GILROY
– Key to a student’s success is having a good teacher. The
Gilroy Unified School District is so intent on improving student
achievement, it is taking its most experienced educators out of the
classroom.
This may sound contradictory, but it is part of a teacher
training program Superintendent Edwin Diaz is calling as good as
any other in the county.
It had better be.
GILROY – Key to a student’s success is having a good teacher. The Gilroy Unified School District is so intent on improving student achievement, it is taking its most experienced educators out of the classroom.
This may sound contradictory, but it is part of a teacher training program Superintendent Edwin Diaz is calling as good as any other in the county.
It had better be.
The district has pledged by the end of next school year to have 90 percent of its students at or above grade level in all subjects. Only half have reached that mark so far.
Diaz says teacher training is the linchpin for reaching the lofty goal.
“I think, in any good district, a comprehensive staff development program is the focal point. It is critical to continued student improvement,” Diaz said.
Making teachers more effective is not the only way the GUSD plans to improve student performance, specifically on the year-end standardized tests used to measure district success across the state. But within the GUSD’s three-point plan to increase student achievement, teacher training underscores each element, Diaz points out.
Accountability for student improvement, teacher recruitment and retainment and improved teaching and learning comprise the three-point plan.
“Staff development is the method to meeting those goals,” Diaz said.
Schools face additional pressure to up student test scores now that the state has mandated improvement. If schools fail to meet improvement targets two years in a row, the state has authority to implement many changes, from adopting new curriculum to removing staff.
One Gilroy public school, Brownell Middle School, finds itself in that predicament now.
Graduates in 2004 also are starting to feel the pressure. That’s the year each of them must pass the state’s high school exit exam before they can receive a diploma.
In response to the new expectations, the district designed a program last year to address its students’ most glaring need – improvement in reading and writing. This school year, the district is in the first year of a three-year plan to have its most experienced teachers train all other teachers in the most effective techniques and strategies to improve student learning.
In what is called a “teacher of teachers model,” district-level teachers train top teachers at each school. Once trained, the teachers will spread that knowledge at their school. Training is followed by demonstration classes, teacher coaching and continued monitoring of a teacher’s effectiveness.
The district also has adopted a similar, but smaller, program for math.
Research indicates that about 80 percent of teachers regularly implement the techniques they learn when districts do follow-up monitoring and coaching, Diaz said. Without follow-up, only 10 percent of teachers use their newly learned techniques
Some teachers are spending up to three hours a week outside their classroom because of the program. Teachers do these trainings in addition to regular class instruction, lesson planning, grading and involvement with student activities and staff meetings.
“It’s obviously resource intensive, but anything worthwhile doing is going to come at a cost,” said Jacqueline Horejs, GUSD’s assistant superintendent of educational services. “We’ve tried to embed staff development into the regular professional day.”
Still, some are asking if every teacher needs to be involved, especially those whose students perform well above state and national averages.
In a recent column in The Dispatch, Gilroy High School student Megan Stevens questioned the district’s staff development plan where it applies to her Advance Placement government and economics teacher Kanani Pratt, now in her fifth year at GHS.
Surpassing state and national averages, roughly 85 percent of Pratt’s students pass the AP economics exam yearly.
AP courses are the most rigorous of the high school curriculum. When students pass year-end standardized exams, they are eligible to receive course credit at many universities.
“Ms. Pratt does not need to learn how to teach,” wrote Stevens. “The best staff development the district could give Ms. Pratt is more time with her students and less of them. … It seems to me what my teachers really need is more time to do their job.”
Complicating matters for some teachers is that since district literacy scores are so low, high school teachers of all subjects, including math and science, are being told to incorporate more writing assignments into their curriculum.
Pratt understands the logic in Stevens’ point, but defends the district’s practice.
“At GHS we have a huge literacy issue,” Pratt said. “There has to be some kind of training to help solve that.”
Pratt called the district’s attempt to embed staff training into the regular day “seamless” and said GHS has made attending the training as easy as possible for teachers by excusing them from certain staff meetings.
Time for professional development is set aside in teachers’ contracts, but district-level teacher Joan Martens acknowledged the teachers’ union is reviewing the impact of the new program.
First year GHS English teacher Tom Simmons admits the extra training and the approaching deadline of the high school exit exam gets overwhelming at times. But Simmons, who has worked with children the last seven years, says “things are always challenging and always in flux.”
“Knowing the entire school is working together toward a common goal is a really positive thing,” Simmons said.
The ultimate review of the new staff development program will come by way of the school board next fall, when the next crop of standardized test scores are released. Those scores will reveal what affect, if any, the new style of staff training has had on student performance.
Diaz says in fall 2003, the district will make adjustments to staff development and other programs based on the test data.
“We may have to revisit our goals, but we won’t know until we’ve seen the impact from this year,” Diaz said.
For now, Diaz says, the district is focused on meeting its self-imposed goals and using its new staff development program to get it there.
