that some of the school’s teachers worked until 9 p.m. last Friday and again on Monday.
“Generally, I see these things in place, so that’s why I don’t think we need to be here until 9 o’clock,” Elia said. “A lot of what they do is good enough the way it is, but I don’t think teachers get that kind of praise very often.”
Principals try to spend roughly half of their day in classrooms, Elia said, helping with lessons or observing.
While district walk-throughs indicate which strategies are generally being used at schools throughout Gilroy Unified School District, teachers may get more out of walk-throughs at their own school, in which they observe a peer. The school-specific walk-through is often more effective in getting teachers to actually use the methods, Elia said.
“When I get the biggest bang for my buck is when they see their own (school’s) classrooms, because they see what I’m trying to say and then they go, ‘Oh OK,’ ” she said. “But there are always some that need an extra incentive, and sometimes accountability plays into that – it gives people the extra push to make people try.”
Horejs said it is that accountability aspect of walk-throughs, although they are not specifically an evaluation of teachers, that makes them effective.
“Otherwise, we can be giving staff development, for example, but once the teachers are finished with the training … we have no way of knowing if that training is being implemented,” she said. “This helps us see if what we’re working with the teachers on is taking hold in the classrooms.”
Elia will provide Eliot teachers with feedback as early as Monday, she said. The school showed dramatic improvement in using approved teaching strategies between last May and October, so she is expecting marks to remain high, even if there is less room to improve.
“They’ve come a long way in a hurry, and they’re doing very well,” Elia said.
